Protecting the skies

By Pete Kendall/reporter@trcle.com

December 01, 2008 12:15 pm

— These days, you won’t find Civil Air Patrol cadets involved in anything much riskier than ground and air searches and moderately tame paramilitary maneuvers such as saluting and marching.
It wasn’t always that way.
The brainchild of New Jersey aviator Gill Robb Wilson in the 1930s, CAP was born Dec. 1, 1941. The timing was perfect. The Japanese were already plotting an attack on Pearl Harbor.
CAP never officially engaged the Japanese in World War II. Nazi Germany was another story. Shortly after German submarines applied a stranglehold to shipping along the American Atlantic Coast, CAP went into action.
According to Civil Air Patrol historians, CAP planes searched 24 million miles, located 173 German subs, attacked 57 of them with bombs and depth charges, hit 10 and sank two. CAP flew a half-million miles during the war. Sixty-four CAP aviators died in the line of duty.
The Germans? They paid the ultimate, if somewhat less than enthusiastic, tribute to CAP. A German commander said Nazi U-boat operations were canceled along the Atlantic Coast “because of those damned little red and yellow airplanes.”
He was speaking grudgingly of the CAP insignia, a red three-bladed propeller in the Civil Defense white-triangle-in-blue-circle.
The Germans grew to know it well. First, CAP pilots would spot the subs and radio for help. Because help often arrived too late to provide assistance, CAP planes were quipped with weapons, and the CAP pilots went on the offensive themselves. They were pesky, and they were lethal.
By Presidential Executive Order, CAP became an auxiliary of the Air Force in 1943. In 1948, CAP became the Air Force’s civilian auxiliary.
CAP Texas Unit 131 in Johnson County upholds the proud tradition during weekend training sessions and meetings at 6:30 p.m. each Thursday at the Cleburne Municipal Airport.
Unit 131 numbers total 31 and rising, said unit Lt. Don A. Henry. Twelve of the 31 are senior officers, and 19 are cadets.
“This unit was established in 1958 and for some reason died out,” said Henry, the unit’s historian. “We’re trying to rebuild it. We’d like to have as many cadets as possible. We’re looking for cadets, also senior members as teachers. We invite the parents to participate. We also have a chaplain service.
“The city supports us. We have a very small building and would like to expand into a larger one. I was just at Wheat Middle School and was told a lot of those kids want to join us.”
Henry, also the unit’s training officer, became involved in CAP in February.
“I went to a meeting at the civic center on emergency preparedness,” he said, “and met a lieutenant from CAP. We started talking, and I became interested. I like to volunteer for things, and I like kids. Now, I go to all the events and take pictures and help train cadets in military exercises.”
As a voluntary paramilitary organization, CAP is involved mainly in training youth for community service, Henry said.
“When they come in, they get aerospace education and training from FEMA so they can help in disasters. We do ground searches and air searches for downed aircraft. We also do fire watches.
“The CAP appoints an incident commander, and all the units involved are given numbers. Under the numbers are listed the resources of that particular unit, so the commander can call on any unit at any time to get the particular resources he needs.”
In World War II, obviously, those resources were vital to defense.
“After the war,” Henry said, “the future of CAP was uncertain, but Congress named CAP an auxiliary of the Air Force, and CAP started a program to train the cadets to be future leaders.
“As the cadets advance in rank, they’re expected to become leaders for those under them.”
Training may lead to career opportunities.
“They have opportunities for appointments to military academies,” Henry said. “They have opportunities for college courses. After they’ve been in CAP for so long, they have an opportunity to get a glider pilot license. As they advance, they have an opportunity for a motor-driven license.”
A cadet’s training weekend is typically action-packed.
“Last weekend, we went to Denton for a search and rescue exercise,” Henry said. “While we were there, I took a ground crew to search for [imagined] bodies from a [fictitious] plane crash. Every so often, we take them out to the Joint Naval Base and they do honor guard and color guard training.
“All participants have to continually train, so on Sunday I went out on a scanner exercise. We flew a pattern looking for a [imagined] downed plane. I was the scanner. I took a team out Saturday for a ground search. We actually looked for something, a transponder that had been set out and never picked up. We found it.”
Ground searches are highly organized.
“The cadets fall out in a line and very carefully walk over the ground,” Henry said. “One of the cadets is the head of the team. There are three senior members with them when they go out. I was one of those.”
A search usually begins with orders from the commander.
“The incident commander sets up the ground teams,” Henry said. “The ground teams have to have ground training. Pilots are appointed to fly the area [in a Cessna 172]. They fly what is called a route search. They fly what is called a continuous line back and forth.
“If the [downed] pilot didn’t file a flight plan, a search like that is not going to reveal anything. So, you have to start expanding the search. The ground team has to have direct information about where to go. They can’t just go out to any area and start searching. They search with the flight plan. If no flight plan was filed, the plane above has to locate the [downed] plane.”
Cadets come in all ages and sizes.
“Our cadets are 12 to 18,” Henry said. “Even the younger ones are called in to help. They’re impressive, very learned and eager. They get promotions by doing a certain amount of prescribed work. A lot of it is done on Internet. The cadets can do the work at home if they have computers. Otherwise, we go to Hill County library the second Thursday of every month, and they can do computer work there.”
Though there are no longer Nazi submarines to bomb, it isn’t easy being a CAP cadet.
“They have to be able to handle double schooling. They need to be pretty sharp to study Civil Air Patrol [curriculum] and maintain their grades in school.
“Kids are kids, so we allow a certain amount of latitude. I think we’ve allowed a little too much, and I’m going to try to change that. I think we should be saluting, and I’m going to do a bit of the training myself in marching. You have to march sharply to make an impression. I’m going to try to get them marching a little better.”

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