January 25th 05, 08:48 AM
>When I visited Iwakuni in '85 (was stationed there from '73-'76),
there
>was an entire A-7 squadron there, billed as a "spare" for the Midway,
or
>whichever other boat was doing IO duty at the time. Don't recall too
much
>else of what I learned in a 15 minute conversation with one of the
maint
>guys.
>Dave in San Diego
Yes, such things are confirmed by some more or less official sources.
Beside VA-192 you probably meant, there happened to at least three
other A-7E squadrons (VA-15, VA-37, VA-105) to be deployed to MCAS
Iwakuni.
There was also a Navy F/A-18A squadron, VFA-132, stationed at Iwakuni
from Oct 1987 till Apr 1988, before (in September 2004) VFA-97 opened
a new chapter of the story of Navy squadrons switched to UDP cycle.
You can check it at:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmc03.html (for A-7E units)
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmc02.html
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmcj2005.html (for USN F/A-18)
http://history.navy.mil/branches/dictvol1.htm (for both)
Unfortunately, I can't help you with finding the photos. Did you try
some search on Japanese Yahoo?
Good luck!
Jacek Zemlo
there
>was an entire A-7 squadron there, billed as a "spare" for the Midway,
or
>whichever other boat was doing IO duty at the time. Don't recall too
much
>else of what I learned in a 15 minute conversation with one of the
maint
>guys.
>Dave in San Diego
Yes, such things are confirmed by some more or less official sources.
Beside VA-192 you probably meant, there happened to at least three
other A-7E squadrons (VA-15, VA-37, VA-105) to be deployed to MCAS
Iwakuni.
There was also a Navy F/A-18A squadron, VFA-132, stationed at Iwakuni
from Oct 1987 till Apr 1988, before (in September 2004) VFA-97 opened
a new chapter of the story of Navy squadrons switched to UDP cycle.
You can check it at:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmc03.html (for A-7E units)
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmc02.html
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/usmcj2005.html (for USN F/A-18)
http://history.navy.mil/branches/dictvol1.htm (for both)
Unfortunately, I can't help you with finding the photos. Did you try
some search on Japanese Yahoo?
Good luck!
Jacek Zemlo