OAK HARBOR – A squadron of EA-6B Prowlers and more than 225 Navy personnel are scheduled to return to their home base at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station Friday and Saturday after a six-month deployment.

Electronic Attack Squadron 141 has been aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, and was stationed on the ground in Iraq.

Jets and air crews are scheduled to arrive at 1 p.m. Friday. Support personnel will arrive Saturday between 5:30 and 7 p.m. in three airlift flights.

The squadron conducted operations from the Persian Gulf and the Iraqi desert.

A Navy spokesman said the squadron used “ingenuity, craftsmanship and a Navy construction detachment to install maintenance work centers complete with electricity, insulation, heating and cooling in hardened aircraft shelters.”

Flight crews conducted 490 combat missions and provided 2,400 hours of support to U.S. Army, Marine Corps and coalition troops on the ground.

The squadron consists of 28 officers and 175 enlisted personnel. Also returning are 24 members of a detachment that provides technical support to keep the aircraft flying.

Herald file photo

EA-6B Prowlers based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island sit on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation in the Persian Gulf in 2005.