John Curry as CAP’s first national commander, with Wilson as his executive officer. LaGuardia signed the order creating the Civil Air Patrol on December 1, 1941-six days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The board quickly recommended that the Army Air Forces provide a team of officers to help set up and administer the new organization. George Stratemeyer to evaluate the proposal. Arnold, in turn, established a board headed by Brig. Army Air Forces) was critical to its success. LaGuardia, a former World War I bomber pilot himself, enthusiastically endorsed the plan, but he also knew that the support of the Air Corps (soon to be redesignated the U.S. Advocates for a national civilian air organization, including Wilson and publishers Thomas Beck and Guy Gannet, lost no time in petitioning LaGuardia with a plan for a Civil Air Patrol organized into 48 state wings as part of the Civil Defense office. On May 20, 1941, the federal government established the Office of Civil Defense, with former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as its first director. Other states established similar organizations on the New Jersey model, which in turn led to the initiative to form a national-level organization. Army Air Corps chief General Henry “Hap” Arnold and the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), Wilson was instrumental in establishing the New Jersey Civil Air Defense Services, the forerunner of CAP. They also thought that if properly organized, private aviation could be a valuable national asset, relieving military fliers of some of the burden of liaison, light transportation and coastal and border reconnaissance work.
Many of those pilots, including aviation writer Gill Robb Wilson, worried that when America was finally drawn into the war, all civil aviation would be grounded for the duration, as had happened in Germany.
In 1941 there were more than 128,000 licensed private pilots in the U.S., operating some 25,000 light aircraft from 2,500 airfields. The Civil Air Patrol came into being during the dark days immediately preceding America’s entry into World War II. The 2017 hurricane season was particularly difficult, with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria battering the southern United States and Puerto Rico in rapid succession.įor Harvey alone, more than 170 Civil Air Patrol volunteers from 19 states supported air operations in Texas, flying various disaster relief missions, including transporting medical supplies and conducting aerial photoreconnaissance of key infrastructure sites and inland waterways. Last year, the nationwide CAP fleet amassed more than 100,000 flying hours. Natural disasters always place high demands on the nation’s emergency services. During the early stages of World War II, the Civil Air Patrol played a vital role in helping defend American merchant ships from marauding U-boats.