Civilian Pilot Training Program - Entry Into War

Entry Into War

After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entrance into World War II, the CPTP changed forever, including the name. The Civilian Pilot Training Program became the War Training Service (WTS) and, from 1942 to 1944, served primarily as the screening program for potential pilot candidates. Students still attended classes at colleges and universities and flight training was still conducted by private flight schools, but all WTS graduates were required to sign a contract agreeing to enter the military following graduation. There is a list of colleges and universities participating in the CPTP in '43-'44 in the appendix of "They Flew Proud".

The CPTP/WTS program was largely phased out in the summer of 1944, but not before 435,165 people, including hundreds of women and African-Americans, had been taught to fly. Notable legends trained under the CPTP include: Astronaut/Senator John Glenn, top Navy ace Alexander Vraciu, Douglas test pilot Robert Rahn, top World War II ace Major Richard Bong, triple ace Bud Anderson, former Senator George McGovern, WASP Dora Dougherty and Tuskegee airman Major Robert W. Deiz. The CPTP admirably achieved its primary mission, best expressed by the title of aviation historian Dominick Pisano's book — “To fill the skies with pilots.”

Two of the largest CPT/WTS schools were Piedmont Aviation, operated by Tom Davis, and Southern Airways, operated by Frank W. Hulse. Piedmont's school was based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, while Southern had schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, Greenville and Camden, South Carolina, and in Birmingham and Decatur, Alabama. Both companies trained over 60,000 war pilots including young men from Brazil (Piedmont) and a large number of Royal Air Force pilots from England (Southern). By 1947 Davis had turned his school into Piedmont Airlines with scheduled passenger flights between North Carolina and Ohio. In 1949, Hulse had Southern Airways flying commercial service between Jacksonville, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee, and between Atlanta and Charlotte. Both airlines began operations with war surplus Douglas DC-3 aircraft that were modified for commercial service in their former CPT/WTS maintenance hangars.

One of the few women instructors in the CPTP later wrote about her experiences. With the threat of war rising on the horizon, Opal Kunz renewed her pilot’s license after taking a refresher course at Hagerstown, Maryland, and began teaching aviation students at the Arkansas State College (now Arkansas State University). She later moved to Rhode Island, and at the start of World War II became an instructor at the Rhode Island State Airport Terminal for Navy cadets and the government sponsored “Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP)” during the war, teaching over 400 young men how to fly for the Air Corps. This was her old dream of the Betsy Ross Air Corps come true, as she helped train the men who would fly fighter aircraft in combat. An account from the time shows the work she was doing by saying: “Mrs. Kunz has been in Providence since January as a member of the staff of E. W. Wiggins Airways. She has a mother’s confidence in her ‘boys’ and they reciprocate with respect and enthusiasm. Nothing gives her greater joy than to see them solo, to know she has taken them one step nearer to Uncle Sam’s aerial defense line.” Later, at her home in California, she would recall with fondness her experiences. “I trained about 400 boys and it was easily the highlight of my career. I really became a sort of foster mother to them. You would be surprised how many of my boys brought their wives and children to see me after the war.” She also indicated in a letter that she had trained combat pilots. “...I was a flight instructor all during the war. Had over three hundred students who served as combat pilots in the war.”