In 1941 the Marine Corps paid $64,502 for twenty-nine parcels of land along the New River in eastern North Carolina. It was tobacco country, flat and sandy and almost insultingly ordinary. Captain Barnett Robinson of Marine Glider Group 71 walked the fields and decided they would do. Eighty-five years later, the same patch of dirt is the busiest tilt-rotor base in the United States Marine Corps, the East Coast home of the V-22 Osprey and the new CH-53K King Stallion. The tobacco is long gone.
VMSB-331 flew in from MCAS Cherry Point on 9 March 1943, the first squadron to call the new field home. On 1 June, headquarters split the squadron in half to create VMSB-332, and within months both were shuffled off to Bogue Field. By mid-1943 Marine bombing squadrons VMB-433, VMB-443, and VMB-612 had moved in with their land-based PBJ Mitchells, the Navy's name for the B-25. On 26 April 1944 the area around New River and Peterfield Point was formally commissioned Marine Corps Auxiliary Airfield Camp Lejeune, separating it administratively from the parent base. King Air Hangar, transported piece by piece from Parris Island, became the first hangar on the property. Paratroopers, glider troops, and air delivery Marines trained inside it.
After the war the base went into caretaker status as an outlying field of Cherry Point. It did not stay quiet long. In 1951 it reactivated as Marine Corps Air Facility Peterfield Point, then a year later was rechristened Marine Corps Air Facility New River. In July 1954 Marine Aircraft Group 26 arrived from Cherry Point, the first operational aircraft group permanently based there. By 1968 it had grown enough to be recommissioned Marine Corps Air Station (Helicopter) New River. In 1972 the airfield itself was named McCutcheon Field for General Keith B. McCutcheon, considered one of the fathers of Marine Corps helicopter aviation. Pilots taxiing toward Runway 32 today pass under his name.
MCAS New River was the first Marine Corps base to receive the MV-22B Osprey, the tilt-rotor that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like a turboprop. Seven Osprey squadrons now call the field home: VMM-162, VMM-261, VMM-263, VMM-266, VMM-365, the training squadron VMMT-204, and VMM-264. The Osprey replaced every CH-46E Sea Knight on the East Coast except HMX-1 and HMM-774. In January 2022 HMH-461 became the first operational unit in the Marine Corps to swap its CH-53E Super Stallion for the upgraded CH-53K King Stallion, a quieter and more powerful heavy lift helicopter that can hoist 27,000 pounds. The base is also home to the AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms of HMLA-167, the workhorse attack and utility helicopters of Marine air.
Walk through nearby Jacksonville on a weekday and you will hear them eventually. A low rotor beat first, then a flat thrum as an Osprey transitions from helicopter mode to airplane mode, then the higher whine of a Viper trailing a Venom on a training run. Families on the base know the rhythm of it: a Marine deploys, family stays behind, time passes, the Marine returns or does not. MCAS New River pushes Marines toward every ship and combat zone the Corps reaches. The field shares facilities with neighboring Camp Geiger, the School of Infantry East, where every East Coast Marine learns the infantry trade. Delalio Elementary School serves the youngest base residents. Brewster Middle and Lejeune High serve them after. It is a small world held together by the noise of rotors overhead.
MCAS New River (KNCA) sits at 34.7084 degrees north, 77.4397 degrees west, with field elevation around 26 feet. View from 1,500 to 2,500 feet AGL to see the runway layout, the New River to the south, and the broader Camp Lejeune complex. Class D airspace and Marine training operations require contact with tower on 119.0; expect dense rotorcraft traffic. Albert J. Ellis Airport (KOAJ) is the nearest civil field, eight nautical miles northwest.
MCAS New River (KNCA) at 34.7084 degrees north, 77.4397 degrees west. Field elevation about 26 feet. Class D airspace with heavy rotorcraft traffic. View from 1,500 to 2,500 feet AGL. KOAJ is the nearest civil alternate. Check NOTAMs for restricted areas around Camp Lejeune.