History of CAP &

the Gold Medal

December 1, 1941

In the late 1930s, more than 150,000 volunteers with a love for aviation argued for an organization to put their planes and flying skills to use in defense of their country.  As a result, the Civil Air Patrol was born one week prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Thousands of volunteer members answered America’s call to national service and sacrifice by accepting and performing critical wartime missions.  Assigned to the War Department under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Corps, the contributions of Civil Air Patrol, including logging more than 500,000 flying hours, sinking two enemy submarines, and saving hundreds of crash victims during Wold War II, are well documented. After the war, a thankful nation understood that Civil Air Patrol could continue providing valuable services to both local and national agencies.  On July 1, 1946, President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476 incorporating Civil Air Patrol as the auxillary of the new U.S. Air Force.  Three primary mission areas were set forth at that time:  aerospace education, cadet programs, and emergency services.

December, 2014

Civil Air Patrol and its earliest members were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal for their contributions during World War II, when they forged the path the organzation and its volunteers still follow today - helping secure the homeland, selflessly and often at great sacrifice. These days, CAP’s volunteers stand ready to take on such challenges as natural and manmade disasters and searches for missing aircraft or individuals.  In CAP’s formative years, during the early days of American involvement in the war, the perils were mostly posed by enemy combatants, in the form of Nazi U-boats threatening U.S. shipping - especially oil tankers - off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. CAP’s founders flew patrols that discouraged and eventually stopped the U-boat attacks.  They also patrolled the country’s borders by air, towed targets for military trainees, spotted forest fires, conducted search and rescue missions, provided disaster relief and emergency transport of people and parts and conducted orientation flights for future pilots. In many ways, the pioneering members being honored were ahead of their time in devoting themselves to serving their communities and their country as volunteers.  And just like their CAP counterparts today, when they risked life and limb to help protect the home front during wartime they weren’t looking for recognition. Even more so, more than 70 years later they received it. Legislation in both houses of Congress awarded CAP a single Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of its members’ contributions during the war.  Many used their own aircraft to conduct volunteer compat operations and other emergency missions under hazardous conditions. They came from all walks of life.  Their ranks, more than 100,000 strong, included not only ordinary men, women and teenagers in communities throughout the country but also such prominent figures as a noted Hollywood director and world- famous pianist, a Munchkin from “The Wizard of Oz” and a sitting state governor, a storied Wall Street financier and a pioneering African-American female aviator, future Tuskegee Airmen, the head of a major brewery and the founder of a famous doughnut chain. Most of the early volunteers, unfortunately, are gone.  The Department of Veterans Affairs has said the nation’s World War II Veterans are dying at a rate of 670 a day.  Fewer than 100 CAP members from those days are known to be alive today. For information of who attended the presentation and more, please go to http://www.cap75th.com/history/