Sub Chasers of the Civil Air Patrol

Started by JeffDG, February 22, 2019, 06:36:35 PM

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JeffDG


Spam

Thanks for posting this.  It was great up to 7:35, when it abruptly departed from good historical scholarship.


"The first confirmed kill by the CAP was in July..."
Thus the lies and inaccuracies are perpetuated... he offers no proof of the claim, when none has ever been documented, when the "confirmation" was CAP's own boastful statements, and when exhaustive post war analysis reveals no German losses in that area in that date range (at all).
Then again at 10:00 with the (here anonymous) "German naval officers" claims about the feared little yellow planes.


So... we've been over and over this here on CT and elsewhere. Is anyone from CAP going to have the fortitude to contact "the history guy" to set the record straight? Do we have the moral courage to acknowledge that our forbearers in CAP, while valiant and self sacrificing to the end, were also human and thus prone to exaggeration?  This borders on stolen valor, unless we correct the record firmly.  We have too many fallen heroes who gave their lives during that war to tarnish their memory with false/exaggerated claims for which there is no basis.


V/r
Spam





etodd

Look at it on the youtube page and scroll down to the Comments and you'll see where The History Guy discusses this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=Nkzkcia-7lc

To quote him here:

QuoteA viewer made the fair point that the claim by the Civil Air Patrol of sinking a U-Boat has never been confirmed by the Navy. It is part of CAP lore, but not a confirmed kill.  Confirming U-Boat "kills" has always been a difficult process.

Col Frank A. Blazich, Jr. of the CAP informed me that new research has concluded that the number of known CAP members killed in service during the war has increased from 65 to 68, and may continue to climb as records are reviewed.  They gave their all for their country, and they deserve to be remembered.
"Don't try to explain it, just bow your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on ..."

lordmonar

PATRICK M. HARRIS, SMSgt, CAP

OldGuy

Quote from: Spam on February 22, 2019, 06:54:15 PM
Thus the lies and inaccuracies are perpetuated...

V/r
Spam
Ya know, I take umbrage at that phrase. Lies? Really? As for "inaccuracies" - even that is pejorative.

The pilots and ground crews of the time reported the kills. That they are unable to be verified is neither a lie nor even an inaccuracy.  The "fog of war" is real, as were the many brave men and women who flew and fought and died as civilian militia in the air in war time. Denigrating that service is really beneath contempt.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there it is.

Eclipse

The ongoing issue isn't the original claims, but that in the face of the dispute regarding
accuracy of the reports, CAP has discreetly removed the claims from press release footers
and similar, but has never said anything definitively, and continues to take a considerable
amount of organizational satisfaction from the insinuation that those sinking(s) occurred.

There are still plenty of members who espouse the stories of the sinking(s), and CAP's
(now fairly distant) history generally takes up a significant part of recruiting efforts.

Perhaps if its marketing and daily focus was more on current operations and less on its history
this would not be as much of an issue, or as difficult to accept.

No one should ever downplay or denigrate the risk, service, and sacrifices of those early members,
but when you intertwine something like this so deeply into your organizational DNA, the only way to maintain
credibility is to accept the truth of the matter, whatever that is, and then move on.

Handled properly, this could literally be the best leadership lesson CAP ever offered.

"That Others May Zoom"

etodd

So ... who knows what the future may bring? Maybe the next phase will be the drone program. Our grandkids in CAP might one day be patrolling the coastline with sUAS armed little tiny bombs ready to drop on enemy subs!

Sorry. Just couldn't resist.  >:D >:D >:D
"Don't try to explain it, just bow your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on ..."

Color Guard Rifleman

Quote from: etodd on February 23, 2019, 04:14:48 AM
So ... who knows what the future may bring? Maybe the next phase will be the drone program. Our grandkids in CAP might one day be patrolling the coastline with sUAS armed little tiny bombs ready to drop on enemy subs!

Sorry. Just couldn't resist.  >:D >:D >:D

Yessss! Great minds think alike  :clap:
C/SMSgt Murphy Killeen, CAP
2019 MIWG Encampment Squadron 2 First Sergeant
Recruiting NCO

See the source image

Spam

Quote from: OldGuy on February 23, 2019, 03:13:05 AM
Quote from: Spam on February 22, 2019, 06:54:15 PM
Thus the lies and inaccuracies are perpetuated...

V/r
Spam
Ya know, I take umbrage at that phrase. Lies? Really? As for "inaccuracies" - even that is pejorative.

The pilots and ground crews of the time reported the kills. That they are unable to be verified is neither a lie nor even an inaccuracy.  The "fog of war" is real, as were the many brave men and women who flew and fought and died as civilian militia in the air in war time. Denigrating that service is really beneath contempt.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there it is.


Clarify please. You targeting me with the contempt there?
If so did you read my full post?


Knowingly reporting unconfirmed kills and repeating and needlessly embellishing already sacrificial and honorable service in order to secure funding is, to me, reprehensible. Decades ago we had these lies repeated to us and unless we cleanse this blot on the honor of CAP we dishonor the true sacrifices of many noble volunteers. I feel Eclipse states the problem very well.


