VP-45-Arrives-in-Jacksonville

PATRON FOUR FIVE ASSOCIATION

[ Home ] [ Comments ] [ Search ] [ Table of Contents ]

The huge, graceful aircraft so recently seen cruising around Jacksonville are NAVY P3A Orions belonging to a Patrol Squadron based in this area under Commander Fleet Air Wing ELEVEN, Captain L. P. PRESSLER.

The 60-ton, 4 engine turbo-prop plane is the anti-sub version of the Lockheed Electra which is in and out of our Imeson Airport by National Airlines. The P3A is capable of going farther faster and staying there longer than any other anti-sub aircraft in service.

The highly specialized, skilled crew of 12 flies to the most distant submarine contacts at high altitudes in pressurized, air-conditioned comfort ready to apply all their energies to detecting and tracking any target.

Patrol Squadron Forty-Five was initially commissioned VP-205 on 1 November 1942 at Norfolk, Virginia.

When VP-205 was then ordered to Puerto Rico, one crew flew the only assigned aircraft and the remaining crews sailed aboard USS ALBEMARLE, a seaplane tender. The squadron moved to Trinidad in June 1944 and received its full complement of 13 PBM-3’s (Martin seaplanes).

In July 1944 the squadron moved to Guantanamo Bay Cuba, then back to Norfolk in September 1944. Here the squadron was redesignated Patrol Bombing Squadron 205. After being assigned to the Pacific Fleet in December 1944, the squadron deployed to NAS Kaneohe, Hawaii, where it flew patrol and ferry missions.

Saipan was the next base until April 1945, when the squadron went with Fleet Air Wing 1 to Japan to fly anti-submarine warfare missions. These missions were flown from Japan, Saipan, and Okinawa during the summer of 1945.

The squadron returned in September of that year to Fleet Air Wing 5 in Norfolk, where it conducted an intensive retraining program while the aircraft were overhauled. Then in April 1946 they moved to Bermuda and became Patrol Squadron 5. The present designation, VP-45 was assigned in September 1948.

Two and a half years later, Coco Solo, Canal Zone, became 45’s home port. Here they were engaged in ASW exercises and patrols in the Carribbean area until September 1956, when they returned to Bermuda.

The squadron joined Task Group Delta in September of 1961 and contributed to the task of “realizing the full potential of anti - submarine warfare aircraft”.

In pursuit of this task, aircraft detachments operated out of Trinidad, Guantanamo Bay, Jacksonville, and Norfolk. The efforts of the Task Group reinforced Navy ASW capability by developing new tactics and by testing new equipment.

In December 1962, Patrol Squadron 45 left Task Group Delta and established a detachment in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to conduct shipping surveillance related to the Cuban crisis.

In the closing months of 1963, changing over from the Marlins, last seaplanes in the Atlantic Fleet, to the P3A Orion, newest of ASW aircraft, was begun. Crews and personnel were sent for training while seaplanes were turned in, one by one. The last seaplane left Bermuda at the end of the year and the remaining squadron personnel were moved to Jacksonville.

And so it is that Patrol Squadron Forty-Five, after all that moving around, has come to its new home. About 320 men and 52 officers have settled in Jacksonville, hopefully, for a good long stay.