World War II needed pilots.

In 1941, there were 30,000 military pilots, said Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu. A year later, there were 100,000 — and still, there was a shortage.

During the war years, Haydu was one of 1,074 women who stepped into the cockpit as part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program.

Mildred Marshall and Justine Woods, who both live on O'ahu, were two others.

The WASP fliers piloted every aircraft the U.S. had, from fighters to bombers. They delivered aircraft and people, towed targets and instructed male pilots.

Marshall, now 89, remembers flying an AT-6 Texan in Las Vegas and trailing a long swath of fabric for other pilots to shoot at for target practice.

"I kept tell the man who was letting it out, 'Let it out more!' " Marshall said with a laugh. "I didn't want (those planes) to come any closer."

Haydu, who in the mid-1970s helped launch an effort to have the WASPs recognized as veterans, and whose uniform is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., will talk about the program tomorrow at the Pacific Aviation Museum-Pearl Harbor on Ford Island.

Haydu, 87, will give her firsthand account at 2 p.m. and sign copies of her book, "Letters Home: 1944-1945: Women Airforce Service Pilots."

"I grabbed every minute of flying time I could," Haydu said. "Any assignment they gave me, I grabbed it."

The women pilots were a novelty at the time, and had to overcome prejudice. Even though they could fly fighters and bombers, they still weren't allowed to fly them beyond the East and West coasts of the U.S., Haydu said.

Flying out of Pecos, Texas, in twin-engine AT-17 "Bamboo Bombers" and UC-78 utility cargo planes, Haydu sometimes would ferry ground crew members to California or Las Vegas.

There may have been some double-takes, but "they never complained — they got in the aircraft," Haydu said.

It didn't happen to her, but there were occasions when a base commanding officer made it known he didn't want any women pilots on his field.

"That had to be overcome," Haydu said.

Two of the WASP pilots were recruited to fly B-29 Superfortress bombers, an aircraft male crews sometimes complained about, from base to base to base.

"They let it be known that women were flying the B-29, and this would kind of quell some of the complaints, because, in those days, 'Well, if a woman can do it, I can do it' (was the attitude)," Haydu said.

The WASP program was an outgrowth of the Women's Flying Training Detachment and Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, and was intended to free up male pilots for combat.

A total of 25,000 women applied, and 1,074 earned their wings.

The WASP fliers originally were civil service-paid and were disbanded on Dec. 20, 1944. In 1977, Congress declared the WASPs veterans of World War II.