Fairchild 24 Sean Neal pays tribute to history

“AT THE END OF THE WAR, there was an interview with a senior German U-boat commander asking why they pulled their submarines from the Atlantic coast in 1943,” American Airlines Boeing 737 captain Sean Neal recalls. His reply was, It was because of those damn little red and yellow airplanes!” The little red and yellow airplanes the U-boat skipper was referring to were the general aviation aircraft pressed into service by the newly formed Civil Air Patrol CAP) in 1942 to report, deter, and disrupt the operations of German submarines, which had begun to devastate merchant vessels along the East Coast that January.

- JAN TEGLER

Civilian-liveried types, including the Stinson 10, Grumman Widgeon, Stinson Reliant, Sikorsky S-39, and Fairchild 24 had CAP markings applied, were armed and went to war for 18 months until August 1943, patrolling Atlantic and Gulf Coast waters at 21 coastal patrol bases extending from Maine to the Mexican border. They effectively drove U-boats from American waters and led President Franklin Roosevelt to transfer CAP from the Office of Civilian Defense to the Department of War.

Built in 1940, Neal’s Fairchild 24 pays tribute to the brave CAP pilots who volunteered to go aloft in the type in all kinds of weather to search for submarines, a dangerous mission that cost many their lives.

That history is near and dear to Neal, who joined the CAP at the age of 15 and now commands CAP’s Mid-Eastern Group from its New York Wing as a Lieutenant Colonel.

Seated in a CAP tent during the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s popular World War II Weekend airshow in June, Neal wearing a WW II vintage CAP uniform, related how he and his wife Susan formed the idea to buy a Fairchild 24.

Honoring CAP Veterans 

Sean and Susan Neal have enjoyed being a part of the World War II weekend at Reading Regional Airport just over the hill from Reading, Pennsylvania for many years. In the mid-2000s they met Mike Strieter there.

Neal says his wife loved Strieter’s Stinson SR5A, and the two were interested in the airplane. But they learned that the well-known Maryland-based antique aircraft fly-in organizer sold his Reliant to Harry Ballance Jr.—an aircraft featured in the July/ August issue of Flight Journal—the week before the 2006 airshow at Reading.