Maggie Gee - Infinite Women

Born: 5 August 1923, United States
Died: 1 February 2013
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Gee Mei Gue, Margaret

The following is republished from the Federal Aviation Administration. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).

Margaret “Maggie” Gee, a third-generation Chinese American, was born on August 5, 1923, in Berkeley, California. As a young girl, she would watch planes take off at Oakland Airport. She once saw Amelia Earhart, recalling: “When I waved, she saw me and waved back.” When the US entered the war, Gee dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley, to help out with the war effort. She worked in the drafting department at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Gee had always wanted to fly and jumped at the opportunity to do so. At age 19, she read about the WASPs and took it as an opportunity to fly for her country. She moved to Minden, Nevada, to attend flight school before being accepted as a WASP. After earning her military wings, she reported to Las Vegas Army Air Field and was assigned to Training Command, serving in a tow squadron. Like Lee, Gee had similar encounters where people mistook her for the enemy. At first, she would get angry, but over time she got used to the accusations. There was one encounter where she bumped into another American plane while on a runway. The male pilot mistook her as a Japanese enemy pilot and hesitated to believe that she was American. Gee handled the situation well but felt like “an exhibit at the country fair, a two-headed cow, the amazing Chinese-American WASP.” But once she got back into her aircraft, she felt free and powerful. After the Army disbanded the WASPs, she returned to UC Berkeley, earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, and worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on weapons systems. She also had a passion for politics, serving on the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, Berkeley Community Fund, Berkeley Democratic Club, California Democratic Party Executive Board, and Asian Pacific Islander Democratic Caucus. In 2010, Gee traveled to the White House where President Obama awarded her and living WASPs the Congressional Gold medal. She died three years later on February 1, 2013, at the age of 89.
In 2014, the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame inducted her posthumously for her role as a WASP. Currently, there is a campaign to rename the Oakland International Airport “Maggie Gee International Airport.”