Tomcat over Kresta
Some 50 years ago this month. A half-century.
Where has the time gone?
Cold War, Soviet Ships. Mediterranean Sea. January 1976.
A Fighter Squadron 32 (VF 32), F-14A Tomcat fighter aircraft seen in full color livery while in flight near a Soviet “Kresta II” class guided missile cruiser underway below. The Tomcat was assigned on board the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67).
Note that the Cat is “dressed for work,” carrying a mixture of Phoenix, Sparrow, and Sidewinder missiles.
Photograph received January 1976. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 428-GX-K-112540
The squadron has a lot of “firsts” on its sheet.
VF-32, the “Fighting Swordsmen” or “Gypsies” depending on which year you are talking about, originated on 1 February 1945, as Bombing Fighting (VBF) 3, after the old “Felix the Cat” Fighter Squadron (VF) 3 was split into two squadrons. VBF-3 joined Carrier Air Group 3 aboard USS Yorktown (CV 10) operating in the Pacific theater. Flying F6F-5 Hellcats, VBF-3 pilots became the first Navy carrier-based pilots to attack the homeland of the Japanese Empire. During heavy action, the squadron shot down 24 Japanese aircraft for which the Swordsmen received the Presidential Unit Citation.
By 1948, they had been redesignated VF-32 and were flying Corsairs, aircraft they would use to good effect in Korea from the deck of USS Leyte (CV 32). The squadron had Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner for that cruise.
Ensign Jesse L. Brown, USN. In the cockpit of an F4U-4 Corsair fighter, circa 1950. He was the first African-American to be trained by the Navy as a Naval Aviator, and as such, he became the first African-American Naval Aviator to see combat. Brown flew with Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) from USS Leyte (CV-32). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. USN 1146845.
Finishing out that war, they were the first squadron to field the F9F-6 Cougar and later the Navy’s first supersonic squadron when they switched to a different Corsair, the F-8, which they flew during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
By 1966, in early F-4B Phantoms, they logged 940 sorties over Vietnam from USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA 42).
Then they entered their Tomcat period in 1974– an aircraft they used to good effect, often from JKF, over Lebanon, Grenada, against Libya, Bosnia, the Gulf War, and OIF, also grabbing the Admiral Clifton Award numerous times.
They hugged the “Bombcat” a tearful goodbye in 2005, capping a 31-year run with the F-14 platform, and shifted to Rhinos, flying F-18F Super Hornets since then as the NAS Oceana-based VFA-32.
In addition to multiple GWOT deployments, on 14 July 2024, an unidentified female pilot in VFA-32 became the first American female pilot to engage and kill an air-to-air contact as part of 1,500 combat missions in support of Operations Inherent Resolve and Prosperity Guardian.
