page_title: VP-142
section_title: Aircraft assignments
hierarchical_section_title: VP-142 / Aircraft assignments
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon (BuNo 37230) at the U.S. National Museum of Naval Aviation. Official description: "The museum's example of the PV-2 Harpoon (Bureau Number 37230) was accepted by the Navy at Naval Auxiliary Air Station (NAAS) Holtsville, California, in December 1945. It remained at the station until the following February, at which time it was sent to Naval Air Facility (NAF) Litchfield Park, Arizona, a base used primarily for the long term storage of aircraft. However, this was not destined to be the fate of Bureau Number 37230, which spent only a week there before being flown to Naval Air Station (NAS) Olathe, Kansas, where it commenced service with the Naval Air Reserve. The airplane flew in support of the training of reservists at NAS Olathe, NAS Moffett Field, California, and NAS Minneapolis, Minnesota, until 1951, at which time it entered overhaul and repair. Converted to the PV-2T configuration, Bureau Number 37230 joined Marine Night Fighter Training Squadron (VMFT(N))-20 at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina, in 1952 and flew with that squadron for the ensuing three years. Stricken from the Navy aircraft inventory following this assignment, the airplane entered the private sector and over the course of the ensuing decades it passed through several owners, the first appearance on civil aviation rolls in Houston, Texas, in 1957. Subsequently, Bureau Number 37230 flew as an aerial fire fighter and agricultural sprayer for owners in Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, before its purchase by Hirth Air Tankers of Buffalo, Wyoming, in 1989. With the latter company the airplane supporting the effort to fight forest fires in the western states until flight delivered to the National Naval Aviation Museum in 2000. It is currently on outdoor static display painted in a wartime Marine Corps scheme."
context_page_description: VP-142 was a Patrol Squadron of the U.S. Navy. The squadron was established as Bombing Squadron 142 on 1 June 1943, redesignated Patrol Bombing Squadron 142 on 1 October 1944, redesignated Patrol Squadron 142 on 15 May 1946 and disestablished on 14 June 1946.
context_section_description: The squadron was assigned the following aircraft, effective on the dates shown:
  PV-1 - June 1943
  PV-2 - January 1945
caption: Lockheed Ventura PV-2 Harpoon
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