More eyes in the skies would be indispensable if America's ships were going to avoid German submarines and reach their destinations with precious cargoes of fuel and supplies.
Just days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the U.S. entry into World War II, the Civil Air Patrol was formed and soon began watching over the nation's coasts and borders. The first two bases were at Atlantic City and Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Over the next few years, at least 59 CAP members were killed during missions. Nearly half of them — 26 — died on patrols, and 90 aircraft were lost.
That sacrifice along with the service of thousands of their comrades during World War II prompted President Obama this year to sign legislation awarding the federally supported nonprofit Congressional Gold Medal.
The honor — recipients include many original CAP veterans in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — is the first major recognition for the Air Force civilian auxiliary group's role in the war and comes at a time when, nationally, fewer than 100 members from that era are still alive.
A formal presentation of the medal is expected during a ceremony in December on Capitol Hill, CAP officials said.
"I was really surprised," said Salvador Castro, 89, who joined CAP's New Jersey Wing in 1942 in Newark and now lives in Levittown. "I didn't think we would get anything like that."
CAP was "critical to keeping the subs away from the shipping lanes off the coast," said Harry Mutter, 84, who joined the Pennsylvania Wing in 1945 and lives in Media. "It provided a valuable service, protecting both military ships and tankers.
"Civilian pilots were putting their lives at stake and deserve the Congressional Gold Medal," he said.
The idea for augmenting the U.S. military at home with a general aviation organization came in 1938 from Gill Robb Wilson, who traveled to Germany before the war as aviation editor of the New York Herald Tribune. With conflict on the horizon, he recommended to the New Jersey governor that the state establish a civil air fleet.
A former World War I pilot and state director of aeronautics in the 1930s, Wilson successfully pushed his plan, eventually saw it approved by the military, and became the group's founder and first director.
"New Jersey prides itself that Gill Robb Wilson saw the need to protect our shoreline," said Col. Steven Tracy, commander of CAP's New Jersey Wing, headquartered at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. "He gathered private pilots together and lobbied politicians" to create an organization that now has 60,000 members and 1,500 squadrons in 52 wings in 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
The New Jersey Wing has 1,250 members in 23 squadrons and the Pennsylvania Wing has 2,100 members in 61 squadrons. They perform search-and-rescue operations, assist the Department of Homeland Security, run courier service missions, and provide cadet programs for teenagers and aerospace education for them as well as adults.
The awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal "is long overdue," Tracy said. "We have been lobbying Congress for some time to honor those [early CAP members] who served their country.
"I'm glad the honor is being given now, even to the families of lost loved ones."
The late Maury Betchen of Cherry Hill was among the early CAP members, serving as an aircraft maintenance inspector in 1942 and '43 before going into the Army. He died in 2009. "He was extremely proud of his service and what he was able to do for his country," said his son Henry Betchen, 66, of Highland, Ind., who accompanied his father to CAP reunions at Rehoboth Beach.
Among early CAP supporters was Sun Oil president J. Howard Pew, who contributed the first $10,000 to set up the Atlantic City and Rehoboth Beach bases, Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields said.
The donation came at the urging of William D. Mason, a Sun Oil supervisor at the Marcus Hook refinery who was on loan to the government as facilities security director of the Petroleum Administration for War at the time. Other oil companies and the government also helped fund CAP.
"Sun Oil played an integral part in the establishment of these coastal patrols, and our ships and employees would have been some of the main beneficiaries of CAP's efforts," Shields said.
Next year, ceremonies will be held at the Marcus Hook industrial complex, where there's a memorial to 141 Sun Oil seamen who lost their lives to German U-boat attacks during World War II.
Seventeen Sun Oil tankers - turned over to the U.S. government during the war - were attacked nine times by enemy subs, Shields said. Four of them were sunk.
As time passed, CAP's duties grew. Its members towed airborne targets for antiaircraft gun practice, looked for spies crossing borders, ferried spare parts, watched for forest fires, provided disaster relief, and conducted search-and-rescue missions.
Though usually unarmed, the single-engine planes even reportedly dropped bombs that sank a German sub off Atlantic City and another off Florida's coast. The Defense Department has not confirmed the claims.
"The U.S. armed forces were short-handed," said CAP Lt. Col. Greg Widenfeld, historian of the New Jersey Wing. "Without a doubt, CAP took the lead in the homefront effort."
The veterans of that time "are so overwhelmed" to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, said Tech. Sgt. George Brizek, assistant historian of the Pennsylvania Wing, headquartered at Fort Indiantown Gap. "I've talked to several of them and they felt they just did what they had to do."
©2014 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by MCT Information Services.
