MAG-31 Marine Aircraft Group 31 Palmetto Shoulder Patch

MAG-31 has flown out of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, since 1 November 1961, and this patch says so with the palmetto and crescent that South Carolinians fly on their state flag. Marine Aircraft Group 31 is a fighter-attack group of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at MCAS Beaufort's Merritt Field, known as Fightertown East. The group was first activated on 1 February 1943 at Cherry Point, North Carolina. It was deactivated twice after World War II and came back at Beaufort in cadre status, six officers and 75 enlisted Marines. Two jets cross the sky above the palmetto, which puts the flying and the state on the same patch.

In World War II the group went from Samoa to the Marshall Islands, striking bypassed Japanese garrisons from Roi in 1944, then came ashore at Yontan Airfield on Okinawa on 7 April 1945, flying combat air patrols against the kamikazes and close air support for the Marines on the ground. In October 1945 it moved to Yokosuka and became the first Marine land-based air group to operate from the Japanese home islands. Beaufort's flight line went from the F-8 Crusader and the F-4 Phantom II to the F/A-18 Hornet, and VMFA-115 traded its Phantoms for F/A-18A Hornets in 1985. Hornet squadrons at Beaufort have included the Silver Eagles, the Crusaders, later Werewolves, of VMFA-122, the Thunderbolts of VMFA-251, the Checkerboards of VMFA-312 and the Hawks of VMFA(AW)-533. The group is now moving to the F-35 Lightning II, with VMFAT-501 training new F-35 pilots at Beaufort and VMFA-533 taking delivery of its first F-35B there on 11 October 2024.

The patch is a 3 inch circle of navy blue twill with a white merrowed edge. A white crescent sits at the upper left, a white palmetto tree stands at the center, and two white jet silhouettes fly over it at the top. The palmetto goes back to 28 June 1776, when the palmetto-log walls of the fort on Sullivan's Island soaked up a British naval bombardment, and the crescent flew on Colonel William Moultrie's flag the year before. There is no lettering, because anyone who served at Beaufort reads it at a glance. It has a hook backing, hook side only, so it presses onto a loop panel on a flight jacket, a bag or a plate carrier.

Fightertown East has been home to the East Coast Marine Hornet squadrons for decades, and MAG-31 is the group they fly under. Squadrons from Beaufort have gone to sea aboard Navy carriers, flown in Desert Storm, patrolled the skies over Bosnia in Operation Deny Flight, and deployed for Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Every one of those deployments started and ended on the same Lowcountry flight line, with families waiting by the hangars. Pilots, maintainers, ordnance crews and plane captains all wore the group's patches through the Crusader, Phantom and Hornet years. Now the same flight line is learning the F-35, and the group's history keeps adding chapters.

Put it on the loop panel of a flight jacket or a helmet bag, or set it in a shadow box with your wings, the group's MAG-31 Hornet triangle patch and a photo from the Beaufort flight line. It also makes a good gift for someone who served in a MAG-31 squadron or grew up near the air station. At 3 inches across it fits almost anywhere. South Carolina and the jets, on one small patch.