Major, 94, remembers earliest days of CAP, Ohio Wing

enlarge

(Left)
A portrait of James B. Nein in his Civil Air Patrol uniform in 1943.

(Right)
Maj. Nein today.
(Photo by 2nd Lt. Jacob Huebert)




2nd Lt. Jacob Huebert
Legal Officer
Columbus Senior Squadron
Ohio Wing

OHIO -- Ohio prides itself as the “birthplace of aviation,” having been the home of the Wright brothers.

Maj. James B. Nein of Columbus may not have been there for the birth of aviation, but at 94 he came about as close as anyone alive today – and, as a founding member of Civil Air Patrol, he was present for the birth of CAP and its Ohio Wing.

Fascination with flight

Nein’s love of aviation took flight when he was 14, in 1929. He would rise at 4 a.m. and drive the 1923 Model-T Ford his father had given him to the nearby Sullivant Airport -- gas was 9 or 10 cents a gallon -- and watch the planes take off.

The pilots would go “barnstorming,” taking up passengers to build up their own flying time. Young Nein hung around so much that he was given a job, which he enthusiastically accepted for no pay: cleaning the mud off the planes’ front, wings and landing gear after they landed at the strip.  
 
The boy befriended the pilots, too, and from time to time they would let him ride along and even give him “stick time” in the front seat. But the biggest thrill came in October 1929, when a pilot was taking one of his last flights of the year in his World War I-era Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny.”

After landing the pilot turned to Nein and said, “You’ve seen me do this all year. Now you get in the back seat and do it yourself.”

And, like something out of a movie – the sort of color, big-budget, special-effects film that wouldn’t be possible until decades later – the boy took off on his own. He spent about a half-hour in the air, taking in the city from above.

Only after he landed, got out, and looked at the plane did it hit him: “I flew that thing by myself!”

So began a lifetime of aviation for Nein, and a path that led him to the founding of CAP and the Ohio Wing.  

Nein’s wife, whom he met in 1932, made him give up flying. But before the decade was out, he convinced her to let him return to the cockpit.

Birth of CAP

Nein was in the air over Ohio on Dec. 7, 1941, when word came on the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. CAP had been founded just six days earlier by an administrative order by Fiorello H. LaGuardia, then director of the federal Office of Civilian Defense.

In less than two months, a group of about a dozen men came together and formed what would eventually be known as CAP’s Ohio Wing.
  
Nein recalls those early days, and how the men “put in a heck of a lot of time” to get their fledging organization off the ground. They scrounged for supplies – such as old desks, chairs and typewriters from the nearby defense supply center – and bounced between different headquarters.

At early meetings, they learned such things as their positions in the plane --including the roles of mission scanner and observer -- and how to pack a parachute. Nein was a buck sergeant and led drill practice.  

With the Germans and Japanese relatively unlikely to attack Ohio first, some of the men headed for New Jersey and for Panama City, Fla., to fly submarine patrols. 
 
Training cadets was critical from the outset, too. During the war years, Nein took three squadrons of 20 cadets from 16 to 18 years old to what is now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for two weeks of training to prepare them for likely military service.

Those first days of CAP included fun, though, as well. In 1942 the wing put on an air show, which included a “Miss Airshow” beauty contest. Nein was pictured in a city paper selling air show tickets to models from a “Fur Fashion Parade” at Columbus’s downtown Palace Theater.

The wing’s first aircraft was an AT6. Later the wing would get its own B-26, and of course eventually others. Nein’s squadron got a C45 twin-engine plane and another one a year later.
 
A tragedy and a close call|

The Ohio Wing suffered one early tragedy – and Nein narrowly escaped being a victim.

Col. George Stone of Columbus was commander of the wing. Stone also owned a company that sold aircraft insulation to the Army Air Corps -- which later became independent of the Army as a separate branch of the Department of War, now known as the Department of Defense – and so made regular trips to Washington, D.C.

Stone invited Nein to join him on one such trip, and Nein would have gone – except that his boss at the time wouldn’t give him the time off from his job.  

So Stone took the flight with Capt. Harry King and a crew chief. Their plane, an A20 Havoc, got into rough weather – and went down.

Stone’s funeral was held at Arlington National Cemetery, and Nein and others from Ohio flew to Washington to attend. On the way home, their plane encountered its own trouble: another storm.

Nein recalled the passenger next to him – a former B-29 pilot who had flown missions over Japan – clenching Nein’s knee in terror, fearing this plane would also go down. The plane managed an emergency landing in West Virginia.

Most of the shaken passengers took a train home, but Nein caught the next flight on the same plane the following day.

A full lifetime of contribution to CAP

Over the years and decades that followed, Nein remained active in his Columbus squadron and in the Ohio Wing. He flew search-and-rescue missions and, through his role with the wing, visited squadrons at numerous airports all over Ohio.

He recalls new squadron members at one meeting asking, “When are we gonna fly?” So he had to tell them: “If you think you’re going to get free flying time, you shouldn’t be in the Civil Air Patrol.”
 
In 1948 Nein started a successful printing business with his brother, a former B-17 bombardier. He also lived a life rich with other exciting activities, from racing inboard hydroplane boats down major rivers to becoming a champion trap shooter to traveling to exotic fishing locations all over Latin America.  

Through it all, to this day, Nein has remained a loyal member CAP.

“I just love aviation,” he reflects. “I love flying. And I’m proud I’m a CAP member.”