page_title: Naval Air Station Cecil Field
section_title: 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Naval Air Station Cecil Field / History / 1960s
caption_attribution_description: Two U.S. Navy F8U-1 Crusader fighters (BuNo 144429, 144431) from Fighter Squadron VF-62 Boomerangs, Carrier Air Group 10 (CVG-10), in flight over Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Florida (USA).
context_page_description: Naval Air Station Cecil Field or NAS Cecil Field was a United States Navy air base, located in Duval County, Florida. Prior to October 1999, NAS Cecil Field was the largest military base in terms of acreage in the Jacksonville, Florida area.
  NAS Cecil Field consisted of four separate facilities, the NAS Cecil Field Complex, Outlying Field Whitehouse, the Yellow Water Weapons Department and the Pinecastle [Pine Castle] Electronic Warfare Target Area / Warfare Range. Including nearly 2,500 acres at OLF Whitehouse, the NAS Cecil Field complex consisted of 22,939 acres; in addition, the base leased another 8,379 acres. By late 1999, approximately 17,200 acres were transferred to the civilian sector in the form of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, while the remainder was transferred to Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
  As directed by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission and the U.S. Congress pursuant to BRAC 1993 and BRAC 1995, NAS Cecil Field was decommissioned as an active naval installation on 30 September 1999. It is now a civilian, public-use, joint civil-military airfield and industrial park known as Cecil Commerce Center and Cecil Airport.
context_section_description: It was RF-8 Crusaders from Light Photographic Squadron SIX TWO (VFP-62) out of NAS Cecil Field (along with Marine Aviators from Marine Photographic Squadron TWO (VMAQ-2|VMCJ-2), based at MCAS Cherry Point, NC and flying the same aircraft) who, in coordination with U.S. Air Force U-2 and RF-101 aircraft, detected the presence of nuclear-armed intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba and monitored the associated Soviet buildup during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
caption: Two F8U-1s of VF-62 over NAS Cecil Field, 1962.
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