Aline Rhonie Hofheimer Brooks (August 16, 1909 – January 7, 1963) was one of the pioneering women aviation pilots in World War II.[1] In March 2010, shortly after her centennial birthday, she was posthumously awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal.[1]
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She was born in York, Pennsylvania, on August 16, 1909 as Aline Rhonie Hofheimer.[2] She was born into the notable Hofheimer family of York township.[1] Aline Hofheimer learned to fly at the age of 21 in Reno, Nevada in a De Havilland Moth with a Gypsy engine.[2] She moved from York to New Jersey at the age of three.[3] She received her transport license in 1931, and her English pilot's license in 1936.[1] She was the first American to receive an Irish Commercial license in 1938.[4]
During World War II, she participated in the British war relief effort[5] and was one of the two women to join the Air Transport Auxiliary.[1] After the war, Hofheimer learned mural painting from the prominent Mexican painter Diego Rivera.[5] She is remembered for having painted a 126-foot-long (38 m), 1,400-square-foot (130 m2) fresco representing aviation history at a hangar in Roosevelt Field, Long Island.,[1] which has since been relocated to the Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens, New York.[5]
Hofheimer married a well-known race-pilot Peter Brooks in the 1930s. The couple had no children. She died on January 7, 1963 in Palm Beach, Florida at the age of 54.[1]
Along with the congressional gold medal, Hofheimer won several other awards and recognitions, including membership of the French national association of Croix de Guerre for her service in the French red cross, Medaille de la Reconnaissance Francaise, was made a Chavalier de la Croix de Lorraine, and received the King George VI medal in Great Britain.[6]
She was inducted into the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010.[5]