Hoping to capture its wartime heritage for posterity, the Civil Air Patrol is searching for World War II-era members to record their memories of defending US coastlines from the German U-boat threat. “Not only do we want to preserve the precious memories of our organization’s early existence, . . . we want to say ‘thank you’ for their service. It was, and still is, deeply appreciated,” said Col. Robert Castle, wing commander of the Oklahoma CAP. Although more the 60 CAP members died in World War II, sinking two German submarines, little official history exists today documenting CAP’s earliest days. This is “part of a national effort to find and recognize these civilian veterans before it’s too late,” Castle said. Legislation to award CAP the Congressional Gold Medal for the wartime contributions of its members is pending in Congress. (Tinker report by 2nd. Lt. Howdy Stout)
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…