Army & Navy And Civilian Defense: Chick into Eaglet

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The Civil Air Patrol, a chick of the defense program, hatched in the disorderly nest of the Office of Civilian Defense, last week began to look like an eaglet.

When war first broke, Washington grounded all civilian flyers, suspended their flying licenses until they could prove that they were citizens of the U.S. or its Allies. They were permitted to make strictly regulated flights anywhere except over a 150-mile strip along the West Coast and over designated military areas.

Some 100,000 citizens, 40% of them graduates of the Civil Aeronautics training program, had licenses to fly, owned 27,500 certified planes. Army & Navy had already tapped this source for flying cadets, had taken over some private planes. But OCD figured that thousands who were unavailable for military service because of age, sex, physical defects, would still be available for much useful home-front work: carrying messages, patrol work, etc. The Army thought there might be something in the idea, assigned Major General John F. Curry to head newborn CAP.

Last week, in Ohio, CAPsters air-patrolled two gas mains which supply nitroglycerine plants, air-guarded a reservoir near Youngstown. CAP enrollments had reached 15,000, were coming in at the rate of 800 a day. A "wing commander" had been appointed in every State. CAP said it could use some 100,000 non-flying recruits: as ground crews, as drivers to taxi Army pilots from railroad stations to airports, in humdrum but necessary office work.