The Batavia Park District will partner with the Batavia Depot Museum to hold a “The Fly Girls of World War II” presentation for community members to learn about the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

The presentation will be held at 7 p.m. March 26 at Callahan Community Center, 150 Houston St.

The presentation traces the program’s evolution, which included recruiting women with pilot licenses to fill gaps resulting from male pilots being deployed overseas.

The presentation will be led by historian and certified FAA pilot Rebecca Tulloch. Despite their contributions, the WASPs’ story remains largely overlooked, Tulloch said.

A participant in World War II reenactments, Tulloch said she learned about the depth of the WASPs’ impact when she began researching women’s wartime roles.

“I wondered why I didn’t learn about them in school,” Tulloch said in a news release.

The women were collectively trained to fly 77 different aircraft.

“As a group they had to know how to fly many different kinds of planes because they never knew what they’d be flying,” Tulloch also said in the news release.

The pilots’ duties included towing target banners for live anti-aircraft practice and helping demonstrate the B-29 bomber.

“If two women could fly the plane, they couldn’t say no,” Tulloch said in the news release.

“As a pilot, I understand how difficult it was for women of that era to take on risky wartime assignments,” Tulloch said. “They flew dangerous aircraft. They were shot at while flying. They were constantly aware of the risks they were taking.”

The presentation complements the museum’s “To Secure These Rights” spring exhibit, which highlights local military service members and civil rights pioneers stories.

“This program fits perfectly with our exhibit,” Batavia Depot Museum Director Kate Garrett said in the release, “because the ‘Fly Girls’ broke barriers in aviation while serving their country.”

Tickets are $12 and available at bataviaparks.info/FlyGirls. Information also available at 30-879-5235.