VP-56
military unit
VP-56, nicknamed the Dragons, was a long-lived Patrol Squadron of the U.S. Navy. It was originally established as Patrol Squadron VP-900 on 1 July 1946, redesignated Medium Patrol Squadron (Landplane) VP-ML-71 on 15 November 1946, redesignated VP-661 in February 1950, redesignated VP-56 on 4 February 1953 and disestablished on 28 June 1991. It was the second squadron to be designated VP-56, the first VP-56 was redesignated OTS on 1 July 1941.
Operational history
1 July 1946: VP-900 was established at NAS Anacostia, Washington D.C. It came under the operational control of FAW-5 and administrative control of the Naval Air Reserve Training Command. The squadron was one of 21 naval reserve squadrons established after the war to accommodate the large number of aircrews recently released from active duty and utilize the enormous stocks of aircraft on the inventory. The squadron flew the PBY-5A/6A Catalina amphibian and the PV-2 Harpoon landplane.
15 November 1946: All patrol squadrons were redesignated. Regular Navy squadron designations began with 1 and reserve patrol squadron designations began with 5. VP-900 was redesignated VP-ML-71. The ML for reserve patrol squadrons included twin-engine medium amphibian seaplanes, as well as twin-engine land-based bombers.
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This entry incorporates text from “VP-56” 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.