Gertrude Vreeland Tompkins Silver, a 32-year-old Women Airforce Service Pilot vanished on October 26, 1944, after departing from Mines Field in Inglewood, California. She was piloting a P-51D Mustang fighter plane on a ferrying mission destined for New Jersey, with a planned overnight stop in Palm Springs, California. Tompkins is the only WASP who went missing during World War II and has never been found.
On the day of her disappearance, Tompkins was part of a group of pilots ferrying new aircraft. Before takeoff, she experienced an issue with her cockpit hatch, which had to be repaired on the taxiway. She departed around 4:00 p.m. and was last seen flying into a fog bank over Santa Monica Bay. Due to a series of clerical errors and the lack of a specific individual flight plan for her, she was not reported missing for four days, which delayed the start of search efforts.
An extensive search was launched by the military, covering both the nearby mountains and Santa Monica Bay, but no trace of Tompkins or her aircraft was discovered. The initial search involved 156 aircraft and over 1,067 hours of flying time. In November 1944, she was officially declared "missing and presumed dead".
Over the decades, several theories have emerged regarding her disappearance. One prominent theory is that she became disoriented in the fog and crashed into Santa Monica Bay shortly after takeoff. Airplane archaeologist G. Patric Macha has been a proponent of this theory and sonar imagery in 2001 did show an object of interest in the bay, though searches have been unsuccessful. Another possibility is that she crashed in the mountains near Palm Springs. Despite numerous search efforts over the years, including one featured on the television show "Expedition Unknown," her case remains unsolved. Gertrude Tompkins Silver was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010, along with all other WASPs, for her service to the country.
Last Seen: Oct 26, 1944
