Congress authorized Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point on 9 July 1941, with an initial appropriation of $14,990,000 for construction and clearing of an 8,000 acre (32 km2) tract of swamps, farms and timberland.

Cherry Point's primary World War II mission was to train units and individual Marines for service to the Pacific theater.

During the Vietnam War, Cherry Point deployed three A-6 Intruder squadrons to the Far East and again provided a constant source of replacements for aircrews and enlisted aviation personnel.

Its runway system is large enough that the air station served as an alternate emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle launches out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

[3][4] In 2013, Cherry Point hosted warfighters, technology teams and testers under the flags of 10 nations and each of the U.S. military services for the 11th Bold Quest coalition demonstration.

As a GCI station, the squadron's role was to guide interceptor aircraft toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes.

During 1961 M-116 joined the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system, initially feeding data to DC-04 at Fort Lee AFS, Virginia.