San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Female flier’s name sought on airport
Petition campaign strives to honor pioneering WWII pilot in Oakland
Tiffany Miller of Walnut Creek observes with dismay that in the 115-year history of aviation, not one major American airport has been named for a woman.
Half an airport has. There’s Bill and Hillary Clinton National Field in Arkansas. Still, not one of the 523 airports certified for scheduled flights bears a woman’s name alone, while 119½ honor men.
Miller, a project manager with the tenaciousness of a jet engine, wants Oakland International Airport to be the first named for a woman. She said she believes that Maggie Gee — a World War II pilot inspired to fly by visiting the Oakland Airport as a child just to watch planes take off and land — deserves the honor. “Maggie Gee was a member of a pioneering group of women in WWII who aided in the war effort by enlisting in the Women Airforce Service Pilots,” or WASPs, wrote Miller on the petition she began Oct. 6 to gather support. The “Rename Oakland Airport After Trailblazing Asian American Woman Pilot” petition has more than 5,200 signatures so far.
But Miller is learning that the runway to victory is — pick your flying metaphor — turbulent? Full of delays?
San Jose took just two weeks to rename its airport for U.S. Transportation Secretary and ex-Mayor Norm Mineta in 2001. The airport kept its familiar code, SJC.
In Oakland, nothing so swift is happening. The Port of Oakland
oversees the airport, and the Port Commission can rename it if Executive Director Christopher Lytle recommends it. Lytle’s spokesman said no proposal has been submitted.
Miller said she’s holding off until she’s sure the idea can reach cruising altitude.
“My fear is that if I submit something too early, it will just get dismissed without any real consideration,” she said.
Miller briefly addressed the Port Commission in May during public comment, and one commissioner, Michael Colbruno, said he liked her idea. But he’s since backed off, telling a reporter he’d rather name the airport’s two terminals after Gee and another female pilot to try to advance a stalled third terminal. And he’s told Miller he wants to avoid the “massive controversy” of renaming an airport.
Miller calls it a “massive opportunity.” She isn’t asking to name the airport after someone unrelated to aviation, like a cartoonist (Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport), an entertainer (Bob Hope Airport in Burbank) or a racial segregationist ([John C.] Stennis International Airport in Mississippi).
She’s recommending a pilot connected to Oakland who risked her life during World War II and was “one of only two Chinese American women to serve as a WASP,” she said. The other, Hazel Ying Lee of Portland, was delivering a P-63 Kingcobra aircraft in 1944 when an Fund total as of Dec. 31: $8,626,123 Benefactor ($1,500$1,999): Elisabeth & Howard Jaffe; Platt Family. Supporter ($500$999): Anonymous, in memory of Ronald Clark; Ned Congdon; Cynthia Eckstein, in memory of Herb Caen; Anne & Gerard Fancovic, in memory of Joseph Fancovic; Jacqueline Kolm; Avery McGinn, in honor of Lillie Avery; Ray & Linda Minehan; Anonymous, in memory of Viv; Kitty Whiteside, in memory of George Frost; David, Emily and Taylor Wong; Richard & Christie Wu, air traffic control error sent her plane colliding into another over Montana. Lee was among 38 WASPs who died in the line of duty.
The WASPs didn’t fly in combat. But they made combat missions possible by ferrying planes, towing targets for gunnery training and teaching flight instrumentation to men, Miller said.
Of the 25,000 women who applied for WASP training, 1,830 were accepted and 1,037 made it through. One was Miller’s grandmother, Elaine Harmon of Maryland, whose testimony to Congress in the 1970s helped persuade President Jimmy Carter to approve veterans benefits for WASPs. Another was Harmon’s friend Maggie Gee , who might have learned to fly in Oakland if private pilots were not barred from flying near the coast in the war years. So Gee learned in Nevada, which inducted her into its Aerospace Hall of Fame in 2014.
Born in Berkeley in 1923, Gee visited the Oakland Airport with her family on Sundays for a show even better than baseball: biplanes. She recalled seeing a female pilot at the airport once — and thought it could only be Amelia Earhart.
Earhart, one of history’s most famous aviators, was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She co-founded an international group of female pilots in 1929, the Ninety-Nines, which thrives today. Earhart took off from Oakland in 1937 in an attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world, in memory of Frank Wong.
Collaborator ($250$499): Gary & Judy Grossman, in memory of Warren Hellman; Anonymous, in memory of Donald W. Howes; Paul & Jackie Kuckein; David Latulippe; Mary T. McCanta, in honor of Jean Huston; Anonymous, in memory of Juan & Paula Rodriguez; Herbert Toy & Rita Y. Yee; Terry & Peggy True; Jani Vournas. Booster ($150-$249): Joyce & John Badertscher; Jacqueline Beth; Varma Chanderraju; Karen Gottdenker & Mitch Cohen; Gerald & Rosette and might seem a natural namesake for the airport except that she vanished somewhere over the Pacific.
The port named a minor roadway for her years ago.
Gee was a freshman at UC Berkeley in 1942 when she left to join the WASPs. She returned after the war, and in 1948 earned a degree in physics. She worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab, where she met her partner, Warren Heckrotte of Oakland, also a physicist. Gee was also active in politics, serving on Democratic boards and committees.
She died in 2013. Two years later, the death of her friend Harmon, Miller’s grandmother, set off a wave of Miller family activism on behalf of the WASPs when the military refused to bury her at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
“It was blatant sexism,” Miller said.
The Army yielded after the Millers — three sisters and their mother — filed records requests, lobbied Congress and submitted a petition her jaw.
