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Very nice work, Sergio (if I may).
I have never seen an image of this particular aircraft in those colors and markings, so can only speculate. The red outlines to the national insignia identify the time frame as the summer or early autumn of 1943 since that insignia was authorized on 28 June 1943 and replaced with a blue-outlined insignia on 31 July 1943.
Only four R3D-2s served with the Marines, two each with VMJ-1 (later, VMJ-152) at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Quantico, Virginia, and VMJ-2 (later VMJ-252) at MCAS San Diego and then in mid-1941 at MCAS Ewa, Hawai'i.
According to E.R. Johnson (United States Marine Corps Aircraft Since 1913, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018), one of the VMJ-252 aircraft (BuNo 1904) was deployed to Australia in December 1941, but was shot down, crash landed, and damaged beyond repair on 31 January 1942. The other VMJ-252 R3D-2 was reassigned to Air Base Group Two (ABG-2) initially at MCAS San Diego, then at MCAS El Toro, California. When VMJ-121 deployed to the Pacific, one of its R3D-2s was left behind with the Quantico Air Base Group, the other was transferred to ABG-2 at El Torro. All three Marine R3D-2s were stricken in October 1946.
Taking all this into account, I think it is most likely that your aircraft was assigned to Air Base Group 2 at San Diego or El Toro in the summer of 1943.
I'll be glad to hear other speculations or evidence.
Don
Last edited by Don Boose; 11-13-2018 at 02:46 PM.
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