largest VR squadron with over 700 pilots. In November 1943, the Navy took delivery of the first of six Martin PB2M Mars. On 30 November, the PB2M completed a 4,375-mile nonstop flight of 28 hours and 25 minutes, delivering 16,000 pounds of cargo from Patuxent River to Natal, Brazil. With the completion of facilities at NAS Honolulu, VR-11 moved its headquarters there in December. In December 1943, the Naval Air Ferry Command was established under NATS to take over the mission previously provided by the Aircraft Delivery Units. The mission of the Ferry Command was to ferry aircraft from the factories to the fleet. The Command's headquarters were placed at NAS New York (Floyd Bennett Field) as well as the first squadron, VRF-1. Once a manufacturer, such as Grumman, Vought, or General Motors, deemed an aircraft was ready for delivery to the Navy, the aircraft was flown to NAS New York by the company's pilots. At New York, Navy personnel would check the aircraft and accept it. The Ferry Command would then fly the aircraft to where it was needed. NAS New York accepted over 20,000 aircraft during the course of the war – 25% of the Navy's total. The Air Ferry Command had a pilot training detachment at NAS Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. VRF-2 was established at Columbus, Ohio to accept aircraft from the Curtiss-Wright plant at Columbus and the Goodyear plant at Akron as well as others. Finally VRF-3 was established at NAS San Pedro to accept aircraft from the West Coast manufacturers. VRS-1 was also formed to provide servicing and refueling on the ferry route from New York to the West Coast. Ferrying stops were located at various times at Lynchburg and Petersburg, Virginia; Spartanburg, South Carolina: Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Meridian and Jackson, Mississippi; Little Rock, Arkansas; Shreveport, Louisiana; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Worth, Abilene, Midland, and El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Yuma, and Coolidge, Arizona; and El Centro, California plus others. In December 1944, VFR-4 was established at New York to specialize in the ferrying of seaplanes. Full strength, 1944–45 During 1944, NATS was operating at full steam. In June, two additional maintenance squadrons were formed, VR-12 at Honolulu and VR-9 at Patuxent River. VR-13, an additional R4D squadron, was established and was eventually moved to Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands. In March 1945, VRE-1, a wounded evacuation squadron, was formed out of VR-11 and moved to