text: World War II With the tension in the Pacific increasing, VMB-2 was deployed to Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, Oahu, Hawaii. Early 1941 also saw the transition from the colorful pre-war scheme to the tactical, and less colorful, light gray scheme, but still the Red Devil insignia was absent. On 1 July 1941, in anticipation of the large expansion marine aviation was about to undergo, VMB-2 became VMSB-232, the designation it carried during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during which one member of the squadron was killed and nine of the squadron's aircraft were destroyed, with ten more requiring major overhaul. On Wake Island, a Red Devil detachment suffered twenty five enlisted Marines killed or captured while assisting in the defense of the doomed island.
  On 20 August 1942, the squadron became part of the Cactus Air Force. and flew SBD Dauntlesses from Guadalcanal's 3,000-foot dirt runway Henderson Field. The Red Devils became the first Marine dive bomber squadron to fly against the Japanese. On the evening of 11-12 September, cruisers and destroyers of the Imperial Japanese Navy sailed into Ironbottom Sound and began shelling Henderson Field. Two pilots from VMSB-232 were killed and another two Marines were wounded. The squadron departed Guadalcanal on 12 October 1942, heading for Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California, where it was redesignated again, this time as Marine Torpedo Bombing Squadron 232 (VMTB-232), flying newly acquired Grumman TBF Avengers. The squadron returned to the Pacific in July 1943 where it was first based in Espiritu Santo. From there it moved to Munda in order to support allied forces during the Bougainville landings in November 1943.