No. I was not broad brush insulting our war volunteers. But i wont retract the terms i used. Go read the December report.


Spam

Quote from: Color Guard Rifleman on February 23, 2019, 02:43:53 PM
Quote from: etodd on February 23, 2019, 04:14:48 AM
So ... who knows what the future may bring? Maybe the next phase will be the drone program. Our grandkids in CAP might one day be patrolling the coastline with sUAS armed little tiny bombs ready to drop on enemy subs!

Sorry. Just couldn't resist.  >:D >:D >:D

Yessss! Great minds think alike  :clap:


Well, so do diseased minds unfortunately. Search for the Houthi sUAS attack last month which killed a Yemeni S2 and five others and wounded many. Iranian supplied and in combat use now in theater. There is much that is open source... and there is much testing scheduled in the next few months which will impact the counter uas mission (my shop is involved at work). A real mission support req for CAP is emerging just as in 1942.


Defending against weaponized sUAS efforts is a priority thrust. CAP may have a role here analogous to WW2 tow target work. We shall see. That however is but one of several sUAS missions... And is already controversial since some of our old guard types dont seem to support these missions.


There IS relevancy for CAP today... if we can stick to the core values and stay focused on our customers... And not on our hobby interests or ego inflation. The sub issue is as Eclipse states so well a case where we could take the high road in setting a tone for accepting new customer missions like sUAS defense training support.


Vr
Spam


NIN

Its nothing even so insidious guys.

Some of it is in the reporting, some of it is in the communication, some of it is in the embellishment at echelons above the air crews and ground crews, and some of it is CAP's own post-war "marketing efforts" to remain relevant in the face of major changes to the US Military.

Following the two main "sinking" reportings, they were listed as "damaged or destroyed." (it was a category, along with things like "sighted," "attacked," etc). Later, the "damaged or" got conveniently left out. Was that because someone at a higher level needed to ensure it looked like we were "doing our part," or was it "convenient editing" on the part of someone trying to sharpen the description of the effort in less column inches? Who knows.

70 years hence, with the lens of post-WWII historical reports, including those of the Kriegsmarine and wreck chasers, its easier to understand that even some of our reporting at the crew level may (*may*) have included a little embellishment.

The problem is that over the last 70 years or so, we've bought the "official" version from many different sources with little understanding of their sources:  Neprud's "Flying Minutemen," Glines' "Minutemen of the Air," etc. The "stories and scuttlebutt" over that time have basically become "oral legends" and are difficult to separate from facts. I don't think its anybody's fault, or anybody attempting to deliberately denigrate the accomplishments of our forebears, I think most of it is just that we like a good story, and that story is that we did our part in the war and sank two subs.

https://sevencircumstances.com/2018/06/15/the-mystery-of-the-misquoted-quote-from-the-man-who-shot-liberty-valance/

"When you had to choose between history and legend, print the legend."

Note: this is not the only instance of this sort of thing in military history, either. The history of the Tuskegee Airmen , for example, is rife with similar "short quote claims" that have built up over the years as legend, such as "They never lost a bomber to enemy fire."  Well, except the 25 they did lose to enemy fire.  Thats not to say that the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen were anything short of heroic, but you don't have to overstate their record, or rely on amplified legend, to also say that they had a significant contribution to the war.

Same goes for our subchasers. We don't need to tack on two "sinkings" that were not sinkings to make the coastal patrol's overall mission and contribution to the war effort "more significant."
Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
Wing Dude, National Bubba
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

SARDOC

Looks like this video is no longer available.

Eclipse


"That Others May Zoom"

Mitchell 1969

Besides the sunken subs issue, there's another one that bugs me. It's the claim that the U-Boat campaign was stopped "...because of those [darn]ed red and yellow airplanes!"

I've been seeing that quite for nearly 53 years. But it isn't always the same quote. It gets subtly changed depending on who is telling it.

It used to be attributed to "a German admiral."  The Video being discussed attributes it to "German naval officers."  But the biggest whopper was when I saw it attributed to none other than Großadmiral
Karl Dönitz himself!

The lies aren't in the stories origins. Things happen in the heat of battle with adrenaline flowing. The lies are in the retelling of those stories when they have not been proven to be true.


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_________________
Bernard J. Wilson, Major, CAP

Mitchell 1969; Earhart 1971; Eaker 1973. Cadet Flying Encampment, License, 1970. IACE New Zealand 1971; IACE Korea 1973.

CAP has been bery, bery good to me.

MisterCD

Quote is entirely apocryphal from everything I have found.

Fun fact: Robert Neprud plagiarized the coastal patrol chapter in Flying Minute Men from William B. Mellor's book, Sank Same. Files are at the Morse Center and digitized for those interested.

Regarding the sub sinking claim, this is the narrated version of my talk at the 2019 National Conference (for those interested).


etodd

Quote from: Mitchell 1969 on April 03, 2020, 01:00:26 AMI've been seeing that quite for nearly 53 years. But it isn't always the same quote. It gets subtly changed depending on who is telling it.


Give it another 30 years and those of us alive during that time will be gone. And the new young folks then will not talk of old ancient history, fact or fiction.  All these stories will die with us.
"Don't try to explain it, just bow your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on ..."