On this day in 1941, the Air Force auxiliary the United States Civil Air Defense Services, whose named was soon changed to the Civil Air Patrol, came into existence.
The organization came into being through Executive Order No. 9 issued by F. H. La, which provided:
December 1, 1941
Administrative Order No.9
Establishing Civil Air Patrol
By virtue of the authority vested in me through my appointment as United States Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, through the Executive Order of the President creating said Office, dated May 20, 1941. I have caused to be created and organized a branch of this Office of volunteers for the purpose of enlisting and training personnel to aid in the national defense of the United States, designated as the Civil Air Patrol.
In conformity with said organization, Major General John F. Curry, U.S.A. Air Corps has been assigned to this office by the U.S. Army and designated by me as its National Commander. Said organization shall be formed as outlined in the attached chart, which is made a part of this Order as if written herein in full. The Civil Air Patrol shall carry out such Orders and directives as are issued to it by the Director of Civilian Defense. It shall be the duty and responsibility of the National Commander to see that the objectives and purposes and orders issued in conformity with the policy of this office are carried out and that all activities are reported regularly to the Director through the Aviation Aide.
All enlistments and appointments in the Civil Air Patrol may be disapproved by the Director of the Office of Civilian Defense.
F. H. LaGuardia
U.S. Director of
Civilian Defense
The wartime status of the CAP is frankly a little murky. Often noted that it was a "civilian" organization using private aircraft, it rapidly came to deploy light aircraft owned by the government. Moreover, as the war progressed, the aircraft became armed and the CAP conducted over 80 bombing and depth charge runs on German U-boats during the war, suppressing their activities but sinking none of them. The members of the organization were commanded by an Army general during the war, and wore Army Air Corps uniforms. Given all of that, the better argument is that they were in fact a combat organization. It's role in the Second World War, in that sense, may be imperfectly analogous to the Coast Guard, somewhat, or the United States Health Service, both of which became wartime auxillaries of the U.S. Navy.
Lt. Willa Beatrice Brown. She later unsuccessfully ran for Congress.
As such, they're further notable in that they fielded some women pilots during the war, one of whom, Willa Beatrice Brown, was African American. This would mean that the Civil Air Patrol, not any of the other branches of the military, was the first to deploy women officially to a combat service and the first branch of the Army to integrate, albeit to a very small extent.
The subsequent view of the CAP is, at least to some extent, confused by the later creation of the cadet branch, which came into being some during World War Two (October 1942) and which somewhat replicated, at that time, JrROTC, which was limited to the Army. Like the "adult" branch, the cadet program also included females in its ranks.
We've posted on the CAP a fair amount here before, with the longest World War Two themed one being the following two.
The Civil Air Patrol is the official auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Created during World War Two, it's original purpose was to harness the nations large fleet of small private aircraft for use in near shore anti submarine patrols. The light aircraft, repainted in bright colors to allow for them to be easily spotted by other American aircraft, basically flew the Atlantic in patterns to look for surfaced submarines. As submarines of that era operated on the surface routinely, this proved to be fairly effective and was greatly disruptive to the German naval effort off of the American coast.
The CAP also flew some patrols along the Mexican border during the same period, although I've forgotten what the exact purpose of them was. Early in the war, there was quite a bit of concern about Mexico, given its problematic history during World War One, and given that the Mexican government was both radical and occasionally hostile to the United States. These fears abated fairly rapidly.
The CAP still exists, with its post war mission having changed to search and rescue. It also has a cadet branch that somewhat mirrors JrROTC. Like JrROTC it has become considerably less martial over time, reflecting the views of boomer parents, who have generally wished, over time, to convert youthful organizations that were organized on military or quasi military lines into ones focusing on "citizenship" and "leadership"..
Photographs of the Civil Air Patrol during World War Two. The CAP was made up of civilian volunteers organized into an axillary of the Army Air Corps for the purposes of patrolling the coasts. They detected over 100 submarines during the war. The organization exists today as an axillary of the USAF and performs search and rescue operations.
As those threads explain the CAP pretty well, we'll leave it at that.
Franklin Roosevelt cut short a vacation at Warm Springs, Georgia to deal with the mounting crisis of almost certain war with Japan.
Also on this day, the Japanese Navy suddenly changed its communications code, a significant event in that the US had cracked the prior one. This meant that the US was suddenly unable to eavesdrop on radio communications of the Japanese navy, although the Japanese had gone radio silent on their dispatched missions leading towards the events of December 7.
Yugoslavian partisans attacked Italian forces in Montenegro at Pljevilja. They were predicatably put down, after which the local movement began to severely split, with sizable numbers joining pro Axis militias.
Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, feuding with Hitler after ordering a retreat against Hitler's orders following the German setbacks at Rostov, resigned. In North Africa, the Afrika Corps fought with New Zealand and British troops at Belhamed Libya with inconclusive results.
Karl Jäger issued a report detailing with precision the murderous activites of Einsatzkommando in the Baltics.
Map from report.
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