all crewmen were rescued but the helicopter was destroyed. On 16 June the squadron ceased operations and began preparing its UH-34Ds for handover to the RVNAF with the handover taking place on 19 June. By the end of June the squadron had been flown back to Okinawa and their role had been assumed by HMM-162. In September 1965 the squadron returned to South Vietnam with the rest of MAG-36 and was based at Kỳ Hà. The squadron supported Operation Harvest Moon in December. During this time period the squadron adopted the "Purple Fox" name from a cartoon purple fox mascot called Swifty. In March 1966 the squadron supported Operation Utah with the rest of MAG-36. On 9 April the squadron flew onboard USS Princeton replacing HMM-362 as the Special Landing Force (SLF) helicopter squadron. On 4 July HMM-363 relieved the squadron. The squadron left South Vietnam on 1 November. The squadron was then placed in cadre status at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California and consisted of three officers and 12 enlisted Marines. In March 1967, the squadron was reorganized and began receiving the new Boeing CH-46D Sea Knight helicopters. On 28 October, most of the squadron's pilots and crews flew to South Vietnam where they began operating UH–34s to help relieve the medium lift shortage caused by the grounding of CH-46s while waiting for their own aircraft to be modified back in California. On 10 November the aircraft left the United States onboard the and 19 days later arrived at Phu Bai Combat Base. Throughout 1968 the squadron operated with the rest of MAG-36 from Phu Bai supporting Marine units in northern I Corps including in the Battle of Khe Sanh and Battle of Huế. In December 1968 the squadron supported Operation Taylor Common. By the beginning of 1969 the squadron had been assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 16 (MAG-16) at Marble Mountain Air Facility. On 16 February 1971 the squadron flew its last mission in South Vietnam and by the end of the month it had departed for the U.S. For almost half of its short 10-year existence, HMM-364 served in South Vietnam. During its three tours there, the squadron's pilots and crewmen flew almost 70,000 hours in combat and combat support missions and the squadron was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for meritorious conduct in the performance of duty. On 22 March 1971, the squadron folded