TRENTON – Some say the best-kept secret in aviation is a volunteer organization that has been flying missions since the start of World War II.

That secret may be out after Gov. John Baldacci signs a proclamation designating this week as Maine Civil Air Patrol Week. Senior members and cadets from the nine squadrons in the patrol’s Maine Wing are scheduled to join the governor for the ceremony on Wednesday.

On Dec. 1, 1941, the Civil Air Patrol was established to provide a civilian force to patrol the United States coast. One of the early advocates of a civil force was newspaper owner Guy Gannett, and it was just a few months later in 1942 that the Maine Wing was established.

The Civil Air Patrol has been active ever since.

Volunteer Maine pilots joined other civilian pilots to fly missions during World War II. Those pilots, flying specially painted red and yellow planes, logged more than 500,000 hours providing services including cargo and courier flights to transport material and personnel and even towing targets for Army Air Corps gunners to practice on.

They also flew off America’s coasts, spotting German submarines and sinking two of them, saving hundreds of crash victims, and helping to drive German U-boats away from U.S. shores.

Since the end of World War II, the patrol has had a threefold mission that includes emergency flights, especially search and rescue, training cadets and providing aerospace education. Now, it may have a new mission as the country develops its Homeland Security effort.

There are about 500 patrol members in Maine: 200 cadets, young men and women between the ages of 12 and 21, and the rest senior members, about one-third of whom are pilots, according to Capt. John Riley, a government relations adviser with the patrol squadron in Augusta.

Local missions vary greatly, Riley said. The volunteers train regularly for search and rescue missions, but CAP pilots also are involved in support of other state and federal agencies, flying humanitarian missions such as transporting blood; disaster relief and counterdrug operations.

Nationwide, patrol pilots fly about 85 percent of all inland search and rescue missions under the direction of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

“When we get a call, we put a team together,” said Maj. Henry Whitmore, commander of the Downeast Patrol Squadron based in Trenton. “We call out our pilots and get a crew to fly and then we get a ground crew together. Once we have a mission number, we start to do the search. We keep flying til we find ’em.”

Their latest mission involved a search for a missing pilot who had crashed on Saddleback Mountain near Rangeley. Most of their missions now are in support of statewide emergency services, according to Whitmore.

In recent months, Riley said, Maine pilots have been flying reconnaissance flights, photographing ice floes on Maine rivers for Maine Emergency Management Agency, sending back digital photos instantly from their planes allowing officials to assess the danger.

Although cadets do not fly on missions because of safety issues, they train regularly with senior members and receive extensive ground school and ground search and rescue training. They get into the air through orientation flights with senior pilots where they have the opportunity to handle the controls.

“We have training missions about once a month, 10 times a year,” said Dana Maddocks, 18, of Township 8, cadet commander at the Downeast Patrol Squadron. “We get ground training that includes communications, radios and aviation safety.”

The training goes beyond the details of rescue missions, according to Cadet Erik Tainter, 18, of Ellsworth.

“It’s taught me discipline, self-respect, integrity and how to work with a team,” Tainter said recently.

The cadets and senior members provide ground support for the patrol’s air search and rescue missions, and often join ground searches for missing persons when requested by the Maine Warden Service. Tainter and Maddocks, along with cadets from other Maine squadrons, were part of search teams that found an elderly woman who had been lost in the woods near Bradley last year.

With their background in aviation training, many cadets go on to become pilots and some, as Maddocks and Tainter plan to do, seek a career in the military. Nationwide, about 15 percent of the cadets enter the military, according to Riley.

As the nation develops its Homeland Security mission, the Civil Air Patrol expects to play an increasing role in patrolling the nation’s borders, although there has been no change in the Maine Wing’s mission so far.

In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the only aircraft flying over New York City were Air Force and CAP planes, according to Riley. The low-flying, volunteer craft were on reconnaissance missions taking photos of what remained of the World Trade Center. During those days, the Maine Wing provided coverage in Massachusetts and New Hampshire while CAP pilots there flew blood and other emergency supplies to New York.

The Civil Air Patrol has been shifted to the U.S. Air Force’s homeland security division and border patrol flights it has flown in the past have been tied together with homeland security, Riley said. But there has been no new funding for specific homeland security missions and Maine has not received any related specialized training.

“It would be a shame if they don’t use us,” he said. “We’re trained and we’re ready.”