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Wacky CAP History

Started by yolo, January 16, 2022, 04:04:40 PM

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yolo

Calling out to all historians (or anyone with some good knowledge)! What's a random piece of CAP history you know that almost doesn't sound true?

etodd

I'll start the fight by mentioning CAP members sinking submarines. LOLOLOL
"Don't try to explain it, just bow your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on ..."

James Shaw

CAP was once tasked with shooting coyotes and could sell the pelts to recover costs to save the cattle.
Jim Shaw
USN: 1987-1992
GANG: 1996-1998
CAP:2000 - Current
USCGA:2018 - Current
SGAUS: 2017 - Current

heliodoc

SOS

Did they take the doors off, one seat out?

Were they small enough guys or did they all look like Daniel Boone?

heliodoc

etodd

As once CAPtalker says here....cite please!  LOLOLOL

heliodoc

I know there are some folks here and on the social media that seem to dream about helicopters and A10s in CAP, about every six months or so......that is some piece of history that will never come true....

Spam

I will see your faked sub sinkings and raise you a consipiracy. Well, one of the prize winning wackiest might be, "One of our cadets grew up to defect to the communists, and then later shot and killed a president"?

(Kid in the back, on the right, shown here at a LAWG CAP event in 1955):

See
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/glimpses-of-a-life/

Also
https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/33791580512102-lee-harvey-oswald-1955-civil-air-patrol-photograph/?cat=0

(ducks and covers)
Spam

N6RVT

Quote from: Strategic Organizational Safety (S.O.S.) on January 16, 2022, 04:29:07 PMCAP was once tasked with shooting coyotes and could sell the pelts to recover costs to save the cattle.

Civil Air Patrol significantly contributed the the extinction of the western plains wolf.  Its s part of CAP history they like to keep covered up, but if you look through aviation magazines from the 1950's its the subject of a lot of articles.

RiverAux

Oh, I don't buy that CAP had that big of an impact on coyotes or wolves. 

Spam

Quote from: RiverAux on January 16, 2022, 09:05:24 PMOh, I don't buy that CAP had that big of an impact on coyotes or wolves. 

"Denier"! Follow the science!

LOL - kidding, River!

Cheers
Spam

Eclipse

Quote from: Strategic Organizational Safety (S.O.S.) on January 16, 2022, 04:29:07 PMCAP was once tasked with shooting coyotes and could sell the pelts to recover costs to save the cattle.

This document: https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=456489

Has no author listed, but was purported to have been retrieved from
CAP Level 2, it appears there's something to this.

"That Others May Zoom"

Holding Pattern

CAP would fly low over orchards to keep them from freezing. One of the stranger mission files I ever saw.

JohhnyD

Quote from: Holding Pattern on January 17, 2022, 02:35:06 AMCAP would fly low over orchards to keep them from freezing. One of the stranger mission files I ever saw.
That is cool. Or hot. Or whatever.

MSG Mac

In addition to Lee Harvey Oswald. The Texas Book Depository was owned by BG Harold Byrd, Chairman of the Board of CAP
Michael P. McEleney
Lt Col CAP
MSG USA (Retired)
50 Year Member

Jester

In WWII we had members, including cadets, responsible for guarding airfields using their own weapons.

LSThiker

Quote from: Jester on January 18, 2022, 02:53:46 PMIn WWII we had members, including cadets, responsible for guarding airfields using their own weapons.

Not only that, but for a small period of time, all civil aircraft came under CAP control.

In addition, for a period of time during WWII, CAP was responsible for flying over farms and identifying piles of metal to be taken for recycling.

yolo

Quote from: LSThiker on January 18, 2022, 08:03:23 PM
Quote from: Jester on January 18, 2022, 02:53:46 PMIn WWII we had members, including cadets, responsible for guarding airfields using their own weapons.

Not only that, but for a small period of time, all civil aircraft came under CAP control.


Wait, what?!

LSThiker

Quote from: yolo on January 19, 2022, 01:12:29 AM
Quote from: LSThiker on January 18, 2022, 08:03:23 PM
Quote from: Jester on January 18, 2022, 02:53:46 PMIn WWII we had members, including cadets, responsible for guarding airfields using their own weapons.

Not only that, but for a small period of time, all civil aircraft came under CAP control.


