Cover 2

[[Topographical globe screen similar to Anchor of Resolve]]

[[Quotation]] “The Navy is more than the ‘first line of defense.’ It frequently is and 

must be the spearhead of our military actions overseas. It is a ‘first line of impact’

on many occasions.” 

—Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, 1955–1961 

Cover 3

[[Cover 3 Van Buskirk, caption prints under photo]]

Vice Admiral Scott R. Van Buskirk, who assumed command on 10 September 

2010, stresses the importance of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to peace and stability in the 

sometimes volatile Western Pacific. 

7th Flt PA

Cover 4

[[Cover 4: Blue Ridge with Mt Fuji in background; Caption to KUM and print on 

ii]]

[[7th Fleet emblem]]

Ready Seapower

Edward J. Marolda

A History of tHe 

U.s. seventH fleet
“The Navy is more than 

the ‘first line of defense.’ 

It frequently is and must be 

the spearhead of our military 

actions overseas. It is a ‘first line 

of impact’ on many occasions.” 

—AdmirAl Arleigh Burke, 

Chief of NAvAl operAtioNs, 

1955–1961
Department of the Navy

Washington, DC

2012

Ready Seapower

Edward J. Marolda

A History of the 

U.S. Seventh Fleet
Published by

Naval History & Heritage Command

805 Kidder Breese Street SE

Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060

www.history.navy.mil

Book design by Jessica Reynolds

Front cover: George Washington (CVN 73), the Navy’s only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier, 

underway off Japan in November 2009, ensures security and stability in the western Pacific Ocean. MCSN Adam 

K. Thomas

Back cover: The U.S. Seventh Fleet command ship Blue Ridge (LCC 19) steams off Shimizu, Japan, ending a 

six-week tour of Pacific Rim ports in May 2008. MC3 Heidi McCormick

U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL EDITION NOTICE

Use of ISBN

This is the Official U.S. Government Edition of this publication and is herein identified to 

certify its authenticity. Use of ISBN 978-0-945274-67-4 is for U.S. Government Printing 

Office Official Edition only. The Superintendent of Documents of the U.S. Government 

Printing Office requests that any reprinted edition clearly be labeled as a copy of the 

authentic work with a new ISBN.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marolda, Edward J.

 Ready seapower : a history of the U.S. Seventh Fleet / Edward J. Marolda.

 p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-0-945274-67-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States. Navy. Fleet, 7th—History. 

2. Sea-power—United States. 3. United States—History, Naval—20th century. 4. United States—

History, Naval—21st century. I. Title. II. Title: History of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. 

III. Title: History of the US 7th Fleet. 

 VA63.S48M37 2011

359.3’1—dc23

 2011037880

 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements for permanence established by the American 

National Standard for Information Sciences “Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials” (ANSI

Z39.48-1984).

For Sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: Bookstore.gpo.gov; Phone: toll free 1-866-512-1800; DC area 202-512-1800; Fax 202-512-2104

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
Contents 

Foreword ......................................................................................................v

Chronology.................................................................................................vii

Introduction................................................................................................xv

Chapter 1 MacArthur’s Navy ....................................................................1

Chapter 2 Weathering Postwar Turmoil in Asia ......................................11

Chapter 3 Fighting the Korean War........................................................23

Chapter 4 Deterring Conflict in the Far East ..........................................37

Chapter 5 Combat and Confrontation....................................................53

Chapter 6 Old Enemies and New Friends...............................................79

Chapter 7 From the Arabian Gulf to Mount Pinatubo..........................101

Chapter 8 Safeguarding the Peace ........................................................113

Chapter 9 Terrorists, Pirates, and Weapons Proliferators ......................127

Chapter 10 Partners and Adversaries......................................................143

Appendix Commanders, U.S. Seventh Fleet .........................................171

Abbreviations............................................................................................173

Acknowledgments ....................................................................................177

Suggested Reading ....................................................................................179

Index ........................................................................................................183
iv READY SEAPOWER

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral John M. Bird discusses operations with Vice Admiral Tohru Izumi, Commander in Chief, Japan Maritime 

Self-Defense Force, aboard the command ship Blue Ridge (LCC 19) in February 2009. 

