Air Transport Squadron Six
was established at Dinner Key Florida on April 2, 1943. It's composition
was 11 Martin Mariner seaplanes and one land based Beechcraft SNB-3C
twin-engine aircraft. The squadrons mission was defined as "providing
air transportation as necessary to meet the needs of the naval
establishment". In November 1945, the squadron was transferred to it's
new operation base in the Pacific, possibly at NAS Agana Guam. Although
originally assigned as a "aircraft maintenance squadron", it was later
assigned a complement of Douglas R5D aircraft.
The squadron continued its role as Naval Logistics Support until 1948
when it was reassigned to the emerging Military Air Transport Service (MATS)
at which time it joined it's sister squadrons VR-3 and 8 in "Operation
Vittles" for the air lift of supplies and commodities into Russian
isolated East Berlin. During the 8 plus months in Germany, they flew a
total of 49,990 hours and carried 229,989 tons of cargo into the city of
Berlin. They established a record for payload efficiency and aircraft
utilization at better than 10 flight hours per day per aircraft for the
entire period. It is interesting to note that either VR-6 or VR-8 was
the top ranked squadron each month (Navy, Air Force or Allied) every
single month of the operation.
In Dec. 1949, following lifting of the Russian blockade, the squadron
was moved back from Rhein Main to Westover AFB, Massachusetts. In 1955
it further relocated to McGuire AFB New Jersey, under the Naval Air
Transport Wing Atlantic MATS. Its normal traffic route was across the
North Atlantic and carried it to many exotic stops from England to
Europe while operating the R6D Liftmaster; carrying thousands of
passengers and tons of cargo. During one such flight the squadron
suffered its first loss of life when one of their aircraft carrying 60
passengers and 9 crew members disappeared over the Atlantic. A search
lasting 14 days revealed only debris from the aircraft. The squadron
incurred another fatal accident in 1953 when a flight crashed on
take-off taking the lives of the 4 man training crew.
The squadron continued its missions within MATS until March of 1963,
when it was silently disestablished.
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