Wait, what?!

It was after Earle Johnson "bombed" Cleveland factories with sandbags.  The Civil Aeronautics Association grounded all flights. All flights except commercial transportation had to be for official reasons and accomplished under an approved flight plan--given out by CAP. It also meant that the only flying civil aircraft were CAP.  So many pilots joined CAP to continue flying during the grounded period. This was also when CAP was tasked with guarding airports.

sardak

In the latest "PROPS" is this item:
Put Your Unwanted Car or Plane in the Rearview Mirror
with a link to this:
Donate your car, truck, motorcycle, RV, boat, or plane to Civil Air Patrol by simply completing the form below and we'll reach out to you to arrange the pick-up of your vehicle donation, at no cost to you.

Here is an article from TIME magazine, dated Monday June 2, 1958
TAXES: Airman at Sea

When the Miami wing of the Civil Air Patrol first got a bill for dockage of a 64-ft. yacht, the Mayan, at a Fort Lauderdale marina, Lieut. Colonel Claude F. Lowe, executive officer, just laughed and laughed. Everybody knew the Miami CAP was so poor that its members had to pay their own office phone bills. Then, when a Coral Gables man called to ask if he too could give the CAP a yacht, Lowe began to think that something was fishy.

With the help of other CAP members, he started nosing around the harbors, to his astonishment soon found two yachts with stickers identifying them as CAP property. Then he heard from the Miami Customs Office about six or seven other yachts, worth around $500,000, that in recent months had temporarily been listed as CAP property before getting other owners. The mystery of the yachts soon focused down on Miami Dock Owner Harold E. Manning, who explained that for some time he had been in the business of stocking, chartering and selling yachts that well-heeled Miamians had given to the CAP as a tax dodge. Under prevailing tax rates, an upper-bracket yacht owner can often save more on his income tax by donating a well-depreciated business yacht than by selling it on the market.

But, said Manning, the boats were given to the New York wing of the CAP, and the contact man there was one Lieut. Colonel Hugh M. Pierce, an Eastern Air Lines pilot who flies the Miami-New York run.

"You Ought to Know." Miami's Lowe appealed for help to the national CAP commander in Washington, then to the FBI and the Air Force as well. Eventually, on a flight to Miami, Pierce did look up Lowe to try to calm him down. According to Lowe, Airman Pierce said that he was "official scrounger" for the New York CAP; that by ringing doorbells he had collected enough money to buy the New York pilots the latest radio equipment, buses and other luxuries. And where did the rest of the money come from? As Lowe recalls, Pierce replied: "You've been investigating the Mayan, haven't you? You ought to know."

A few weeks later Lowe got Pierce to appear before the Miami CAP. The hard-pressed Miamians were stunned to hear New Yorker Pierce say that he had netted $118,775 from the sale of five yachts, given some of the money directly to the New York CAP, invested the rest in a Manhattan building-and-loan association and an airplane sale and rental business in Linden, N.J. He still had a string of unsold yachts and $15,500 in cash, which he offered to the Miami CAP as compensation for having solicited gifts in its territory.

"Maintain Security." By last summer the Miami yacht case was burning up the wires between Florida wing CAP headquarters and Washington. Washington appointed the deputy commander of the New York CAP, Colonel A. W. Sutter, to go to Florida to investigate. Sutter messaged ahead: "As you realize, this is a highly confidential and personal matter, and in my opinion the fewer people cognizant the less embarrassing. It is alleged that in the neighborhood of $400,000 is involved." Falling in with Sutter's theme, Washington CAP headquarters ordered the Miami CAP: "Cease all investigation. Maintain security."

Last week, in spite of all, security came unfastened. Fed up with a run-around that apparently was endless, Lieut. Colonel Lowe told all to the Miami Daily News, which played the sizzling story on Page One for two days, printed the Miami CAP auditor's report showing that CAP's Pierce and Yacht Broker Manning probably realized $218,000, failed to account for $33,000. Manning put the take at $172,000, said he had an explanation for it all.

In a last-ditch attempt to hush up trouble, a New York CAP official conceded that Pierce had no authority to accept donations of yachts ("We only take things like radio equipment that we can use"), but insisted the money was all in hand or accounted for.

The next post is one of the last newspaper articles about this activity.

sardak