7th Flt PA
v

Foreword 

The Naval History and Heritage Command published this history to enhance our 

understanding of the pivotal role played by the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific from World 

War II through 2010. This project is in keeping with the Command’s ongoing efforts to provide 

naval personnel with historical information and analysis that directly support their global mission. No naval 

command has done more than the Seventh Fleet to defend and promote American interests in Asia. This 

“fighting fleet” was in the forefront of U.S. forces involved in the Pacific campaigns of World War II and the 

conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the Arabian Gulf. In the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of 

the 21st century, the Seventh Fleet has stood as a bulwark against aggression and partnered with America’s 

Asian allies to maintain peace and stability in this vital region. Whether combating conventional forces, 

guerrillas, insurgents, pirates, or terrorists, Seventh Fleet Sailors have routinely displayed exceptional courage 

and dedication, serving also as ambassadors for America’s core values of freedom, democracy, free market 

enterprise, and respect for human rights.

The author of this illustrated history, Dr. Edward J. Marolda, former Senior Historian of the Navy, brings 

to the topic forty-plus years of relevant scholarship and experience. He has authored, coauthored, or edited 12 

highly regarded works on the Navy’s history, with a special focus on its involvement in modern Asian conflicts 

and developments.

 Rear Admiral Jay DeLoach, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Director of Naval History
vi READY SEAPOWER

Changing of the guard. Midway (CV 41), top, en route in August 

1991 to San Diego and decommissioning, shares a pier at the Pearl 

Harbor naval base with Independence (CV 62), preparing to begin 

her forward deployment to Japan.

NHHC L File

A flight deck officer signals the pilot of an A-4 Skyhawk to launch 

from carrier Coral Sea (CVA 43) in March 1965.

USN 1111691-A

USN 47602

Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid and his commanders off the Philippines. Left to right, Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, Kinkaid, Rear 

Admiral Theodore E. Chandler (later killed in a kamikaze attack), and Rear Admiral Russell S. Berkey (future Commander Seventh Fleet).
vii

Seventh Fleet Chronology

1941, 7 December Imperial Japanese Navy attacks U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, igniting 

World War II in the Pacific.

1942, 4-6 June U.S. naval forces defeat Japanese fleet in Battle of Midway.

1943, 19 February U.S. Navy establishes U.S. Seventh Fleet.

1943, 26 November Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid takes the helm as Commander U.S. Seventh Fleet.

1944, 29 February Seventh Fleet forces land troops in the Admiralty Islands.

1944, 22 April Seventh Fleet deploys ground forces ashore at Hollandia, New Guinea.

1944, 20 October Allied forces land at Leyte in the Philippines.

1944, 25 October Seventh Fleet and Third Fleet forces defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle 

of Leyte Gulf.

1944, 25 October First major kamikaze attack on U.S. naval forces results in the sinking of escort carrier 

St. Lo (CVE 63).

1944, 15 December Seventh Fleet lands troops on Mindoro Island, Philippines.

1945, 9 January Seventh Fleet amphibious forces deploy Army divisions ashore at Lingayen on the 

main Philippine island of Luzon.

1945, 15 August General Douglas MacArthur issues General Order No. 1 directing the disarmament 

of Japanese forces in China and Korea. 

1945, 2 September World War II ends as Japanese officials sign surrender documents on board battleship 

Missouri (BB 63).

1945, 9 September Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid and Army General John R. Hodge accept the surrender 

of Japanese forces in southern Korea at a ceremony in Seoul.

1946, 4 July Seventh Fleet forces are on hand off Manila for Philippine Independence Day.

1947, 1 January Seventh Fleet renamed U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific. 

1948, 17 January Attack transport Renville (APA 227) serves as the venue for a cease-fire agreement 

between the Netherlands and Indonesian independence groups.

