NAVAL AIR STATION-JOINT RESERVE BASE FORT WORTH, Texas -- Fort Worth, Texas-based Marine Aircraft Group 41 on June 24 received two fixed-wing aircraft and the squadron colors of a cadred unit following the June 21 decommissioning of its Atlanta-based higher headquarters.
The transition followed the June 21 decommissioning of MAG-42, which was based at Naval Air Station Atlanta. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission tapped NAS Atlanta for closure and its assets for realignment in 2005. According to Lt. Col. David Pohlman, a plans officer with 4th Marine Aircraft Wing in New Orleans, MAG-42 was decommissioned as part of the Marine Aviation Transition Plan, which works to redistribute aviation assets throughout the Corps in concert with BRAC closures and realignments.
Two of MAG-42’s units, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 774 and Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 773, were transferred from Atlanta to MAG-49 at NAS Willow Grove, Penn. The squadron colors for Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 142 were cased and transferred to Fort Worth with two of the squadron’s F/A-18 Hornets. According to Pohlman, the Marines of Fort Worth-based VMFA-112 will fly the Hornets as their own. Meanwhile, VMFA-142’s colors will remain cased at MAG-41 while the squadron is administratively shut down.
“Down on the flight line, there’s no difference between being decommissioned and cadred,” Pohlman said. However, “a cadred unit is more likely to come back, with the same or different aircraft,” he said. “The Marine Corps has the intention of bringing back VMFA-142, they just don’t know when.”
Other units throughout the Corps received aircraft from VMFA-142 as well. However, the unit colors were specifically transferred to MAG-41, Pohlman said.
Within 4th MAW, “MAG-41 is the fixed-wing MAG, and MAG-49 is primarily a rotary-wing MAG, even though there are bits and pieces of others,” Pohlman said. Hence, the reason the helicopters went to Willow Grove and the Hornet squadron colors ended up in Fort Worth. Basically, “they’re trying to keep apples with apples.”