HMX-1 History 

Various sources recount the colorful history of HMX-1, the Marine Corps’ first ever helicopter squadron. The most detailed history the researcher reviewed was a 2003 Marine Corps Command and Staff College Master’s research paper in which former HMX-1 pilot Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Butler examined the missions of HMX-1 and analyzed how they evolved over the years. Magazine articles published by the Naval Aviation News Magazine in June 1997, Professional Pilot Magazine in April 2008 and Leatherneck Magazine in February 2009 as well as various texts on helicopter development provided the researcher additional historical background on the Squadron.

The Squadron’s official Table of Organization produced by the United States Marine Corps Total Force Structure Management System detailed for the researcher the Squadron’s specific missions and tasks. The history and missions revealed by each of the sources above further established the credibility and high level responsibility of HMX-1 Squadron personnel and fueled the researcher’s arguments that a squadron with such vital missions as those performed by HMX-1 should not only be staffed with only the finest of Marines, but that the superb Marines of HMX-1 should be rewarded with opportunities for promotion and advancement.

With the D-Day bloodbath of the Normandy invasion fresh in the minds of the United States military leadership, a few visionaries like Eighteenth Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alexander Vandergrift and Lieutenant General Roy Geiger, thought that perhaps the nascent helicopter would prove to be the aerial assault support vehicle of the future, capable of safely and efficiently transporting American warriors from the ship to battlegrounds ashore in a way that would avoid the grand-scale bloodshed that made Omaha Beach infamous (Butler, 2003). As quoted in the May-June 1997 issue of Naval Aviation News, “The establishment of HMX-1 at Marine Corps Air Station Quantico, Virginia, on 1 December 1947 started a revolution in Marine Corps aviation and tactical doctrine” (Lloyd, 1997. P. 12). Fulfilling the charter of Generals Vandergrift and Geiger, and as reported in the February 2009 issue of Leatherneck Magazine, “HMX-1 performed the first ship-to-shore movement of troops from the deck of aircraft carrier in an exercise in May 1948. Today there are more than 700 personnel assigned to the Squadron…” (Brent, 2009, p. 20). Attesting to HMX-1’s earliest contributions, historian Lynn Montross wrote in his book, Calvary of the Sky, “Nearly all helicopter operations carried out in Korea were first conceived and tested by HMX-1 at Quantico” (Montross, 1954, p. 107).

Originally commissioned on December 1, 1947 to develop budding rotary-wing technology as alternatives to World War II-era amphibious warfare tactics, “techniques and tactics in connection with the movement of assault troops by helicopter in amphibious operations” (Butler, 2003, p. 10), the Squadron still retains its experimental mission under the title of Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E). Today, however, HMX-1’s primary focus and most visible mission is providing global helicopter transportation support for the President of the United States.

From the Squadron’s most recent official Table of Organization, (USMC Total Force Structure Management System HMX-1 Table of Organization, 2008), four specific missions are listed below:

1. Provide helicopter transportation for the President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, members of the President’s cabinet and foreign dignitaries, as directed by the Director, White House Military Office (WHMO).
2. Provide helicopter support as directed by the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC).
3. Provide planning, execution and reporting for independent operational test and evaluation (OT&E) of helicopters and related systems for the Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force (COMOPTEVFOR), as directed by CMC.
4. Provide support for the Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC), for student demonstrations/indoctrinations, as requested via CMC.

The Presidential missions, which include the highly publicized administrative lifts to and from the White House South Lawn and other prominent locations world-wide, as well as the less talked about emergency evacuation mission, began for HMX-1 in 1957 when HMX-1 first began flying President Dwight Eisenhower, an entire decade after HMX-1 was born as an experimental helicopter squadron. For over fifty years, HMX-1 pilots have been entrusted to fly the President of the United States wherever and whenever he requires a helicopter (Butler, 2003). Although a comprehensive history of HMX-1 would fill volumes and was beyond the scope of this research paper, the historical milestones and existing mission responsibilities mentioned above lend credence to the notion HMX-1 must attract and be staffed with the most capable and professional personnel - pilots included.