1949, 25 May Seventh Fleet departs Qingdao, China, its homeport from 1946 to 1949, for the last time.
viii CHRONOLOGY

1949, 19 August U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific designated U.S. Seventh Task Fleet.

1949, 1 October Communist leader Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) establishes the People’s Republic 

of China.

1950, 12 January Secretary of State Dean Acheson announces a U.S. defensive perimeter in the 

Western Pacific that excludes South Korea and Taiwan from American protection.

1950, 11 February U.S. Seventh Task Fleet redesignated U.S. Seventh Fleet.

1950, 14 February People’s Republic of China and Soviet Union sign a 30-year Treaty of Friendship, 

Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.

1950, 25 June Communist North Korea, with the support of the People’s Republic of China and 

the USSR, invades South Korea.

1950, 27 June At the direction of President Harry S. Truman, Seventh Fleet steams near Taiwan to 

discourage a Chinese Communist invasion of the Chinese Nationalist-held island.

1950, 3 July Seventh Fleet carrier Valley Force (CV 45) and Royal Navy carrier Triumph carry out 

the first naval attacks on North Korea with strikes against targets near Pyongyang.

1950, 4 August Commander Seventh Fleet establishes the Formosa Patrol Force (Task Force 72), 

which operates for almost three decades as the Taiwan Patrol Force.

1950, 15 September Seventh Fleet and UN warships and ground troops execute an amphibious assault 

at Incheon (Inchon), South Korea, that routs the invading North Korean army and 

liberates the country.

1950, 25 November Chinese People’s Liberation Army launches a major offensive that forces the 

withdrawal of U.S. and UN forces from North Korea.

1950, 24 December Seventh Fleet and other UN naval forces evacuate close to 200,000 troops and 

refugees from Hungnam, North Korea.

1951, 30 August United States and Republic of the Philippines sign a Mutual Defense Treaty. 

1951, 1 September Australia, New Zealand, and the United States sign the ANZUS Security Treaty.

1953, 5 March Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin dies.

1953, 27 July Belligerents sign a cease-fire agreement that ends the fighting in Korea.

1953, 1 October United States and Republic of Korea sign a Mutual Defense Treaty.

1954, 7 May Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces overwhelm the last French defenders of the combat 

base at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina.
CHRONOLOGY ix

1954, 21 July At a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, representatives of the belligerents in the 

First Indochina War agree to cease-fire terms ending the conflict. 

1954, 16 August Seventh Fleet begins loading the first of 293,000 refugees from northern Vietnam 

who are transported to southern Vietnam in Operation Passage to Freedom.

1954, 3 September Mao Zedong’s army begins shelling Jinmen and Mazu, islands held by the forces of 

Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government on Taiwan.

1954, 8 September At a meeting in Manila, the United States, Australia, Great Britain, France, Pakistan, 

the Philippines, New Zealand, and Thailand agree to establish the Southeast Asia 

Treaty Organization (SEATO) to counter Communist inroads. 

1954, 2 December United States and Republic of China sign a Mutual Defense Treaty.

1955, 20 January Chinese Communist forces seize Yijiangshan Island in the Dachens chain.

1955, 28 January Congress passes the Formosa Resolution to support the Republic of China in its 

confrontation with the People’s Republic of China.

1955, 6 February Seventh Fleet ships begin the evacuation of Chinese Nationalist troops and civilians 

from the Dachen Islands.

1958, 23 August Chinese Communist forces begin shelling Chinese Nationalist positions on Jinmen 

Island in the Taiwan Strait, sparking a confrontation with the United States.

1958, 6 October Mao Zedong ends the Taiwan Strait crisis with the announcement that his forces will 

shell Jinmen only on odd days.

1960, 19 January United States and Japan sign a Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. 

1962, 17 May At the direction of President John F. Kennedy, Seventh Fleet deploys Marine and other 

U.S. forces to Thailand as a deterrent to Communist advances in neighboring Laos.

