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| Stinson HW-75, or 105 Voyager airplane. The design was later modified to the L-5 Sentinel for the war. Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine. Ground crew making a routine overhaul of a patrol plane at base headquarters of Coastal Patrol #20, June 1943. |
by Steve Cox
Published December 8, 2016
Brave. Heroic.
They
were the citizen fliers of America’s greatest generation who, propelled
by duty, honor and love of country, sacrificed all in defense of
America in the earliest, darkest days of World War II.
Their
story is extraordinary, for these founding members of Civil Air Patrol —
more than 1,500 strong — performed the most amazing feats. They hunted
Nazi U-boats and chased them from America’s shores. They searched for
the lost. They saved lives. They made a profound difference.
Inspired
by the highest sense of patriotism and pride, these fearless aviators
relentlessly flew up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines to
protect their homeland. Without their coastal patrols during the first
18 months of the war, who knows what might have happened. The marauding
Nazi submarines were using torpedoes to sink ships, barges and oil
tankers in America’s shipping lanes, almost at will. And the United
States Navy and Army did not have the ships, aircraft or manpower to
prevent the attacks. From January to March 1942, 52 tankers were sunk,
often within sight of civilians on shore.
The
economic impact, not to mention the number of lives lost, was quickly
adding up, prompting Army General George C. Marshall to say, “The losses
by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean now
threaten our entire war effort.”
Something had to be done to stop the carnage. The stage was set for these civilian founders to come to the aid of their country.
In
response to the ever-increasing submarine attacks, the Tanker Committee
of the Petroleum Industry War Council urged the Navy Department and the
War Department to consider the use of CAP to help patrol America’s sea
lanes. While the Navy initially rejected this suggestion, the Army
decided it had merit, and the coastal patrols began in earnest in March
1942. By late March 1942, the Navy also began using the services of CAP.
Oil
companies and other organizations provided funds to help pay for some
CAP operations, including vitally needed shore radios for monitoring the
missions. But most of the aircraft and emergency equipment were
furnished by the civilians who had taken up the cause of defending
America’s shores. Their mission was to report enemy subs to the military
and to drive them farther underwater, where they would be forced to
slow down and use their limited battery power.
So
many subs were spotted that the decision was soon made to arm CAP’s
light aircraft with small bombs and its larger aircraft with 325-pound
depth charges.
The
planes of these “subchasers” — mostly Stinsons and Fairchilds — were
painted red and yellow with special markings (a blue circle with a white
triangle) to identify them as CAP aircraft. They were equipped with
only a compass for navigation and a single radio for communication.
Patrols
were conducted up to 60 miles off shore, generally with two planes
flying together. Flights were made daily despite the weather, and in all
seasons, including the winter, when ditching an aircraft in cold seas
could mean certain death to the aircrews.
Emergency
equipment was often lacking, particularly during the earliest patrols,
where inner tubes and kapok duck hunter vests were carries as flotation
devices. At the time, ocean-worthy wet suits, life vests and life rafts
were unavailable.
Despite
these conditions, the patrols were an immediate success. Renowned
subchaser Eddie Edwards was perhaps the first CAP pilot to spot a Nazi
U-boat. As instructed, he radioed the sub’s position to naval forces,
prompting the vessel to crash-dive and head farther out to sea, where it
was less of a menace to the nation’s shipping.
The
subchasers flew daily from dawn to dusk, logging more than 24 million
miles from 21 Coastal Patrol bases along America’s shores. They hunted
U-boats “from Maine to Mexico.” And they were quite successful,
reporting 173 suspected subs and attacking 57.
Their
effectiveness at deterring coastal U-boat operations was instrumental
in eventually making Civil Air Patrol the official auxiliary of the U.S.
Air Force. By mid-July 1942, German Adm. Karl Doenitz, commander of all
Nazi U-boats, withdrew his last submarines from America’s shores after
increasing losses and reduced success against merchant traffic.
Along
with his notoriety as one of the very first subchasers, Edwards held
celebrity status within CAP as one of the first two Coastal Patrol
pilots awarded the Air Medal for heroism during World War II. He and his
commanding officer, Maj. Hugh R. Sharp Jr., each received the medal in
February 1943 after President Roosevelt heard of their daring rescue of a
fellow airman downed in bitterly cold high seas off Maryland.
