Wartime Civil Aircraft in the Military

[Dan Jones]

Morning all.

If a civil aircraft (say a Gullwing Stinson or a Piper Cub or something) that, before the war, was on the US civil register and had gotten "drafted" for military use during the war, would there be a record of that anywhere? And would it have been issued a military id number? I'm just looking at a J-4A Cub Coupe project that was built in mid-1940 that I figure could have ended up as a Civil Air Patrol airplane or something. There's some gaps in it's paperwork. Dan

[tulsaboy]

I can speak to that to a certain extent. If the airplane was "drafted," as you say, for military use, it would have typically been assigned a military serial number that would have been painted onto the tail of the aircraft just like any normal military aircraft. For instance, there were several Spartan 7W "Executive" aircraft that were taken over by the AAC during WWII. Most of them got full military paint schemes, including all appropriate military insignia, including a tail number. Some of them were OD, and some of them were polished. Just varied. There were a large number of DC-3 aircraft that were taken over by the military during the early days of the war, before production really hit its stride. There should be an Aircraft Record Card for the airplane if it went into AAC service.
kevin

[JohnB]

Easy

US Military Aircraft since 1909 by Swanborough and Bowers tells us 17 J-4Es became L-4Es.
Their serials were:
42-79555, 43-2941, 43-2954/2958, 42-2973/2974, 43-2989/2990 and 43-3003/3008.


You indicate your aircraft is a J-4A, so that may be the end of your search for a military serial since multiple sources indicate only J-4Es were impressed. That does make sense since the J-4Es had the largest engine available in the type....a 75hp Continental A-75-9.

(However, Piper Aircraft and their forerunners by Peperell and Smith say one J-4A ....was impressed as a (U)C-83B. (The UC-83 was an impressed J-5). However, they Also say only 15 J-4s became L-4Es. So make of it what you will).

If your a.c. was a J-4E at one time, or just want to be sure it was not drafted, then you have to go to Braugher's website and look up each serial number or batch:
An example for the final batch of a.c. you will find:
43-3003/3008 Piper L-4E Grasshopper
J-4E Cubs impressed by USAAF from civilian users
3003 MSN 4-1644
3004 MSN 4-1608
3005 MSN 4-1637. 1064th School Squadron, Fort Sumner, NM; damaged when nosed under landing at Fort Sumner, NM 28Oct42.
3006 MSN 4-1633
3007 MSN 4-1638
3008 MSN 4-1627

If you know your MSN, and you should, you can determine its AAF wartime serial.
Then get the aircraft card through the usual sources.

If none of the serials matches your MSN, then it was not impressed.
But that doesn't mean it wasn't used by the CAP.

Perhaps the CAP history office has a record of aircraft flown? But since many, if not most CAP as were privately owned and just volunteered for service, I would not get my hopes up.

Just be thankful the AAF didn't impress more Cub Coupes!

Last edited by JohnB on Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.

[Noha307]

had gotten "drafted" for military use during the war

The term I usually encounter for what you're describing is "impressed". Whenever I hear it, I'm always reminded how it originally referred sailors shanghaied into the Royal Navy centuries ago and was actually one of the causes of the War of 1812!

Since we're on the subject of impressed aircraft I figured I'd make a list of all of the examples I could find:

• Beechcraft UC-43
• Messerschmitt C-44
• Douglas C-48
• Douglas C-49
• Douglas C-50
• Douglas C-51
• Douglas C-52
• Lockheed C-56
• Lockheed C-57
• Lockheed C-59
• Lockheed C-60 (Base variant only)
• Fairchild UC-61 (B through J variants only)
• Lockheed C-66
• Douglas C-68
• Howard UC-70
• Spartan UC-71
• Waco UC-72
• Boeing C-73
• Boeing C-75
• Cessna C-77
• Junkers C-79
• Harlow C-80
• Stinson UC-81
• Piper C-83
• Douglas C-84
• Lockheed UC-85
• Fairchild C-86
• Fairchild C-88
• Hamilton C-89
• Luscombe C-90
• Stinson C-91
• Akron-Funk UC-92
• Cessna C-94
• Taylorcraft UC-95
• Fairchild UC-96
• Boeing C-98
• Northrop UC-100
• Lockheed UC-101
• Rearwin C-102
• Grumman UC-103
• Stout C-107
• Douglas C-110
• Lockheed C-111
• Taylorcraft L-2 (C through L variants only)
• Aeronca L-3 (D through J variants only)
• Piper L-4 (C through G variants only)
• Universal L-7
• Stinson L-9
• Ryan L-10
• Bellanca L-11
• Stinson L-12

(Source: Joe Baugher, U.S. Army Aircraft)

That's 43 cargo and 8 liaison models! (To be fair, some of the above, such as the C-48 through C-52, should have been considered variants of the same model, not different models entirely.)

[Dan Jones]

I was reading about the J-4E's and I have a picture of a J-4 in USN service, but I really need to read up more on the Civil Air Patrol. I won't be real surprised to find out that it was active in those years but the paper trail right now is pretty non-existent. Fortunately the FAA can supply most of the technical information, but I don't think this has been an active airplane since the early seventies and the logs are long gone.