Marine Corps Air Station New River was founded in 1944 during World War II on land the Marines had purchased in 1941 as part of more than 100,000 acres of farmland for the 1st Marine Division. Chosen as an ideal site for an emergency landing field, it developed rapidly during the war years, and even before its official activation as a Marine Corps auxiliary air facility in 1944, its three paved runways supported parachute, seaplane, and bombing squadron training while Marines there were already dying as they prepared for combat in the Pacific. The facility closed at the end of World War II, reopened during the Korean War, gained its first permanent operational presence in 1954 when Marine Aircraft Group 26 transferred from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, and continued growing through the Vietnam years until it was recommissioned in 1968 as Marine Corps Air Station (helicopter) New River. In 1972, the airfield proper was renamed for General Keith B. McCutcheon, a father of Marine Corps helicopter aviation and a decorated combat aviator in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. By 2006, the station was home to nearly 200 helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft operated by two Marine aircraft groups comprising 16 squadrons. Across the decades, from training at home to service in places from Da Nang to An Nasiriyah, the men and women of the station built a legacy of selfless sacrifice, aerial skill, and courage under fire. After a tragic aviation accident there in 1996, family and friends of those who lost their lives formed the New River Aviation Memorial Foundation and dedicated the memorial to all pilots, aircrew, and embarked personnel who died while defending freedom.