Fly Girls,a film about the wives, mothers, actresses and debutantes who joined the Womens Air Force Service Pilots (WASPS) during World War II, will be screened at West Virginia University during Womens History Month.

The film, one in a series of events on the WVU campus to commemorate Womens History Month, will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 21, in Room G21 White Hall, on the Downtown Campus. This event is open to the public and free of charge. The screening ofFly Girlsis co-sponsored by the WVU Center for Womens Studies in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, along with the Morgantown Chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Margaret A. Bahnsen will introduce the film and lead a discussion after its conclusion. Bahnsen was the first and only woman ever to command the WVU U .S. Army Mountaineer Battalion.

More than a thousand women served their country during World War II by test-piloting aircraft and ferrying planes, logging more than 60 million miles in the air. Thirty-eight of the WASPS died in service. Their opportunity to play a critical role in the war effort was abruptly canceled for political reasons, and it would be another three decades before women again flew planes for the U.S. military.

For more information, contact Dr. Barbara Howe, director of the WVU Center for Womens Studies, at Barbara.Howe@mail.wvu.edu or at 304-293-2339 ext. 1155.