1962, 23 July At a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, the United States and other nations agree to 

the neutralization of Laos in the ongoing conflict in Southeast Asia.

1963, 1 November Military coup in South Vietnam results in the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

1963, 22 November President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

1964, 2 August North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack Seventh Fleet destroyer Maddox (DD 731) 

in the Gulf of Tonkin. 

1964, 7 August Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, enabling President Lyndon B. Johnson 

to employ military means against Communist forces in Southeast Asia.
x CHRONOLOGY

1965, 8 March Seventh Fleet amphibious units land the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at 

Danang, South Vietnam.

1965, 11 March The Market Time anti-infiltration operation that will involve Seventh Fleet, U.S. Coast 

Guard, and Vietnam Navy forces, gets underway off the coast of South Vietnam.

1965, 15 March Task Force 77 carriers launch the Navy’s first strikes of the Air Force–Navy Rolling 

Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam. 

1966, 26 October Fire on board carrier Oriskany (CVA 34) in the Gulf of Tonkin kills 44 naval aviators 

and crewmen.

1967, 29 July Catastrophic fire on the flight deck of carrier Forrestal (CVA 59) leads to the death of 

134 Sailors. 

1968, 23 January North Korean naval forces seize intelligence ship Pueblo (AGER 2) in international waters.

1968, 31 January Communist forces launch the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam.

1968, 31 March President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the end of bombing in North Vietnam above 

of the 19th parallel.

1969, 15 April North Korean MiGs shoot down a Navy EC-121 reconnaissance plane, killing the 

entire crew of 31.

1971, 9 December Washington orders the Enterprise (CVAN 165) battle group to deploy to the Indian 

Ocean in connection with the Indo-Pakistan War. 

1972, 21 February President Richard M. Nixon meets with Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong 

in China.

1972, 30 March North Vietnam launches the multipronged Easter Offensive into South Vietnam.

1972, 9 May Navy and Marine aircraft flying from carrier Coral Sea (CVA 43) mine the 

approaches to North Vietnam’s Haiphong harbor. 

1972, 10 May Seventh Fleet and U.S. Air Force aircraft launch the Linebacker I bombing campaign 

against North Vietnam. 

1972, 18 December As directed by President Richard M. Nixon, Task Force 77 and Air Force planes 

inaugurate the Linebacker II strikes on Hanoi and Haiphong.

1973, 27 January Vietnam War is over for the United States with the signing of the Paris Agreement on 

Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.
CHRONOLOGY xi

1973, 6 February Seventh Fleet’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78) begins operations to 

ensure the waters of North Vietnam are free of U.S.-laid mines, a requirement of the 

Paris peace agreement. 

1975, 12 April Seventh Fleet and Marine forces evacuate Americans, Cambodians, and others from 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in Operation Eagle Pull.

1975, 30 April Seventh Fleet directs the Operation Frequent Wind evacuation that ends the U.S. 

presence in South Vietnam. 

1975, 15 May Navy and Marine units recover merchant ship SS Mayaguez, seized two days before 

by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. 

1976, 21 August In response to the brutal axe murder of two U.S. Army officers by North Korean 

soldiers, Seventh Fleet and other U.S. and South Korean units mount a massive show 

of force in and around the peninsula’s Demilitarized Zone.

1979, 1 January United States and People’s Republic of China establish diplomatic relations.

1979, 17 February People’s Republic of China attacks Socialist Republic of Vietnam to “teach the 

Vietnamese a lesson.”

1979, 27 December Soviet army invades Afghanistan. 

1983, 1 September Soviet MiG shoots down a KAL airliner off Sakhalin Island, killing all on board.

1986, 5 November For the first time since 1949, warships of the Seventh Fleet visit the Chinese port of 

Qingdao.

1989, 4 June China’s People’s Liberation Army crushes a pro-democracy movement in Beijing’s 

Tiananmen Square.

