The Civil Air Patrol During World War II ThompsonDr. KressWorld War II27 November 2001 On December 1, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order that started the Civil Air Patrol. No one, not even its creator, Gill Robb Wilson, foresaw the importance that Cap would play in protecting the waters along the coast from the dreaded German U-boats attacking the shipping lanes. Sixty years later the CAP is still going strong. Performing its missions of aerospace education, cadet programs and search and rescue, CAP is preparing todays youth to become successful leaders. This was not all that CAP has done. In the beginning of its creation, CAP played a major role in the defense of the U.S. during World War II. CAP played a vital role in the coastal defense of the Southern and Eastern coasts of the U.S. that could not have been done effectively by any other agency at that time.CAP can trace its history back to the late 1930s and a man named Gill Robb Wilson. Wilson was an editor for The New York Herald Tribune and a pilot. Wilson believed that civilian aviators and aircraft could be organized as a homeland air defense group to protect the U.S. against spies, saboteurs. He was able to convince the governor of his home state of New Jersey, Charles Edison and later Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York. Wilson believed that his Civil Air Defense Service could be used to police airports, fingerprint anyone involved in aviation, use private aircraft for liaison work, and patrol along uninhabited areas of the coastline. By April 1941, a proposal of the Civil Air Patrol, based on Wilsons model, was submitted to President Roosevelt. Then on December 1, 1941 President Roosevelt signed an executive order that allowed the creating of the Civil Air Patrol under the control of the Office of Civilian Defense. This was CAPs first lucky break for had it not been signed into existence before December 7, it pilots may have never h...
