America entered the war with meager maritime defenses on the East Coast. Gasoline and oil shortages grew and vital war supplies for Europe were nearly choked off as enemy subs operated with impunity—often within sight of the beach. Tankers and freighters were going to the bottom in record numbers. While the American military frantically geared up to meet the threat, ships were torpedoed in the mouth of the Connecticut River and in the Saint Lawrence. One surfaced sub actually motored right into outer New York harbor on January 15, navigating by reference to a New York City tourist map and visible landmarks like the Ferris wheel at Coney Island. Subs could blast their prey at night as targets became silhouetted against still brightly lit coastal resorts. Usually unopposed, they could attack on the surface using deck guns to conserve torpedoes. Even years later, New Jersey teens termed their secluded romantic interludes on the beach, "Watching The Submarine Races."
As tankers burned, Philadelphia-based Sun Oil (Sunoco), along with other concerned companies, established a "Tanker Protection Fund" to establish civilian coastal patrol bases until government financial support caught up. Volunteers came from everywhere and within months, some 40,000 signed up, ranging from over-age World War I fliers to aviation heroes and Hollywood celebrities.
CAP pilots provided their own airplanes and equipment, and often couldn’t cover expenses on their $8 per flying-day government pay, which often arrived two months late. Civic organizations across the nation chipped in with "Sink-a-Sub Clubs," staging fund raisers for Coastal Patrol.
The military required an initial 90-day trial in early 1942 to prove civilians could do the job, so Coastal Patrol began as an experiment at the three "hot spots" of the submarine bloodbath: Atlantic City, New Jersey; Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; and Lantana, Florida. Flying up to 200 miles offshore were pilots whose previous over water experience had been crossing the wide part of the Delaware River from below Wilmington over to the South Jersey side. They wore military uniforms and "U.S." insignia so they would be prisoners of war if captured, not shot as guerrillas.
Atlantic City’s initial flight was out only 15 minutes when it spotted its first torpedoed tanker and started coordinating rescue efforts. The presence of CAP raised tanker crew morale during the war and was even credited with convincing torpedoed tanker men to accept another assignment back at sea. A CAP crew first interrupted a sub attack on a flight out of Rehoboth Beach, saving a tanker off Cape May, New Jersey. Since radio calls for military bombers were often unproductive, unarmed CAP fliers dived in mock attacks to force subs to break and run.
Many CAP aviators earned membership in the "Duck Club" for their numerous engine failures and subsequent ditchings at sea. Radio calls to CAP’s communications network, if made in time on weak one-watt sets, brought CAP twin-engine Grumman Widgeon amphibians to the rescue. The first Air Medals of World War II presented in person by President Roosevelt went to CAP pilots Eddie Edwards and Hugh Sharp for one such rescue, which saved one of two crewmembers down in a bitterly cold wintertime ditching. Edwards had to perch on the Widgeon’s wing to counterbalance the loss of the opposite pontoon, ripped away in the rescuers’ landing. A half-frozen Edwards clung there for 11 hours as the unflyable Widgeon was water taxied all night to shore.
CAP planes got bombs and depth charges after a crew watched in vain as a grounded sub off Cape Canaveral, Florida, escaped before the military arrived. CAP Coastal Patrol flew 24 million miles, found 173 subs, attacked 57, hit 10 and sank two. By Presidential Executive Order, CAP became an auxiliary of the Army Air Forces on April 29, 1943. The military had resisted "those country-club pilots" and their "toy planes," but 21 CAP Coastal Patrol bases from Maine to Texas had soon deterred close-in submarine operations. By August 31, 1943, it was time for Coastal Patrol to stand down. A German commander later confirmed that coastal U-boat operations were withdrawn "because of those damned little red and yellow airplanes."