1989, 1 December Seventh Fleet units support the government of the Philippines when military 

elements stage a coup in Manila.

1990, 2 August Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invade Kuwait.

1990, 7 August As directed by President George H.W. Bush, Seventh Fleet and other U.S. forces 

launch Operation Desert Shield. 

1991, 17 January Seventh Fleet and other UN coalition forces initiate Desert Storm air and naval 

operations against Iraqi armed forces.

1991, 24 February Coalition ground forces begin the ground assault into Kuwait.

1991, 28 February UN coalition concludes combat operations against Iraq.
xii CHRONOLOGY

1991, 9 May In Operation Sea Angel, Seventh Fleet and other forces begin humanitarian 

assistance to the victims of typhoon-devastated Bangladesh.

1991, 16 June Seventh Fleet forces begin transporting evacuees to Cebu Island in the Philippines 

from U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, hit hard by the eruption of volcanic Mount Pinatubo.

1992, 24 November Seventh Fleet ends the almost 100-year U.S. military presence at U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay.

1993, 12 March North Korea declares “state of readiness for war” and announces intention to 

withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

1996, 11 March Washington directs the Nimitz (CVN 68) and Independence (CV 62) carrier battle 

groups to concentrate near Taiwan as a deterrent to aggressive behavior by the 

People’s Republic of China.

1994, 21 October United States and North Korea concur on an agreed framework to limit the latter’s 

development of nuclear weapons.

1997, 1 July United Kingdom transfers sovereignty of its Hong Kong crown colony to the People’s 

Republic of China.

1998, 19 January United States and People’s Republic of China sign a Military Maritime Consultative 

Agreement for military-to-military contacts.

1998, 31 August North Korea fires a Taepo Dong I missile over Japan.

1999, 7 May U.S. aircraft mistakenly bomb the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in 

Belgrade, Serbia.

1999, 15 Jun Republic of Korea Navy combatants sink a North Korean patrol boat in the Battle of 

Yeonpyeong.

1999, 1 October Seventh Fleet forces arrive off Dilli, East Timor, in support of UN Operation Stabilize.

2000, 12 October Al-Qaeda terrorists in Aden, Yemen, detonate an explosive next to the hull of guided 

missile destroyer Cole (DDG 67), killing 17 American Sailors.

2001, 1 April PRC fighter crashes into a U.S. EP-3E patrol plane, forcing the latter to make an 

emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island.

2001, 11 September Al-Qaeda terrorists crash civilian airliners into the Twin Towers of New York’s 

World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in central Pennsylvania, killing close 

to 3,000 people. 

2001, 7 October U.S. forces begin the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan in 

Operation Enduring Freedom. 
CHRONOLOGY xiii

2003, 19 March Coalition forces begin combat actions against Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

2003, 31 May President George W. Bush announces the Proliferation Security Initiative to counter 

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

2004, 28 December In Operation Unified Assistance, Seventh Fleet units deploy to waters off Indonesia 

in connection with the Indian Ocean tsunami humanitarian relief.

2005, 28 June Washington and New Delhi sign the New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense 

Relationship, a ten-year agreement for joint protection of sea lanes.

2005, Fall Chief of Naval Operations calls for an international “thousand-ship navy” to defend 

the maritime commons. 

2006, 5 July North Korea fires Scud, No Dong, and Taepo Dong II missiles into the Sea of Japan/

East Sea.

2007, 21 November Uniformed heads of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard sign the 

“Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.”

2008, 26 November Islamist terrorists attack targets in Mumbai, India, killing 165 people.

2009, 20 March Seventh Fleet and Republic of Korea Navy leaders sign an agreement regarding eventual 

ROKN assumption of operational control over contingency operations in Korea.

2009, 9 March Ships of the People’s Republic of China harass U.S. Navy research vessel Impeccable

(T-AGOS 23) in the South China Sea.

2010, 26 March A North Korean submarine sinks the ROKN corvette Cheonan, killing 46 South 

Korean sailors.

