VMCJ-2 Patch – Sew On

VMCJ-2 Playboys Patch – Sew On 4.5 inch patch Marine Composite Reconnaissance Squadron Two (VMCJ-2) History This too brief overview of the history of VMCJ-2 needs to be replaced in time with a detailed history or link that does justice to one of the Marine Corps’ most distinctive squadrons and the MCARA members that served with it! See the link to VMAQ-2 for more info as VMCJ-2 is its legacy squadron. VMCJ-2 patchVMCJ-2 was commissioned at MCAS Cherry Point, NC on 12 December, 1955 and has claim to being the first VMCJ squadron as VMCJ-3 was not stood up until later that day at MCAS El Toro. It was the result of the merger of VMJ-2 and VMC-2 bringing together the photo reconnaissance and electronic warfare squadrons that had been operating as part of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing since the Korean War. At standup the squadron began operating the F9F-6P Cougar photo reconnaissance and AD-5N ECM aircraft with tail code CY. The propeller driven AD-5Ns were phased out with the introduction of the F3D-2Q Skyknight jet aircraft for EW operations beginning in 1957, and the EA-6A Intruder followed in 1965. In 1960 the F9Fs were replaced by the F8U-1P Crusaders, which in turn were phased out in 1965 with the introduction of the RF-4B Phantom II. (The Crusaders and Skyknights were designated RF-8A and EF-10Bs in October 1962) click for full photoVMCJ-2 is perhaps best known by its famous logo the flop-eared Playboy Bunny which is the grist of many a story, at least a couple appearing on this website’s Sea Stories. Perhaps by good fate, the squadron was decommissioned in 1975 with the bunny alive and well during a time when political correctness was not yet in vogue. Old squadron mates now have reason to rejoice as in 2007 a brave and innovative CO of VMAQ-2 resurrected the bunny in the likeness of CY or is it the other way around? VMCJ-2 Receives Navy Unit CommendationVMCJ-2 made its mark on history by becoming the first Marine unit to be awarded a Navy Unit Commendation in peace time for its electronic and photo reconnaissance missions tracking the buildup of Soviet supplied military capabilities in communist Cuba from September 1960 through the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis in December 1962. The squadron began to fly Elint “training” missions around Cuba in 1960 no doubt influenced by the success of the Sharkfin missions around the periphery of our adversaries in the Pacific initiated by VMCJ-3 in 1958 and continued by VMCJ-1. These unofficial missions staged out of Key West, Guantanamo Bay and other Caribbean airfields were later sanctioned and controlled under the Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance Program by CINCLANT. The initial intercepts were mainly of air traffic control radars but as the Soviets steadily increased the flow of military radars to Castro’s government in 1961 VMCJ-2’s F3D-2Q aircrews began to intercept them. One of the first intercepts was of a Soviet Token GCI radar by Sgt. Sam Figueroa, and later Fire Can and Whiff AAA fire control radars were intercepted as Castro began to build an integrated air defense network. The squadron began its photo reconnaissance missions over Cuba in late December 1960 when Colonel (then Captain) Ben Skinner, later a VMCJ-2 CO, led a section of F8U-1Ps down to NAS Leeward Pt. to obtain coverage of some suspected military facilities along the Southwest coast and to begin mapping the confines of the Guantanamo Bay naval base. A second photo detachment was sent down early in 1961 to follow up before the failed Bay of Pigs invasion later that Spring. As the tensions with Castro’s Cuba steadily increased the squadron began to provide photo coverage of the naval base environs on a quarterly basis at same time the Cuban Electronic Order of Battle was being updated by the F3D-2Q aircrews. Adlai Stevenson shows aerial photos of Cuban missiles to the United Nations in November 1962.In late August 1962 a CIA U-2 photographed several Soviet frontline Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system