This post has some foul language, so ignore it if you might be offended.

I had the opportunity to have a few emails back and forth with a retired Marine Lt.Col. who was the skipper of an A-6 squadron in MAG-32 during my time in East Asia.

A great friend of mine was killed in action while flying the Intruder and just lately I found his C.O. with a google search to find out details about the shoot down and why Lenny's status was changed from MIA to KIA.

In the book, Return With Honor , a book about a shoot down in Bosnia of an F-15, there was a reference to Juvats as a code word to make sure the fellow the Marines were coming to rescue was, in fact, the real Air Force pilot who was shot down.

I got really tickled when I read the book, 'cause I knew the source of the term "Juvat" and I related the following to good colonel when we just began telling war stories. Karl Batt (dead now, too, alas!) was a friend of my correspondent so I had to tell him the story of the Chicken screwing the Tomcat.

I hope you enjoy it. :

A fun story about VMA211, VMA311 and my skipper, Lt.Col. Karl Batt:

Sometime during the fall, I think, of 1971, a bunch of us had flown over to Kunsan, Korea for an R.O.N. and to drink with the Air Force. The unofficial name of the squadron that we visited was the Juvats, the (quite unofficial) definition of one being was a "hairy little cocksucker who likes to eat pussy standing up".

The Juvats flew F-4's and were as full of piss and vinegar as we. They had been thrown out of the "O" Club by the base C.O. because they said "fuck" too much. Some crazy pilot or WSO had made up stencils that read "You can't say "fork" in the "O" Club" and had painted every building and telephone pole on the base. A makeshift bar was rigged up in the BOQ with beers costing $.25 on weeknights and free on the weekends. All the AF guys were on unaccompanied tours, like us, so lots of beers were drunk.

On the night I was there, somebody had an 8mm film running with a disgusting porno flic (you know, Mexican folks with black socks still on...). It only lasted a minute or two before a drunk knocked the the projector over which pissed off whoever was waiting on the donkey.

Anyway, sometime durning the night, the AF guys painted little black "JUVAT" characters on our planes with a stencil and spray paint.. They looked somewhat like a modified Phantom Pherret, if you remember that guy in the cloak that F-4 crews had on patches on their flight jackets?

We were inspired.

Upon return to Iwakuni, we got stencils of the 311 Tomcat made and snuck over to the VMA 211 line (modex for their squadron was CF on the horizontal stabilizer… you can guess what we called them) and painted a tomcat on every Chicken Fucker's tail. We thought we were cool... The pilots of the Wake Island Avengers were pissed, threw stuff at us at happy hour, etc.. but they had a plan. We never saw the inevitable.

One morning shortly thereafter, when we walked out on the flight line, all the plane captains, etc, looked like their pet dogs had died. They were kicking chocks, cussing and shooting birds at the 211 hanger and about 50 officers and men from our sister MAG-32 squadron were out on the tarmac observing us with glee.

The cause was immediately evident. On every 211 plane, the tomcats that we had painted had right behind them, fighting cocks (I think from the Universit of South Carolina's mascot), wings outstretched, sporting a huge set of balls and a giant penis stuck up poor Tom's ass cheeks.

Someone went to get Lt.Col. Batt. He saw the modification to our prank and his jaw dropped to his knees. He then assembled the entire squadron in the hanger, outside of the sight of the hooting 211 crowd. He explained, and we agreed, that we'd been one-upped, and in spades... he decided, and we again agreed that 211's was a better prank than ours and we could hardly get back at the Chicken Fuckers unless we did something destructive or dangerous.. So, Col. Batt marched us out of the hanger, we turned to the Wake Island Avengers, and all of us saluted and then gave then a loud round of applause. It was a fun day... Batt even sent some folks to fix 211's paint jobs and being Marines, all was taken in good spirits.

Never underestimate the imagination of a 19 year old Marine!

The Phantom Pherret patch. A Juvat stencil looked similar, but was all black. To get the stencil on your aircraft, you had to be accepted by the real Juvats as an "honorary" and coming home with it on your a/c was kinda cool! I think the initiation was a beer baptism??


The VMA-311 Tomcat (that got the worst from the Chicken)


A VMA-211 A-4 (note the CF modex on the tail, and thus the nickname of Chicken Fucker)



A VMA-311 A-4 with the squadron symbol visible... We stenciled the Tomcat without the bomb and yellow circle on the VMA-211 airplanes.


The gamecock (sans tallywhacker and nuts) that was stenciled with the pecker up our Tomcat's butt.

Great story..

Looks like in the last picture that A-4 was photographed from an A-1. Ernest, what year(s) did you go through PLC?

I staggered through PLC at Quantico in the summers of 1966 and 1967.

The hottest place in the world is discovered while trying to sleep in a Quonset hut in late July on a breezeless night on the Potomic.

Yes, that's an AD or a Spad or an A-1 depending on your era. Note that the Scooter's slats are partially extended indicating about 175 knots or less. I think those are Zuni pods on the AD?? The pictured A-4 is #15. I had my name on #16 (which is now under about 5000 feet of water off of Okinawa, btw).