2010, 23 November North Korean artillery shells South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing two Republic 

of Korea marines and two civilians. 
xiv READY SEAPOWER

RUSSIA

KYRGYZSTAN

TAJIKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

INDIA

CHINA

KAZAKHSTAN

MENISTAN

UZBEKISTAN

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

NEPAL

BHUTAN

VIETNAM

SRI LANKA

LAOS BANGLADESH

MALAYSIA

PAPUA

NEW GUINEA

BRUNEI

SINGAPORE

PHILIPPINES

TAIWAN

INDONESIA

JAPAN

MONGOLIA

SOUTH KOREA

NORTH KOREA

AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

NEW CALEDONIA

FIJI

North Pacific Ocean

Bering Sea

Aral

Sea

Gulf of Oman

Arabian Sea

Bay of Bengal

Andaman

Sea Gulf of

Thailand

Indian Ocean

Java Sea

South China Sea

Timor Sea

East China

Sea

Great Australian Bight

Philippine Sea

Arafura Sea

Sea of Japan

Gulf of

Carpentaria

Sea of Okhotsk

Coral Sea

Tasman Sea

Strait of Malacca

Taiwan Strait 

Cairns

Petropavlovsk

Nome

Dalian

Fuzhou

Qingdao

Shanghai

Wenzhou

Xiamen

Ho Chi Minh City

Auckland

Mumbai

Vladivostok

Darwin

Zhanjiang

Chongqing

Beijing

Tokyo

Port Moresby

Hanoi

Kabul

Canberra

Hong Kong

New Delhi

Jakarta

Phnom Penh

Vientiane

Kuala Lumpur

Rangoon

Kathmandu

Wellington

Pyongyang

Islamabad

Manila

Seoul

Colombo

Bangkok

Bali

Java

Sumatra

Borneo

EAST 

TIMOR

Biak

Vinh

Danang

Hainan

Subic Bay

Palawan

Luzon

Leyte

Mindanao

Guam

(USA)

Busan

Okinwa

Sasebo

Kyushu

Taipei

Yokosuka

Honshu

Hokkaido

Kurile Islands

Sakhalin

Kamchatka

Dachens

Paracel Islands

Spratly Islands

Shoalwater Bay

TASMANIA

SOLOMON

ISLANDS

MYANMAR

(BURMA)

MALDIVES

SEVENTH FLEET

AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY
xv

Introduction

U.S. interest in the Far East dates from the earliest years of the republic, 

when American merchant ships sailed across the vast Pacific to ply their trade in the 

ports of China, the Philippines, Indochina, and the East Indies. Warships of the U.S.

Navy followed soon afterward to protect those commercial carriers and to promote American 

diplomatic interests in Asia. 

The U.S. Seventh Fleet, successor to the Asiatic Squadron and Asiatic Fleet of the 19th and 

early 20th centuries, began making its own naval history in the early days of World War II. Unique 

among the nation’s naval forces, the fleet has taken part in all the major conflicts and most of the 

crises and confrontations of the last six decades. It has defended U.S. interests and worked with 

America’s Asian alliances to deter aggressors and maintain peace and stability in the region. The 

fleet’s Sailors have provided humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to numerous countries 

devastated by natural and manmade disasters.

The fleet’s area of responsibility in the 21st century encompasses 48 million square miles of 

the Pacific and Indian oceans, an area holding half of the world’s population, 35 nations, and many 

of its most prosperous economies. Much of the world’s energy resources and oceangoing trade 

passes through waters guarded by the warships, aircraft, and men and women of the U.S. Seventh 

Fleet, whose motto is appropriately—Ready Power for Peace. 
xvi READY SEAPOWER

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, left, and his boss, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Southwest Pacific Area 

General Douglas MacArthur, on board light cruiser Phoenix (CL 46) in early 1944.

