{"id":39984,"date":"2011-02-11T15:02:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T20:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=39984"},"modified":"2016-01-14T12:07:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:07:17","slug":"scene-again-1940-classroom-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2011\/02\/11\/scene-again-1940-classroom-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Scene Again: Classroom in the Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1940, the Civilian Pilot Training Program put Bates students in the air<\/h3>\n
\"Catherine

Catherine Winne '41 poses in front of a Piper Cub in November 1940. Winne is believed to be the only Bates woman who learned to fly through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Photograph courtesy of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.<\/p><\/div>\n

From high in the sky, Maine looks like \u201ca land of lakes, all within a stone\u2019s throw of each other,\u201d wrote Catherine Winne \u201941 in the Oct. 30, 1940, issue of The Bates Student<\/em> following her pilot training flight.<\/p>\n

Winne is believed to be the only Bates woman who learned to fly through the government-sponsored Civilian Pilot Training Program. She\u2019s seen here in November 1940 standing in front of the program\u2019s training plane, a two-seat Piper Cub, at what is now the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it was a pre-screening thing for military pilots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Begun in 1938 to increase the number of civilian U.S. pilots, the CPTP gave flight training to hundreds of thousands of men and women, mostly college students. The program is specifically credited with creating a path for African Americans to eventually become military pilots, notably the Tuskegee Airmen. Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, and UMaine offered chapters in Maine, as did several high schools and American Legion chapters.<\/p>\n

Women were given 10 percent of the slots, which meant two spots among 20 at Bates, though they were excluded after the U.S. joined World War II. Winne, who died in 2007, was one female Bates trainee; the late Pauline Giles \u201941 attended classroom sessions but it is unclear if she ever flew.<\/p>\n

The CPTP\u2019s military importance was readily known, especially after Germany invaded Poland and France. \u201cWe knew it was a pre-screening thing for military pilots,\u201d says retired Marine Col. Armand Daddazio \u201942, who was a CPTP trainee as a Bates student. After graduating, Daddazio saw active duty in air defense artillery in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

He was on Tinian when the USS Indianapolis <\/em>delivered the atomic bomb destined for Hiroshima. \u201cHeadquarters called to ask for officers for a work party,\u201d Daddazio recalls. \u201cWe pointed out that officers don\u2019t go on work parties. The reply was, \u2018Well, they do on this one!\u2019 For security, they wanted officers to unload the bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now living in El Paso, Texas, after a career in financial services, Daddazio did not fly during or after the war. Initially interested in the Army Air Corps, he instead chose the Marines. \u201cThe casualty rate ended up pretty bad for the flying services,\u201d he recalls. \u201cMaybe the dear Lord didn\u2019t want me to fly.\u201d \u2014 HJB<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1940, the Civilian Pilot Training Program put Bates students in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[73,82,10856,6164,9140],"class_list":["post-39984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society-culture","tag-1900s","tag-1940s","tag-bates-magazine","tag-muskie-archives-and-special-collections-library","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82707,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39984\/revisions\/82707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}