SKY SENTINELS

[Music] [Music] This is Hollywood, USA, fabulous, romantic Hollywood, the modern Baghdad, where overnight a sales girl or a car hop can become a world-renowned glamour queen or a [Music] princess. Concentrated here and in the nearby suburbs are the great motion picture studios, sprawling cities of makebelieve where dreams come by the real. Below the 20th Century Fox lot in Beverly Hills, behind the doors of this sound stage, a picture is in the making. Directed by Henry King, one of the best known producer directors in the film colony hat. Print that. Okay, Roy. Thank you. Very nice. Mr. King moment I didn't give him. Excuse me. It's your call. Mr. Lear's on the line. Thank you, sir. Uh, you better prepare to get wet. You're going to another set. Uh, George will give you a call. Hello, Bill. This is Henry. Remember the uh film I told you about the other day? I have a print for you. Good. I knew you would. Uh, I uh will be down there anyway tomorrow for a CAP meeting. Suppose I drop into your office then. Good. Fine. See you then. Bye. [Music] Henry King is not only a motion picture director, but he is also a colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, the country's only uniformed and disciplined organization of civilian flyers trained for missions in support of the Air Force in peace and war. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Friday will be fine. Mr. Le will see you at 2:00. Thank you. Goodbye. Mr. Mr. Lair's office. Just a moment, please. Hello, Colonel King. Mr. Lair is expecting you. Thank you, Miss. The two men not only are warm personal friends and fellow flyers, but both are capinals, and both are members of the national advisory staff of that organization. They have a strong mutual interest in the film King is about to show. for the pictures about a full dress rehearsal for the vital role CAP will play if war comes. [Music] This is a Nevada desert. This is Yaka Flats. Early on a cold May morning, 2,000 anxious observers, newsmen from magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, as well as public officials, the military, and civil defense personnel waiting. The light you see marks a tower 2 miles away. on top of which rests an atomic device, a flash 20 times more powerful than the sun. And then this is operation Q. [Music] In the wake of the blast, a cloud of atomic dust, beautiful and deadly. But for these civilian flyers, members of the Nevada Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, there is still work to do. This is a rehearsal for the tasks to be performed by these civilian flyers and 90,000 others like them. If disaster, natural or man-made, really strikes, an important task will be the removal of the critically injured from the disaster areas. Light planes will be used too to evacuate the aged and infirm and small children. [Music] Linked by radio with their home bases or with mobile stations close to the scene of disaster, these civilian flyers can be anywhere they are needed in a matter of [Music] minutes. Many of these light planes will carry doctors and nurses and other civil defense personnel into the disaster area. And there will be other more exacting missions like aerial photography for damage evaluation that require the most careful precision flying. That kind of flying requires instruments. Not just the normal kind like the altimeter and tachometer and airspeed indicator or the artificial horizon, but special aids that not only make the flyer's job less fatiguing, but also permit him to devote his attention to jobs other than merely keeping his plane in the air. jobs like careful visual reconnaissance or methodically plotting information on his charts. Most CAP planes are privately owned and not all civilian flyers can afford fully automatic pilots like this one, but some of them have less expensive equipment like this gadget and automatic rudder control which is much less expensive and gives the pilot a large measure of freedom and safety. And there are courier missions to be flown with medical and surgical supplies, blood plasma, and other critical materials. This is no job for the oldtime seat of the pants flyer. For in time of disaster, these missions must be flown regardless of weather conditions. That means instruments like this very high frequency radio. When and if America's civilian pilots and private plane owners are called upon to perform air support missions in time of actual attack, they'll need certain minimum radio equipment. Defense officials urge private plane owners to equip their planes with at least a small highfrequency radio transmitter and receiver. For during an actual war emergency, the air defense command cannot let them fly, though their services are vital, unless they are constantly controlled by radio. After an attack, areas contaminated by radioactive fallout will have to be checked with instruments like these or radiation in order that the populace may be warned to evacuate or go underground. The CAP will fly these missions, too. With its more than 5,000 light planes, ranging from cubs to small twin engine planes, radiological monitoring is tedious work. It requires a cool head and a steady hand for the plane must be flown in exact predetermined patterns at a constant altitude. Operation Q was important to these volunteer civilian flyers. They pioneered a dramatic new role for the light plane. It wasn't the first time the CAP has been called upon to prove the capability of the light plane in time of emergency. Civilian light planes like these flown by CAP volunteers proved their worth in World War II flying search and rescue courier missions and even anti-ubmarine patrol far off the Atlantic and Gulf [Music] coasts. These flyers are all civilian volunteers who have been given the right to wear the uniform of the US Air Force with their own distinctive insignia. Most of the 5,300 planes they fly are privately owned. The CAP is an official auxiliary of the Air Force and works hand in hand with it in the nation's defense. To coordinate the task of its 2500 units throughout the country, CAP has its own radio network of more than 11,000 stations, including mobile facilities like these provided by these jeeps and permanent facilities such as this one at airfields all over the United States. In an emergency, CAP can provide not only its own flight services for planes and crews, but also its own weather advisories. And if an attack ever comes, the Flying Minutemen of the Civil Air Patrol again will be ready to serve on a moment's notice alongside their fellow Americans of the armed services. [Applause] It's a pretty thrilling job those civilian flyers are doing. And our two colonels have every right to be proud of their part in the CAP program. And they can be equally proud of the job CAP is doing with its youth program to encourage American youngsters to seek technical careers in aviation. Development of instruments like these requires highly trained engineers. One of the gravest problems facing the nation today is a shortage of engineering graduates in the various technical fields. In its youth aviation education program, the CAP is guiding an ever growing number of young men and women into scientific careers. Complicated equipment like these autopilots and servos can be developed only by trained engineers. But of even more immediate concern to the CAP flyers is efficient radio communications equipment. so essential to disaster operations. Are you finished with the screening, Mr. Lair? I'm holding a phone call from CAP operations for Colonel King. All right, Miss Andrews. Thank you, Bill. Hello. Oh, yes, Major. Yes. Where? How long ago? Of course, right away. Bill, I'm going to have to leave you. So, well, there's a plane unreported and overdue at International. There's going to be a search mission. [Music] This is Terrone power. In time of disaster, whether it comes as a result of a great hurricane or a nuclear attack, there are many jobs the men and women here on the home front are called upon to do. They are important jobs like the role of the Civil Air Patrol. Since before Pearl Harbor, the men and women of the CAP, pilots, observers, radio operators, first aid specialists, weather advisers have been serving their country and their fellow man in peace as well as war. They continue to live up to their warborn motto, seer vigilance, always vigilant. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat.