WWII CAP BASE TWO REHOBOTH

CIVIL AIR PATROL WWII

PATROL BASE 2

REHOBOTH AIR FIELD

March 5^th 1942 the first flight of Civil Air Patrol, Base 2 took off from the sod runways of Rehoboth Airport in single engine airplanes, maintaining daily patrols of the Delaware coast. They were searching for enemy submarines, survivors of ships being sunk and to fly cover for merchant ships leaving Cape Henlopen. Early flight's only reported suspicious vessels which had no problem to escape the Dover Army Air Station due to timing, so General Hap Arnold, the Army Air Force commander ordered the CAP to be armed. Although no Base 2 fliers were able to sink any German Subs it was later known the they had order to dive and run away when they sighted a CAP air flight. During the war CAP lost 90 aircraft and 26 pilots, two from Base 2, Rehoboth.

Source: America Homefront Air War, Roger Thiel, Michael Morgan, Delaware Diary, Delaware Coast Press, September 21, 2016.