What Month was this taken? Part of VMFA-115 was sent to CONUS NAS North Island, Ca. at the end of Feb. 71. The rest of 115 was sent to Iwakuni sometime in March.
Photo must have been taken in January or February of 1971. You are correct, 115 stood down from combat operations on 22 February. I haven't heard much about the group who went stateside. Most of the squadron ended up in Iwakuni - some via air, some via boat (USS St. Louis).
By the way the photo was lifted from footnote dot com. They have a section of Vietnam photos. Under Browse, click on Photos, you'll see Vietnam Marine Corps and Vietnam Marine Corps (B/W). It takes a while but there's a ton of flix there. -vm
Good photo. Never saw it before. I was in H&MS-11 Electric Shop. Have the patch "Marine Observation-Transport-Attack-Support Squadron-11, 1st MAW, March '71-June '71 - We left country on 22 May '71. - S.F.
VMFA-115 Silver Eagles and VMFA-232 Red Devils were both part of Operation Linebacker in April of 1972. I think they came from Iwakuni with some other squadrons coming from Hawaii. We also had some squadrons of A-6's. What squadrons they were and exactly where the went I can't remember. Things get a little foggy after 37 years.
I also think VMCJ-1 also from Iwakuni went south. Some squadrons went to Bien Hoa but I do remember VMFA-115 going to Da Nang. That is where we lost Major Duffy April 28, 1972 due to a mid-air collision with a South Vietnamese observation plane during takeoff. RIO survived.
After that we phased to Nam Phong with some going back to Hawaii and the rest eventually coming from Bien Hoa and Da Nang.
