HELASRON TWO Golden Falcons

Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 (HS-2) "Golden Falcons" · USN · 1965-1975

Worn on the right sleeve of a Navy commander's leather flight jacket, this fully embroidered scroll patch belongs to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron TWO — the "Golden Falcons" — established 7 March 1952 at Ream Field, Imperial Beach, California, as the first ASW helicopter squadron on the West Coast. The insignia, approved 19 November 1965, distills the mission to one image: a gold falcon stooping to the sea with talons open, a submarine's silhouette waiting in the water below. Flying SH-3 Sea Kings off carrier decks in the Gulf of Tonkin, the squadron traded dipping sonar for armed rescue, completing the Navy's first night combat SAR over North Vietnam in November 1965 — an eleven-hour, eighteen-minute flight sustained by repeated in-flight refuelings — and supporting the Apollo AS-202 capsule recovery the following year. The "HELASRON TWO" spelling on the tail scroll marks it as a Japanese-tailored jacket patch of the WestPac cruise era, decades before the squadron became HSC-12 in 2009.