VMFA-224
military unit
Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 (VMFA-224) is a United States Marine Corps (USMC) F-35B Lightning II squadron. Also known as the "Fighting Bengals", the squadron is based at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina and falls under the command of Marine Aircraft Group 31 (MAG-31) and the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (2nd MAW). The Bengals started their transition to the F-35B Lightning II in the summer of 2025.
Mission
Support the Marine Air–Ground Task Force commander by providing supporting arms coordination, conducting multi-sensor imagery, and destroying surface targets and enemy aircraft day or night; under all weather conditions during expeditionary, joint, or combined operations.
History
World War II
Marine Fighter Squadron 224 (VMF-224) was commissioned on 1 May 1942 at Marine Corps Air Station Ewa Hawaii. During this time the squadron flew both Brewster F2A Buffalos and Grumman F4F Wildcats out of Naval Air Station Barbers Point. In the spring, a ten-plane detachment from the squadron was sent to Barking Sands at the northern tip of Kauai to patrol against possible Japanese raids. On 14 August 1942, the planes and pilots of VMF-224 departed Hawaii on board the USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1). VMF-224 was part of the 2nd echelon of Marine Aircraft Group 23 to depart Hawaii. The Kitty Hawk arrived at Port Vila, Efate, New Hebrides on 28 August.
“VMFA-224” enters the record as military unit. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what VMFA-224, military and unit can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “VMFA-224” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.