Originally nicknamed the "Hummer Gators"[1] and later as "Steeljaws" was a U.S. Atlantic Coast Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron stationed at NAS Norfolk.

During its 30 years of existence, the squadron was deployed around the world and saw action from Vietnam to Desert Storm, conducting operations from the Arctic to the tropics.

Originally equipped with the E-2A Hawkeye, VAW-122 was first on the scene, establishing communications and directing fighter coverage for the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean in June 1967 after the intelligence-gathering ship was attacked by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats.

The squadron's next two deployments to the Mediterranean returned its crews to international crises—the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1974 Cyprus Crisis.

[2] VAW-122 made its first major counter-narcotic deployment as a squadron to the Caribbean and Central America in 1990, previously it had been smaller detachments of shorter duration beginning in 1983 with Operation Thunderbolt.