Official VP-40 Marlins Iceland PVC Shoulder Patch

Official VP-40 Marlins Iceland PVC Shoulder Patch — Cold War Hunters in the North Atlantic

When the Navy needed someone to track Soviet submarines through the frigid waters around Iceland, the Fighting Marlins answered the call.

Patrol Squadron 40 (VP-40) — the 'Fighting Marlins' — was commissioned on January 20, 1951, at NAS San Diego, California, and has since become one of the most storied patrol squadrons in naval aviation history. In January 1985, VP-40 was selected to represent the entire Pacific Fleet in an unprecedented Atlantic/Pacific crossdeck deployment, sending the Marlins to Naval Air Facility Keflavik, Iceland, for six months of anti-submarine warfare operations against Soviet submarines prowling the GIUK Gap — the critical chokepoint between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom that Soviet subs had to pass through to threaten NATO's Atlantic shipping lanes. Operating in brutal winter weather from airfields across Europe, the Azores, Bermuda, and Central America, the Fighting Marlins demonstrated world-class capability in the harshest environments on earth. This Iceland deployment was just one chapter in a career that spans the Korean War, Vietnam combat patrols from Cam Ranh Bay, the search for survivors of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it was shot down by Soviet fighters in 1983, Desert Storm operations from Diego Garcia, and the distinction of being the Navy's last active-duty P-3C Orion squadron before transitioning to the P-8A Poseidon. This PVC shoulder patch commemorates VP-40's legendary Iceland deployment — a Cold War mission that helped keep the Atlantic sea lanes open and the Soviet submarine fleet in check.