Kalico 2: Hypnotized & Naked in Hope Springs

Madison: Dauntless Decker: The Real Skinny

Madison: Mid-morning Wednesday, middle school library

How did everybody's favorite English teacher at good-ole Eternal Glory High School, Miss Emma Decker, get her famous +nickname, Dauntless Decker? What does it mean? And how has the nickname persisted throughout the decades of her career?

Most people of the current generation, myself included, assumed, her nickname Dauntless is a reflection of her personality. Unflappable elderly school teacher who has seen it all and is never intimidated by student shenanigans. While this is true, as far as it goes back in recent memory of students and their parents, the real truth goes back even farther.

My own infamous great-great-grandmother, Granny Johnson knew Emma Decker back in the olden days, so Granny suggested that I look into it.

And, Wow! My skinny little ass was so major-like impressed with Miss Decker when I found out the truth, I just knew it had to be the topic of today's journal report.

Oh, yeah, and Miss Decker said it's fine if I get a little crude with expressions such as "my skinny little ass" to liven up the conversation here, as long as I don't overdo it. And, she has sort of grown used to being called Mrs. Decker, so people don't ask questions about her being an old maid and that sort of thing. Sorry, Mrs. D, I'll try to do better.

"I've had a reasonably full life, even without marriage and children," Mrs. Decker told me.

"The students here at HSEG have been fulfilling. They have easily taken the place in my life that my own children would have occupied. And the best part is, they all belong to someone else. I get to send the kids home every afternoon, and forget about them for the rest of the evening," she laughed.

So, back to that wonderful nickname: Dauntless. Where did it come from? And why was it applied to her?

Dauntless comes from the Douglas SBD Dauntless, a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber. The SBD was also flown by the United States Marine Corps, both from land air bases and aircraft carriers. The SBD is best remembered as the bomber-type that delivered fatal blows to four Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.

Fine. It's an airplane type that did a good job more than half a century ago. And how does this apply to our little-old-lady school teacher in this small town?

Because our teacher was a dive-bomber pilot during World War II! That's why.

She was also a large-bomber pilot, a fighter pilot, cargo transport pilot and seaplane pilot. Emma Decker was qualified to fly just about any kind of aircraft the United States military system had during World War II because early in the conflict she joined the WASPs.

That stands for Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a civilian women pilots' organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft and trained other pilots. Their purpose was to free male pilots for combat roles during World War II.

The WASPs flew over 60 million miles; transported every type of military aircraft; towed targets for live anti-aircraft gun practice; simulated strafing missions and transported cargo. Thirty-eight WASP members lost their lives and one disappeared while on a ferry mission, her fate still unknown. In 1977, for their World War II service, the members were granted veteran status, and in 2009 awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Officially, it was non-combat flying. But the pilots on the ferry leg for bombers between Iceland and Scotland sometimes got shot at by Nazi planes flying out of Norway, Mrs. Decker explained.

The WASPs worked at military installations all over the United States, but their home base became Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, a small town on the long highway between Fort Worth and El Paso.

It was on one of those cross-country ferry missions that Mrs. Decker happened to be flying near Hope Springs in a Dauntless dive bomber. She made two noisy, low passes right above Main Street, then circled back and pitched out a small package with parachute attached. Basically, it contained greetings to her home town and encouragement to keep up the war effort. But it also attached the nickname Dauntless Decker to her for life.

And if a half-century later, a generation does not remember the war, how do they remember the old nickname? That's easy to answer. Dauntless Decker reminds them. Every time she meets a person newly arrived in Hope Springs, she quietly tells them that she is not supposed to know that the kids call her Dauntless Decker behind her back. I think she loves it. It's a good thing they didn't name her after that base in Sweetwater because Avenger Emma would sound scary.