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To: SAMWolf
I seem to remember Civil Air Patrol efforts to counter the U-Boat threat along the Eastern Seaboard...to wit:
(Source: http://history.nhq.cap.gov/from_the_cap_historical_research.htm)

From the CAP Historical Research Department

LTC Allan F. Pogorzelski, CAP and LTC Axel I. Ostling, CAP

Additional research indicates the following source. The book is "Jeeps in the Sky" (the story of the light Plane) written by Lt Col Andrew Ten Eyck with a forward by Colonel Robert L. Scott, Jr. for AFIPR, Headquarters Army Air Forces. The copyright is 1946 by Army Air Forces Aid Society, First Printing in the U.S.A. by the Tenny Press.

Page 27....

" Although the victory against the submarine was a joint operation of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and the CAP, it is a fact that the U-boats disappeared in direct proportion to the spread of CAP operations. The Berlin radio commenting on the dwindling effectiveness of its underseas campaign, complained of the unexpected appearance of the fleets of civilian aircraft as the main hazard which forces the U-boats out of our coastal waters. "

I would submit this information written in 1945-46 as direct source information source.

The picture is from the CAP Carroll Composite Sqdn Web Site.

30 posted on 05/20/2003 9:57:36 AM PDT by HiJinx (The right person, in the right place, at the right time...)
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To: HiJinx
These civilians, with no formal military training, would leave their homes and families in the morning, go to fight in war, and return home for supper. They were the only men to do this since the revolutionary war.

American spirit bump.

Feels like Casablanca around here today.:)

32 posted on 05/20/2003 10:10:39 AM PDT by snippy_about_it (Pray for our Troops)
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To: HiJinx
Yep I remember that story. DIdin't hey actually get credit for sinking one U-boat?
35 posted on 05/20/2003 10:32:43 AM PDT by SAMWolf ((A)bort (R)etry (A)sk 12 Year Old?)
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To: HiJinx

Lockheed Hudson Over U-Boat, 1942

37 posted on 05/20/2003 10:42:58 AM PDT by SAMWolf ((A)bort (R)etry (A)sk 12 Year Old?)
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To: HiJinx
Love your photo of the Cessna(? not good at light aircraft ID from that era) making a bomb run on the surfaced VII-C. Early war U-boat, the later ones utterly bristled with antiaircraft guns, would usually destroy an attacking Mosquito or TBF, very bad news. I will bet you a nickel that those CAP guys made attacks with their tiny bombs on those late war U-boats without hesitation. Utterly aware it was certain death.
61 posted on 05/20/2003 2:19:18 PM PDT by Iris7 ("It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." - Gen. Robert Edward Lee)
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