VMCJ-1 Golden Hawks

VMCJ-1 "Golden Hawks" — Marine Composite Reconnaissance Squadron 1 · USMC · 1958-1975

Marine Composite Reconnaissance Squadron 1 was born on 31 July 1958 from the merger of VMJ-1's photo-reconnaissance Banshees and VMC-1's pioneering electronic-countermeasures Skyraiders, and the "Golden Hawks" spent the next seventeen years flying the two hardest jobs in Marine aviation: taking the picture and jamming the radar. From MCAS Iwakuni and Da Nang the squadron logged more than 25,000 sorties between 1965 and 1970 in four different aircraft — EF-10B Skyknights, RF-8A Crusaders, EA-6A Intruders and RF-4B Phantoms — flying the first Marine electronic-attack mission against North Vietnam's air-defense network on 29 April 1965 and later staging from Cubi Point to shield Linebacker strikes over Hanoi and Haiphong. A three-plane detachment off USS Coral Sea covered the Saigon evacuation during Operation Frequent Wind, flying the last EA-6A mission over Vietnam on 30 April 1975. The squadron was decommissioned that September, its lineage split between VMFP-3 and VMAQ-2.