Battle of the Atlantic

[flyboy53]

Much to my surprise, I found a World War II historical monograph of U.S. Navy combat operations, The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943, that had quite a bit about the CAP, with a lot of glowing remarks such as...."In anti-submarine warfare, (the CAP's) coastal patrol squadrons were outstanding in quality and impressive in numbers."

The historical survey reports about the Bar Harbor base and how 35 members and six aircraft arrived on 24 Aug 1942 to take over the airport and the one available building that had a dirt floor and a roof full of holes. The personnel had to repair the builiding, dig, build, set up shop and lauched their first patrols 11 days later.

The history doesn't address actual U-Boat attacks or sinkings. It does say, however, that CAP strength in June 1943 was set at 75,000 of which 10 percent were women. The 26 Coastal Patrol fatalities ranged in age from 19 to 50 and that 90 aircraft were lost. The total number of CAP hours flown by September 1943 was 244,000; the total number of missions flown were 86,685, of which 5,684 were escorting convoys.

In addition to the 173 submarines sighted, there were 91 reports of vessels in distress and rafts or life boats containing 363 survivors...one of those vessels being the Gertrude sunk off Havana on 15 July 1942 whose crew was found by two CAP aircraft after 11 other military craft passed overhead.

This book said the reason why CAP was pulled off Coastal Patrol and transferred to other duties on 1 September 1943 was because Coast Guard cutters began replacing other patrol craft as the Navy took over all aspects of anti-sub warfare on the Atlantic Coast.

Another interesting tidbit in the book was that CAP's headquarters on 23 June 1943 were at 500 Fifth Avenue, New York City with Col. Harry Blee, U.S. Army, commanding.

[RiverAux]

Some good discussion in this old thread: http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=3243.0

[BillB]

I hope people are sending this material to Billy Mitchell and Jim Shaw. Perhaps it's time to collect all the material that keeps popping up and rewrite "Flying Minute Men". Since that book first came out there have been lots of new material that would replace parts of the book.

[flyboy53]

Something else in the book that was a surprise to me was this quote:

"If the Navy wanted anything from blood plasma to a bomb sight to be flown anywhere in a hurry, or a message delivered to a ship at sea, the CAP was always ready to take off."

I never knew we flew WW II missions of this type for the Navy.

By the way, according to the book, the first patrols from the Bar Harbor base were the area between Quoddy Head and Port Clyde. It said that the convoy escort performed by the CAP crews from Bar Harbor, Portland and Falmouth (Cape Cod) crews were "an integral part of air escort for Boston to Halifax convoys."

Another thing that was a surprise was the statement that in the summer of 1943, the CAP responded to "a hurry call" from the AAF's Ferry Command and one (unidentified) wing provided 50 trained pilots in three days (for ferry duty)....?

By the way, the book was written by Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard History Professor, who during WW II was a reserve lieutenant commander and historian for the Navy. He retired as a rear admiral. This specific book is one of a collection of 15 that detailed the Navy's WW II operations.

[SarDragon]

Morison's works should be viewed with a bit of skepticism. He had some tendencies toward intentional misinformation and embellishment.

[RRLE]

The monograph is Vol 1 of the 15 Volume History of United States Naval Operations In World War II. The CAP section, titled Civil Air, is on pages 276-281. The CAP section is part of Chapter 11, Amateurs and Auxilaries.

Volume 10, The Atlantic Battle Won May 1943-May 1945 is the continuation of the Atlantic battle story. No Amateurs or Auxiliaries are listed in the index to Vol 10.

[AdAstra]

For its efforts, CAP was awarded the American Campaign streamer with Bronze Star for Anti-Submarine; Distinguished/Presidential Unit Citation (Air Force); and Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with Combat "V". About four years ago, I saw these streamers on the CAP-USAF flag in the old conference room at National Headquarters.

[RiverAux]

If they were on the CAP-USAF flag then they weren't awarded to CAP or they would be on a CAP flag. 

[octavian]

I always wondered why CAP's World War II honors are on the CAP-USAF flag since CAP earned them and CAP-USAF did not exist in WWII.

[davidsinn]

I always wondered why CAP's World War II honors are on the CAP-USAF flag since CAP earned them and CAP-USAF did not exist in WWII.

Because CAP-USAF doesn't have any of their own?

[RiverAux]

Some further discussion of the campaign streamer issue here: http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=4549.0

[sardak]

From the Air Force Historical Research Agency website, under Organizational Records - Named Organizations:
http://www.afhra.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=15355

Civil Air Patrol, USAF (AETC)
Lineage. Established as Civil Air Patrol on 28 May 1943. Activated on 1 Jun 1943. Redesignated National Headquarters, Civil Air Patrol on 15 Sep 1944. Redesigated Civil Air Patrol, USAF on 28 Aug 1948.

Assignments: HQ, Army Air Forces (AAF), 1 Jun 1943; AAF Training Command, 1 May 1945; HQ AAF, 12 Feb 1946; Air Defense Command, 1 Aug 1947; HQ USAF, 1 Feb 1948; Headquarters Command USAF, 19 Jan 1949; Continental Air Command, 1 Jan 1959; Headquarters Command USAF, 1 Aug 1968; Air University, 1 Jul 1976-

Service Streamers. World War II, American Theater.

Campaign Streamers. None.

Armed Forces Expeditionary Streamers. None.

Decorations. Air Force Organizational Excellence Awards, 7 times through 2009, the last update of the web page.

Mike