Edwards,
in an interview in 2006, clearly remembered the rescue of 1st Lt. Henry
Cross, which earned him the medal and subchaser fame. “I got the call
that one of our planes was down, and Maj. Sharp asked me to go with
him,” Edwards said. “We had no trouble finding the crash site. We
spotted a body, so we made an emergency landing and fished him out. He
was alive, but we never found the other guy.”
The
rescue on July 21, 1942, required that Edwards and Sharp land their
aircraft, a Sikorsky S-39 single-engine amphibian piloted by Sharp, in
8- to 10-foot-high swells, which crushed the left pontoon. So, to get
back to Base 2, Edwards accomplished a daring feat by climbing out onto
the right wing and using his weight to level the plane. He clung there,
half-frozen, through the night until early the next day when a Coast
Guard boat water-taxied the unflyable aircraft to shore.
Though
Edwards and Sharp were the first civilians to receive the Air Medal,
they were joined by others from their own ranks. In 1948, 824 Air Medals
were presented to CAP members.
The coastal patrols stood
down in Aug. 31, 1943, but the fledgling organization’s other World War
II missions continued. While Air Medals were issued for some of those
participating in the coastal patrols, little other recognition was
forthcoming for the myriad of humanitarian services CAP’s volunteers
provided during the war.
“We
who served asked for nothing in return and got nothing,” said former
U.S. Rep. Lester Wolff, D-N.Y., who commanded a CAP squadron based at
Mitchell Field on Long Island, N.Y., during World War II.
Often,
“it was a perilous task,” Wolff said, recalling the loss of one of his
squadron members. Remember; many of these civilian planes, though not
built specifically for the task, had bombs and depth charges strapped to
them.
Sixty-eight CAP members died — 26 of them lost at sea — as a result of the war effort.
CAP
Col. Robert Arn flew anti-sub missions out of Coastal Patrol Base No.
14 in Panama City, Fla., from September 1942 to June 1943. Of the 12
original pilots he served with at Panama City, “we lost six of them,”
said Arn, who flew 179 missions totaling 557 hours of flight time over
the Gulf of Mexico.
“I
think with the aircraft we had, which weren’t built to go out over the
Gulf of Mexico, we were able to do a job and do it well,” he said.
“So
many people forget that our little effort contributed so much,”
especially in terms of providing protection for shipping, said Wolff.
The
coastal patrol service helped force the German Navy to move further
offshore. It was a significant result from a newly formed civilian
organization.
The
success of the coastal patrols spawned other missions on behalf of the
war effort with thousands more joining the cause. Forest fire patrols,
disaster relief, medical evacuation, radar training missions and
observation flights to check the effectiveness of blackouts, industrial
camouflage and smokescreens were but a handful of the other operations
completed by the CAP.
Nationwide,
CAP quickly established itself as a vital resource to the military and
communities across the nation. These included 20,500 missions involving
towing aerial gunnery targets for live-fire antiaircraft gunnery
training and nighttime tracking missions for searchlights.
Along
the Rio Grande, CAP aircraft flew 30,000 hours to prevent illegal
border crossings and report any unusual activities. A courier service
serving three major Army Air Forces commands carried over 3.5 million
pounds of cargo, flying more than 20,000 miles daily. A search and
rescue service used CAP air and ground units to searching isolated
mountains and forested terrain for lost military aircraft.
The
citizens who served in CAP came from all walks of life. Some were rich,
bringing along their own planes. Others were not, but they all had a
common thread: They were all volunteers eager to serve their country.
Their
ranks, more than 200,000 strong at war’s end, included not only
ordinary men, women and teenagers in communities throughout the country
but also such prominent figures as a noted Hollywood director and a
world-famous pianist, a Munchkin from “The Wizard of Oz” and a sitting
state governor, a storied Wall Street financier and a pioneering
African-American female aviator, future Tuskegee Airmen, the head of a
major brewery and founder of a famous doughnut chain.
Notably,
Civil Air Patrol served as a pioneering opportunity for the nation’s
women to serve the nation in uniform. Through CAP, countless women wore a
uniform on behalf of their nation, representing a catalyst for
increasing female participation in civil aviation. More than half of the
Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) served in CAP during some part
of the war. So did many of the members of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC),
Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and the Marine
Corps Women’s Reserve.
By 1944, one in four members of Civil Air Patrol was a woman, and they were flying important inland missions.
