1,132 educational institutions and 435,165 qualified trainees – including several hundred women, all of whom had been qualified by 1,460 contractors. Members of the CPTP became an impetus of innovation which transformed United States history, long after World War II. Their efforts proved the necessity for a radical departure from conventional thinking, when required, to preserve failing sectors of industry and become a vital adjunct to national defense. Controversy The military establishment was initially unenthusiastic about the CPTP concept, quite unimpressed by any program initiated and administered by civilians. Congress, too, was split along mostly party lines as to the value of the CPTP. Isolationists branded the program as provocative saber-rattling that threatened the nation's neutrality; others slammed it as a pork barrel waste of tax dollars, while supporters touted the positive impacts on the aviation industry and the defense value of a vastly enlarged base of trained pilots. After the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, triggered World War II, the military value of the CPTP became obvious, even to the program's detractors. The United States started to evaluate its ability to fight an air war and the results were appalling. Pilots, instructors, and training aircraft were all in short supply. Acknowledging the shortage of trained pilots, both the Army Air Corps and Navy reluctantly waived certain “elimination” courses for CPTP graduates and allowed them to proceed directly into pilot training. The Army Air Corps deemed the situation to be so grave it proposed that private aviation be suspended and all pilot training (most notably the CPTP) be brought under the control of the military. The December 13, 1940, issue of American Aviation Daily carried this account of the Army's intentions: Preliminary plans are understood to be already drafted by the Army to ground all private flying in the United States for the duration of the national emergency...The Army will take over all training (including CPTP). The Army's proposal met with stiff resistance. Just two weeks after the American Aviation Daily article appeared, 83 companies with a vested interest in general aviation organized the National Aviation Training Association (NATA). NATA members recognized that, if left unchallenged, the Army plan would, for all practical purposes, ban private aircraft from U.S. skies. The NATA and other aviation interests blunted the Army's bid with an effective lobbying campaign in Congress. Their actions not only saved the CPTP, they may have