(Elmshoot) wrote in
:

I am looking for information and pictures about USN A-7 Corsairs
stationed at MCAS Iwakuni Japan back in the mid 1980's.

I'm pretty sure they were on Det from the ship. As a westpac
deployment evolves upon arrival in the Cubi area a Corrosion control
Det is established in Cubi Pt. Each squadron will off load a few
planes that are run through CC while this gives the ship of more room
in the hangar bay and flight deck. Some are flown while on the beach
but for the most part they don't do much flying when the planes are in
CC.

On some ships they would unload one of the two A-7 squadrons. And
they would
do unit level training as well as run exercises agains the battle
group, not a good deal for the guys chasing traps but still a pretty
good deal. Then the Sluff squadrons would swap out and the other would
be on the shore. Most likely that is were you saw A-7 at Iwakuni from.
Pechs is right again. This was before the "6 month deployment" when
most ran about 8 months and when you left you really didn't have an
end date. My first one was almost 11 months. 1 April- to late Feb.
Sparky


When I visited Iwakuni in '85 (was stationed there from '73-'76), there
was an entire A-7 squadron there, billed as a "spare" for the Midway, or
whichever other boat was doing IO duty at the time. Don't recall too much
else of what I learned in a 15 minute conversation with one of the maint
guys.

Dave in San Diego