Diana Barnato Walker, Acclaimed Pilot, Dies at 90

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"LONDON — Diana Barnato Walker, an heiress to a South African diamond mining fortune who took up flying in the 1930s and became a celebrated aviator as one of a group of women who delivered new fighters and bombers to combat squadrons in World War II, died on April 28. She was 90.

In 1941, after serving as a nursing auxiliary with the British expeditionary force, which had been driven from France by the German invasion the year before, she passed rigorous tests and became a member of what The Times of London described in 2005 as “the pluckiest sisterhood in military history,” the women’s arm of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Only a little over five feet tall, Mrs. Walker often needed a special cushion to allow her to reach the controls of the aircraft she flew."

Diana Barnato Walker, Acclaimed Pilot, Dies at 90 - New York Times