Turner Air Force Base - Naval Air Station Albany

Naval Air Station Albany

Turner AFB was closed by the Air Force in 1967 and was turned over to the United States Navy. It then became Naval Air Station Albany (Turner Field) and housed eleven squadrons of the Navy's Reconnaissance Attack Wing 1 (RECONATKWING ONE), operating the Mach 2 RA-5C Vigilante carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft, the wing and squadrons relocating during 1967–1968 from the then-closing Naval Air Station Sanford, Florida. Additional Navy aircraft based at NAS Albany during this period included the TA-4F/TA-4J Skyhawk II and the TA-3B Skywarrior.

RECONATKWING ONE consisted of one Reconnaissance Attack Squadron that served as the sole Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) for the RA-5C, and ten operational Reconnaissance Attack Squadrons that would deploy with Carrier Air Wings aboard Forrestal and Kitty Hawk class aircraft carriers, and the USS Enterprise (CVN-65). The Fleet Replacement Squadron, Reconnaissance Attack Squadron 3 (RVAH-3), utilized the TA-4F, TA-4J, TA-3B and RA-5C to train pilots, naval flight officers and maintenance personnel to fly and maintain the Vigilante, while the other squadrons (RVAH-1, RVAH-5, RVAH-6, RVAH-7, RVAH-9, RVAH-11, RVAH-12, RVAH-13 and RVAH-14) deployed aboard carriers to the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean. Several of the RVAH squadrons during this period deployed with their carriers to Yankee Station for combat operations during the Vietnam War. Several flight crews were killed in combat during this period while other pilots and naval flight officers were shot down and captured as prisoners of war until being repatriated in early 1973.