Patrol Squadron SIXTEEN was commissioned at NAS Cecil Field,
Jacksonville, Florida in May 1946 as Naval Air Reserve Training Squadron VP-ML-56 and equipped with six PBY
"Catalina" amphibians. Redesignated Patrol Squadron 741 in
1949, the squadron continued to operate in reserve status. With the
outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1951, the squadron's Catalina aircraft were
replaced with Lockheed P2V-2 "Neptune" patrol bombers.
In February of 1953, the squadron was re-designated Patrol Squadron SIXTEEN and
became a part of the active duty Navy. During their colorful history, the
"War Eagles" have performed operations on both east and west coasts,
and throughout the world. These activities included Operation
Springboard, various UNITAS exercises around South America, Counter Drug operations
in the Caribbean, Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) patrols in the North Atlantic,
ASW/Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW) patrols in the Mediterranean, and Overland
operations in the Balkans. In 1961, VP-16 was part of the Project Mercury
Space Capsule Recovery Force. A VP-16 Neptune was the first aircraft over
Lt. Col. John H. Glenn's "Friendship Seven" capsule after splashdown.
The War Eagles transitioned to the Lockheed P-3A "Orion" in 1964, and
then integrated the P-3C Aircraft Improvement Program (AIP) with advanced
sensors and communications capabilities. The Orion was unequaled in its
ability to locate, track, and if required attack hostile submarines beneath the
waves. The War Eagles, with their Maritime Patrol sister squadrons have
successfully demonstrated their preeminent capabilities in every ocean of the
world. Similarly, the squadron has fully exploited the P-3C's exceptional
command and control capabilities for "special operations missions"
involving exercises of Navy SEALS and other Special Forces.
2) Patron
- 8 (VP-8)
Patrol Squadron (VP) 8 was commissioned as VP-201 in September 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia. During World War II, VP-201 flew the sea-based PBM Mariner aircraft, combating German submarines that threatened Allied shipping throughout the Atlantic. In June 1947, the squadron completed a homeport change to Quonset Point, Rhode Island and transitioned to the land-based P-2V Neptune aircraft. The squadron was renamed to VP-8 in September 1948, and in October 1962, VP-8 became the first operational P-3 Orion squadron in the U.S. Navy.
VP-8 operated the venerable P-3 above every ocean
for over 50 years, earning a reputation as one of the best Maritime Patrol
Aviation (MPA) squadrons. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, VP-8
demonstrated the P-3's superior Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Anti-Surface Warfare
(ASUW) capabilities by tracking Soviet submarines in the Caribbean and Eastern
Atlantic. Later that decade, VP-8 flew combat missions throughout Southeast
Asia in support of the Vietnam War. The squadron conducted a homeport change to
Naval Air Station (NAS) Brunswick, Maine in 1971.
3) U.S. Naval Station Argentia NFLD
The US Navy had come to Argentia as part of the Anglo-American
“destroyers-for-bases” deal, sealed in an exchange of notes on 2 September
1940, that saw 50 surplus destroyers and other war materials traded to Great
Britain in exchange for 99-year leases on strategically located base areas in
Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British Caribbean. France had just fallen and
the United States and Canada were scrambling to shore up the Atlantic
approaches to North America. Newfoundland’s proximity to North Atlantic
shipping lanes and its emerging place in the Great Circle Route in
transatlantic aviation made it vital to the war effort and the defence
of the western hemisphere. Should Britain be occupied, and the Royal Navy fall
into the hands of Hitler’s Germany, many in North America feared that the
Atlantic moat would not be sufficient protection. In 1940, the US Navy
was still a one-ocean navy, with its warships concentrated in the Pacific.
The urgency of the historical moment was felt at the highest levels of
the US government. In his message to Congress announcing the
destroyers-for-bases deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested that it
was an “epochal and far-reaching act of preparation for continental defence in
face of grave danger.” For good measure, Roosevelt added that the deal
represented the most important event in the defence of the United States since
Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana in 1803. Air
and sea bases like the one at Argentia would be North America’s first line of
defence against German aggression. “The world had narrowed,” wrote journalist
Hanson W. Baldwin in the New York Times a few months earlier.
“Airplanes span oceans and continents, leap the seas that once were barriers.”
The United States appointed Rear Admiral John W. Greenslade to head a
Board of Experts to determine the precise base locations in all the host territories.
The British wanted the bases to be located as far expected political influence
of the US. In the case of Newfoundland, the Canadians also wanted to steer the
Americans away from Conception Bay and the vital iron mines of Bell Island.
Greenslade arrived in Newfoundland waters on the cruiser USS St. Louis days
after the exchange of notes, inquiring into local weather conditions and local
maps. After aerial reconnaissance and some negotiation, the base locations were
quickly agreed to and he departed for the Caribbean. A second agreement, the
Leased Bases Agreement, signed in London in March 1941, set out the legal
status of all the leased areas in terms of criminal jurisdiction, customs
duties, and other important matters.
As these were still peacetime bases, as the US did not enter the away as
possible from capital cities or major population centres, so as to limit the war
until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, they were built
with all of the modern conveniences: indoor plumbing, cinemas, golf courses,
social clubs, recreational facilities, hospitals, and radio stations. They were
self-contained, even plush, at least compared to the more rudimentary
facilities being erected by the Canadians who were already at war. Many have
suggested that by war’s end, the US bases influenced Newfoundland building
styles and popular culture. Newfoundland Governor Humphrey Walwyn reported that
the permanent buildings erected by the US were “admirably built” and
“attractive in appearance.” He thought that, while they “are built on a scale
and of materials beyond the reach of the average citizen, they do present
models at first hand for him to aspire and copy.” For many, the US bases
symbolized modernity — an association that continued into the 1950s with the
building of large modern apartment blocks like Argentia’s “Q.” Suffice it to say here that, almost overnight, the US bases became one of the
four pillars of Newfoundland’s economy with fish, forests, and mines.
While the wartime influx of US and Canadian servicemen into Newfoundland
has generated considerable scholarship, there has been relatively little
attention paid to what happened next. The bases continued to be an
integral part of continental defence in the face of the threat of nuclear war
with the Soviet Union. Technological change, however, meant that the threat
shifted from Soviet bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and
submarines by the 1960s. One by one, the air bases at Pepperrell (1961) and
Harmon (1966) closed, as did the naval complex at Argentia over an extended
period (1969–1994). As the nature of modern warfare changed, these base
closures were part of a global realignment of the US armed forces that followed
the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as during the brief thaw in the Cold War
that occurred in the mid-1960s. One source estimated that the US shuttered
1,400 military facilities, large and small, between 1961 and 1976. The
closure of the US bases in Newfoundland was therefore part of a much wider
story of military realignment and socio-economic, political, and environmental
upheaval. “Military bases, like installations or facilities of any major
corporation, sometimes grow obsolete,” explained William J. Sheehan, D
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