Civil Air Patrol

In the late 1930’s, over 150,000 volunteer aviation enthusiast wanted to put their skills and planes to use to protect their country. The Civil Air Patrol was born was born one week prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the course of WWII, Civil Air Patrol logged over 500,000 flight hours, sunk two enemy submarines. The Civil Air Patrol has an interesting history from World War II up until the present day. In the early stages of Civil Air Patrol, there was a strong need for national defense on the east coast where German U-boats had sunk multiple cargo and supply freighters within miles of the coast. The US Army Air Corp had made the decision to allow Civil Air Patrol to make ninety day trial patrol missions up to one-hundred and fifty miles out from the east coast to search for enemy submarines.

While the Civil Air Patrol planes themselves were unarmed, they served as a valuable resource to call in support from Navy, Coast Guard, and Army aircraft to designate fire on the enemy. During the 90-day trial period, three Civil Air Patrol bases were set up along the east coast in order to make the coastal patrols. The first base was in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The second in base was in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and the third base was in Lantana, Florida. These patrols would last generally between two and four hours depending on the type of mission, whether it is escort, or patrol. On escort missions, Civil Air Patrol planes would escort freighters and cargo ships fifty miles out until they had to RTB (return to base) because of fuel deficiency. It was only in May of 1942 did the Air Corp and Government see a need for CAP planes to be armed when a Civil Air Patrol plane spotted an enemy submarine off the coast of Cape ...

... middle of paper ...

... they can and if possible, find the aircraft.

All cadets can be found to be more responsible and dependable than most others. They have little area for horseplay and no room for negligence or error. Every “real world” op that Civil Air Patrol does can have a negative result if all parties are not giving it their full effort. Every operation that Civil Air Patrol does, whether it is training or not, has to be executed with discipline and ultimate control to receive the best outcome available.

Works Cited

http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/about/

Citation. https://suite.io/andrew-glikin-gusinsky/59s62m4

Citation. http://www.gawg.cap.gov/sar.htm

Citation. http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/guarding-the-home-skies/

Citation. http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/about/history_of_civil_air_patrol/

Citation. http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/about/from_the_national_commander/