Beginning
in October 1942, a CAP cadet program allowed young men and women from
15 to 18 to serve in the organization. The cadet program extended the
benefits of the senior program and prepared many young men and women
through CAP training for military service. In 1943, CAP worked with the
Army Air Forces to recruit aviation cadets and allowed 17-year-old
members of the Air Corps Enlisted Reserve to receive CAP training while
awaiting call-up to active military duty.
By
war’s end, over 80,000 young Americans had served in CAP, providing the
Army Air Forces with a pool of pilots and aircrew for the latter stages
of the war and the postwar military.
CAP’s
success with coastal patrol and other military-supported operations
contributed to its transfer by executive order in April 1943 from the
Office of Civilian Defense to the War Department. As the auxiliary force
of the Army Air Forces, CAP flew more than 750,000 hours with a total
loss of 68 members and about 150 aircraft — a credit to the
organization’s emphasis on organization and safety.
So hats off to Civil Air Patrol! Well, not exactly.
That recognition would come later — 70 years, to be exact.
“I
personally never gave it any more thought after the war,” said Col.
Steve Patti, who joined CAP in January 1942 and was stationed at Vail
Field in Los Angeles. For five months he was assigned to the 12th
Task Force Anti-Submarine Patrol in Brownsville and San Benito, Texas,
as an aircraft mechanic. He also flew as a replacement observer on
convoy escort, anti-sub, beach and border patrols, and later served at
bases in Marfa and El Paso, Texas.
“We
did our job every day and we asked for nothing,” he said. At the time,
“there was no thought of recognition; there was only the thought of
getting the job done.”
Patti
and the other CAP volunteers who performed this highly unusual and
extraordinary service, during a time of great need for the United
States, just carried on with their lives after the war, not really
expecting payback.
At
least until 2014, when the U.S. House of Representatives followed the
Senate’s lead and approved legislation to present the Congressional Gold
Medal — the country’s highest civilian honor — to Civil Air Patrol for
its World War II service.
“Time is catching up, and at least there is still time for some of us to smell the flowers,” said Wolff.
“It’s a great honor to be brought into the limelight of recognition,” said Patti.
Wolff
made the trip to Washington, D.C., where the medal was presented. If
fact, he was on stage with the leaders of Congress and CAP’s national
commander, Maj. Gen. Joe Vazquez, accepting on behalf of the men and
women of CAP who served during World War II. Unfortunately, a lot of
their colleagues from CAP’s earliest days were not. Most of them have
passed, and less than 100 are still living today.
Regardless,
their mission continues, even today. Because they were such an
incredible force, their story will not be forgotten. These pioneering
members of CAP forged the path of an army of today’s volunteers that now
serve as one of the nation’s premier humanitarian service
organizations.
As
the Air Force auxiliary, CAP provides essential emergency, operational
and public service to all 50 states and more than 1,500 communities
nationwide, as well as the federal government and the military. And,
like their CAP counterparts, today’s members are equal to any task,
willing to risk life and limb in their missions for America. They, too,
are courageous. And, they also perform amazing feats, much like their
forefathers — saving lives, finding the lost, helping in times of
disaster and working to keep the homeland safe.
The legacy of those brave, heroic subchasers from World War II lives on.
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| Stinson HW-75, or 105 Voyager airplane. The design was later modified to the L-5 Sentinel for the war. Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine. Ground crew making a routine overhaul of a patrol plane, Coastal Patrol #20, June 1943. |
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| Stinson HW-75, or 105 Voyager airplane. The design was later modified to the L-5 Sentinel for the war. Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine. Ground crew making overhaul of a patrol plane. Coastal Patrol #20, June 1943. |
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| Stinson HW-75, or 105 Voyager airplane. Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine, June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol, Coastal Patrol base #20, Bar Harbor, Maine. A pilot sits in the cockpit of a Stinson 105. June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol, Coastal Patrol base #20, Bar Harbor, Maine. A Stinson 105 receives a routine overhaul. June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine. Flight line of Coastal Patrol #20. From left to right: two Stinson 105s, Waco YKS-6, Stinson Reliant SR-5A, and Fairchild 24 C8C. June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol, Coastal Patrol base #20, Bar Harbor, Maine. Two Stinson 105 aircraft in a hangar. June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol, Coastal Patrol base #20, Bar Harbor, Maine. A Stinson 105 on the flight line, engine running. June 1943. |
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| Civil Air Patrol Base, Bar Harbor, Maine. Stinson 105 taking off. June 1943. |
