Flight Instructors Glenn Brown, Barbara Kibbee, and Juan Basella, Civilian Pilot Training Program, July 13, 1939

As the world descended toward war in the late 1930s, the United States government recognized a vital need for trained aviators. It established the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1938. Ostensibly a peacetime initiative, CPTP in fact produced flyers ready for overseas combat or stateside support missions. Pilot Barbara Kibbee was the program's first female instructor.