“Short, tall, slim, wide, they all came in knowing how to fly. The military trained male pilots from scratch, but not the female civilian volunteers.”

Stories about women breaking barriers always amaze me, mostly because barriers to women still exist; I’ve faced them, and walked away from them having not broken them myself. These stories show how far we’ve come in working towards gender equality, but also remind me of how far we have to go.

NPR has done an amazing job reporting this story. Listen here to the radio edit. Check out photos of the pilots along with essays about them by their family members, a timeline, and rare color photographs from pilot Lillian Yonally here.

Following are some of Yonally’s photographs, via NPR.