World War II Honoree

Dorothy Newnham

Hometown

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Honored By

Friends of American Heroes

During WWII she proudly served her country as a civilian sky-watcher. Called the United States Air Force’s First Interceptor Command Group, it was their job to scan the skies for enemy aircraft. She was part of this volunteer group, which was mostly women, who were trained to spot planes entering into American airspace, from thousands of observation posts from Maine to Florida, looking mainly for bombers that were capable of long range missions. She worked in a secret building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When planes were spotted, they would note the type of plane and its heading and phone in the details to a secret Regional Army Filter Center that was windowless with a large regional maps room. She would receive this data through a headset and plot this data on one of these large regional maps using plastic figures of airplanes. Officers of the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Air Forces and U.S. Navy would monitor this information to help form their strategies. She also spent many hours organizing and working at blood drives as a Red Cross volunteer.