The case involved the Alameda Cruelty Task Force, created by District Attorney Nancy O’Malley in 2017 to bring more attention to the links between animal abuse and human abuse. The task force involves law enforcement, animal welfare agencies, social services and community members to bring a more holistic approach to abuse investigations — whether they involve humans or animals. Koch; Pam Nissley & Ed Daranciang; Rai Sue Sussman, in memory of Mary Brown; Gerard & Krista Terstiege, in memory of our parents; Matthew Williamson. Contributor ($100$149): David Bernstein, in honor of Rachel Bell; Catherine Chase; Cassie & Don Giesen; Bethany Hanson, in memory of Jerianne LaRoy; John Keefe, in memory of Myrtle Keefe; Sandy Kiyomura, in memory of Fannie Chinn; Marie Rongone & Mark Posth; Karen Schoenberg, in memory of Ann Colvin.
Friend ($50-$99): Dana signed by 175,000 people.
But the Millers held out until Arlington was open to all WASPs. President Barack Obama signed that law in 2016. Harmon was then inurned at Arlington, as was her sister, Helen Harmon, a World War I yeoman, whose ashes she had kept in a closet for 20 years, hoping for that final honor.
“Being persistent definitely runs in the family!” Miller said.
Which is why, after receiving a discouraging note from a port secretary in September, she persisted. The note hinted that Miller should back down: “There are a lot of streets and buildings at the airport” you could name for Gee.
Miller took it as a challenge. She started a Facebook page and a website, MaggieGee.org. She emailed the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Chinatown library, the Chinese Community Center, and the American Association of University Women. She called the Berkeley Democratic Club, where Gee served on the
“If someone’s beating their dog to a pulp, why don’t we ask if their girlfriend is OK? Or their wife? Or their child?” Assistant District Attorney Sharmin Bock said. “Kids won’t tell you that their mother’s boyfriend is molesting them, but they’ll tell you that they’re worried about their dog.”
Bock pointed out that animal cruelty can often be a red flag for other kinds of abuse, like spousal abuse and violence & Mike Flynn; Debbie Ghidinelli; Anonymous, in memory of our founder, James Laughrey; Anonymous, in memory of Sis, Bill and Dot. Additional donations: John & Diane Akers, in honor of Kingston Akers; Angela Barra; Sara Bartholomew; Marlene L. Bonham, in memory of my parents and Aunt Bunny; Kate Burkart, in memory of Peter Toorock; Pasion & Gustavo Delgado; J. Eli Felicitas, in memory of Euphemia A. Felicitas; Carol Ebert & James Ferrell; Anne & Jeff Geddes, in memory of Pauline & Bill McGowan; John & Becky Glover; Sheri & Peter Harris; board. She even called the Girl Scouts.
Few replied. But Miller said what she really needs is one big-name supporter. So she caught up with Mayor Libby Schaaf — just as Schaaf was campaigning for re-election.
Her timing was off. But Miller hasn’t given up on Schaaf, whose spokesman told The Chronicle: “The mayor is always open to recognizing great Oaklanders like Maggie Gee, and particularly remarkable women who served their country so valiantly.”
And then there are the thousands who signed Miller’s petition.
One notable supporter is Marissa Moss of Berkeley, who wrote the children’s book “Sky High: The True Story of Maggie Gee,” in 2009, just before Congress awarded its Congressional Gold Medal to some 200 surviving WASPs.
“If anyone can get this done, it’s Tiffany,” said Moss, who accompanied Gee to Capitol Hill for her medal in 2010. “It’s long past time to call attention to the military service women toward kids.
Bock added that investigators found no evidence of Tadduc abusing humans or abusing pets in the past.
Animal abuse cases are rare in Alameda County, Sheriff ’s Office spokesman Ray Kelly said, but animal neglect cases — like people having too many pets or not keeping up sanitary living conditions — pop up more frequently.
“This case was pretty shocking. I don’t recall Chris & Su-san Lichens; Jim & Mary-Louise McDonald; Jim Mill; Bhushan & Blue Mudbhary; Margaret Niver, in honor of John, Barrett and Catherine McCandless; Beth Pollard; Bill & Sue Rochester; Donna Scism, in memory of Winnifred have given, and to the ways Chinese Americans, an important Bay Area minority, have contributed.”
The U.S. revoked citizenship from Gee’s mother for marrying a man born in China, and Gee was barred from public pools as a child. Moss called Gee an inspiration for “not allowing prejudice or sexism to bar her way.”
Miller faces other barriers. For one thing, Colbruno wants to honor a different aviator.
“Have you heard of Ya’Ching Li?” the commissioner asked. “She is the first woman granted a civil aviation license in China, and she was one of the first women in the United States to get an aviation license.”
Colbruno said Li is buried in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery, where he is a docent.
“There’s already been a little pushback internally” about naming the airport for Gee because of her “lack of connection” to Oakland, he said.
Gee, it turns out, is also buried at Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery.
Colbruno said he’d like to name the airport’s two terminals after Gee and Li to help nail down a timeline for building the third terminal.
“Maybe renaming the terminals gets us there,” he said.
Miller called that misguided.
“I’ve never come into an airport and said, ‘Oh, I’m arriving at so-and-so terminal,’ ” she said. “Women have been told to settle for less for a really long time. It’s time to step up.”
Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov another case like that since then,” Kelly said.
Tadduc pleaded guilty and will serve three years of felony probation and 30 days in county jail. He must take anger management classes and pay for Aaliyah’s veterinary bills.
Gwendolyn Wu and Ashley McBride are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: gwendolyn.wu@ sfchronicle.com, ashley. mcbride@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu, @ashleynmcb
Glimn; Toda Family. Anonymous in honor of: Evelina Elwood; Ann Orme; John Petrone. Anonymous in memory of: Michael E. Casey; Mrs. Hortensia Cid; Maria Flores; Victor & Julia Galang; Donald E. Olson.