Tag Archives: VF-32

Living up to her potential

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Some 75 years ago this week.

The “long-hull” Essex-class fleet carrier USS Leyte (CV-32) is seen loading aircraft at Yokosuka, Japan, for transportation to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 24 January 1951. Several decommissioned Tacoma-class frigates (PF), late of the Soviet Red Banner fleet, are moored in groups across the harbor background while a snow-capped Mount Fuji is just visible in the distance.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97295

Commissioned 11 April 1946, Leyte (laid down as USS Crown Point) came too late for WWII but got her licks in off Korea from 9 October 1950 through 19 January 1951, where the ship and her airwing of Air Group Three spent 92 days at sea and flew 3,933 sorties against North Korean and Chinese forces.

Her pilots accumulated nearly 11,000 hours in the air while inflicting massive damage upon enemy positions, supplies, transportation, and communications.

She earned two battle stars for the cruise.

Among the squadrons based on Leyte were the “Swordsmen” of VF-32 flying the F4U-4 Corsair, a squadron that included Ensign Jesse Brown and LT Thomas J. Hudner Jr.

Other outfits included another Corsair squadron, VF-33, a F9F-2 Panther unit (VF-31), an AD-3/4 Skyraider squadron (VA-35), and smaller dets from VC-4 (F4U-5N night fighters), VC-62 (F4U-5P photo birds), VC-12 (AD-4W), VC-33 (AD-3N), and a couple of well-used whirly birds from HU-2 who were famed for their C-SAR use.

USS Leyte (CV-32). Moored off Naval Operating Base, Yokosuka, Japan, during a break from Korean War operations, 1 December 1950. 80-G-424599

Mascot “Beno” sits in a Grumman F9F-2 Panther of Fighter Squadron Three One (VF-31) “Tomcatters” aboard USS Leyte (CV-32) as she pulled into San Diego, California, at the end of her Korean deployment. 3 February 1951.

Never modernized from her 1946 arrangement, Leyte was reclassified as CVA-32 in October 1952 and as an anti-submarine carrier, CVS-32, the following August, operating in the Med and Caribbean for the rest of the decade.

Reclassified as a training carrier, AVT-10, in May 1959, she decommissioned the same day and was sold for scrap in 1970 after her parts were raided to keep her sisters in service; her usefulness to the Navy was at an end.

Tomcat over Kresta

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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.

So I went to see Devotion…

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I weighed in last week on the behind-the-scenes attention to detail of the new J. D. Dillard/Erik Messerschmidt Sony Pictures war biopic Devotion, focusing on the too-short life of Ens. Jesse Leroy Brown and his “Fighting Swordsmen” wingman, Lt. (j.g) Thomas J. Hudner Jr., who flew side-by-side at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.

1950 photo of Fighting 32 (VF 32) ahead of USS Leyte’s Med deployment that soon became a Korean combat tour

If you missed that, the production went all-out, leasing real MiG-15s, F4U Corsairs, A-1 Skyraiders, and F8F Bearcats, then constructing an Essex-class straight deck carrier in a field to put them all on for static shots.

I mean, Dillard is the son of a Blue Angel and his first memory is touching the nose of his dad’s just-landed F-18– so what do you expect?

Said the director on his use of these vintage war birds:

It was by far the most meticulous part of the filmmaking process, but it was important to me aesthetically that we put as much realism in front of the camera as we could. There aren’t even enough of these period planes still flying to fill the skies in the way that we wanted to. But what we always prioritized is that the action happening closest to the camera was practical. That 17th plane, half a mile off, can totally be CGI. But the plane flying very close to the camera is a real Corsair painted with the real squadron’s letters and numbers, and there are real stunt pilots in those planes, executing real maneuvers. That was very important to me and ultimately worth the prep and the planning.

And, besides tapping in actor Glen Powell– who played the cocky “Hangman,” the modern Iceman substitute in the new Maverick movie– Dillard also used the same aerial photography team that worked on that project but with the benefit of fewer restrictions.

“I joke that they spent 200-plus million dollars on R&D, then came to work with us,” Dillard says. And since his film didn’t use modern U.S. Navy planes, he had more freedom. “There is significantly less red tape when you want to take that plane 15 feet over the water at more than 100 miles an hour and photograph it, which at one point we did,” he says. “There are also technical differences in photographing those aircraft… As a small example, you can’t put a camera directly behind an F-18, because there’s jet blast. But we could sit our camera plane right on the tail of the Corsair because it has a propeller — you’re not worried about the camera melting from the afterburner.”

With this lead-up, how could I NOT go see the movie on opening night last week?

I can report that it was a good film, that should be seen on the biggest screen possible to drink it in, full of amazing and unique warbird shots. As far as the plot, it is based on a true story and they stick to most of the real details with only minor deviations. The dialog was a little hokey at times but certainly not any worse than that seen in other modern war films.

As Brown was the first African-American U.S. Navy officer killed in action, he has long deserved a decent film telling his story and this is it. Going past that, it is entertaining and, while circling back to the racial elephant in the room several times, doesn’t make it the prime driving point of the film. I’m no movie rater but if you had to ask me, I’d give it at least an 8 out of 10 overall.

If you have some time to kill, you could find worse ways to spend two hours.

Perhaps it will lead to Brown getting a destroyer named after him. 

Speaking of which.

Welcome home, Hudner

Of interest, the SURFLANT-tasked Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), commissioned in 2018, just returned this weekend from the inaugural deployment of the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group.

As detailed by the ship’s social media page:

-We sailed 15,148 miles,
-Conducted 7 replenishments at sea,
-Set 8 Sea and Anchor details
-Completed 2 Straits Transits
-Saw winds as high as 52 knots,
-Completed 78 flight quarters,
-Inducted 4 new Chief Petty Officers,
-Qualified 3 new Officers of the Deck, 2 new Tactical Action Officers, and 8 new Engineering Officers of the Watch
– Expended 52,266 rounds of ammo,
– Passed 1 Engineering Certification,
– Visited 2 new countries,
And made countless memories along the way.

    Whistling up an Essex class carrier and matching Corsairs

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    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.

    This week is the opening of the J. D. Dillard/Erik Messerschmidt Sony Pictures war biopic Devotion, focusing on the too-short life of Ens. Jesse Leroy Brown and his “Fighting Swordsmen” wingman, Lt. (j.g) Thomas J. Hudner Jr., who flew side-by-side at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.

    The obligatory trailer:

    And, from the Navy, Dillard and Glen Powell (who portrays Hudner) talk about the importance of maintaining historical accuracy while filming, which pulled in vintage Corsairs and F8F Bearcats from around the globe and the construction of a 1:1 scale CV-32 deck/island in a field in Statesboro, Georgia.

    Nice they aren’t totally CGI!

    As Brown was a Hattiesburg native Mississippian, his deeds have long been remembered at the Mississippi Military History Museum at Camp Shelby and the African American Military History Museum in Hattiesburg. The latter has a life-sized Brown standing on the deck of the USS Leyte.

    It is great that this story is finally getting some bigger exposure.

    In a deeper dive into the story overall, USNI host Eric Mills sits down with Thomas Hudner III, son of the real-life MOH recipient depicted in Devotion.