Woman Recounts Civil Air Patrol Days

NEW HUDSON, Mich. - For Helen Rehm, flying was as natural as walking. It was easier than driving, and it was her passion. So, in the 1940s with only a few lessons under her belt, she took to the sky and joined the Civil Air Patrol.

"I just soloed. I didn't get checked out at all," said Rehm.

The 89-year-old still relishes her time flying high nearly 70 years ago as a young woman from Ohio named Helen Czak.

She was inspired by her brother Edwin, a pilot who had his own plane. However, Edwin joined the Army like their other brother, Edward.

Still at home in Ohio, Rehm joined the Civil Air Patrol.

"We'd fly down through Ohio, the Ohio River. On Sunday morning, we'd get up early and go down there for a meeting with one of the other fields, and it was a lot of fun," said Rehm.

The Civil Air Patrol launched in 1941 just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a line of defense on the home front. Many volunteers flew along the East Coast spotting and stopping submarine attacks. Others, like Rehm, flew the Great Lakes region.

Many of her fellow pilots were women.

"Mostly women, it was all women, ours was," Rehm said.

She had fun with her duties and her freedom and was once scolded by her father for scaring a neighbor.

"There was a man across the field who was working on his chimney up on the top of the roof, and I came pretty close," Rehm said.

She said he was never in any real danger, but her dad didn't think it was funny.

"My father told me about it, in a very meaningful way, don't you ever do that again," said Rehm.

She didn't and was eventually grounded when she married and had kids.

For her daughter, Judith, it was something of a novelty growing up with a mother who was a pilot and then a nurse. She's proud Rehm could serve her country in the process.

"It's (a) wonderful accomplishment. She's a wonderful mother," said Judith Rehm-Norbo. "She's done quite a lot, and I'm very, very proud of her."