SC-188839
1

chapter 1

MacARTHUR’S NAVY

T he Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, characterized by 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a “date which will live in infamy,” propelled the United 

States and the American people into World War II. In following months Japanese forces 

seized the Philippines, Malaya, and the Netherlands East Indies, in the process defeating badly 

outnumbered and ill-prepared U.S., British, and Dutch naval forces. In spring 1942 U.S. Pacific

Fleet forces and Australian ground troops stalled the Japanese offensive in New Guinea. American 

ground, air, and naval units then won a hard-fought victory on Guadalcanal and in the waters of the 

Solomon island chain. By early 1943 Allied forces under Admiral William F. Halsey, Commander, 

South Pacific Forces and South Pacific Area, were poised to continue the advance northward 

through the Solomons, with the strong Japanese base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain as the 

final objective. At the same time, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces

Southwest Pacific Area, prepared to lead his American and Australian combat units on a divergent 

course west along the virtually trackless coast of northern New Guinea. 

Military leaders in Washington recognized that 

naval power would be key to MacArthur’s New 

Guinea offensive, so on 19 February 1943 the 

Navy established the U.S. Seventh Fleet under Vice 

Admiral Arthur S. Carpender. The fleet made its 

combat debut at the end of June when Rear Admiral 

Daniel E. Barbey, in charge of amphibious forces 

(Task Force 76), deployed troops ashore south of 

Salamaua in New Guinea and on the Trobriand and 

Woodlark islands. In September the flag officer, soon 

called by the press “Uncle Dan the Amphibious 

Man,” ordered Australian combat troops to land 

east of Lae while U.S. Army paratroopers seized 

an airfield to the west. This combined assault from 

the sea and from the air, bypassing strong enemy 

defenses, would come to characterize the Seventh 

Fleet’s way of war. 

Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, later 

recognized as one of the Navy’s most successful 

World War II commanders, took the helm of the 

battle-hardened Seventh Fleet on 26 November 

1943. Kinkaid served MacArthur not only as 

Commander Seventh Fleet but Commander Allied 

Naval Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, directing 

operations of the Australian, New Zealand, 

and Dutch cruisers and destroyers working for 

MacArthur. 

Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, 

U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, selected 

Kinkaid for the billet because of his success 

cooperating with Army leaders in Alaska earlier in 

the war. This skill was a prized attribute because 

Kinkaid had to work closely with the generals 

commanding MacArthur’s sizable formations of 

U.S. and Australian ground troops. He recognized 

that naval forces were in a supporting role in 

MacArthur’s theater and acted accordingly. 

Moreover, the Navy assigned its large aircraft 

carriers only to the Central Pacific offensive led by 

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, 

U.S. Pacific Fleet and Commander Central Pacific 

Area, so the Seventh Fleet needed protection by 
2 READY SEAPOWER

the land-based bombers of the U.S. Fifth Air Force 

under Army Air Forces Lieutenant General George 

C. Kenney. Kinkaid once observed that “General 

Kenney . . . was a little difficult to deal with . . . 

and he thought ‘Damn-Navy’ was one word,” but 

the two got on with the job at hand of beating the 

Japanese. For example, Kinkaid persuaded Kenney 

to assign an Army Air Forces officer to shipboard 

duty directing fighter cover for the fleet.

MacArthur often disagreed with the Navy’s 

positions on various command, strategic, logistical, 

and other issues, and Kinkaid helped smooth 

relations between MacArthur and King, Nimitz, 

Halsey, and other top Navy leaders. He tried hard to 

foster interservice cooperation. During planning and 

preparation for Philippine operations, to be directed 

by MacArthur’s command, Kinkaid ensured that the 

amphibious commanders from the Seventh Fleet 

and from Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet worked in harmony.

But when Kinkaid disagreed with the general 

over operations involving naval forces, he did 

not hesitate to press his case with passion. In 

one instance, involving landing operations in the 

Philippines, Kinkaid was prepared to go over 

MacArthur’s head to Admiral 

King, despite the probability 

that such an action would 

result in his firing. Before 

sending his fleet into the 

restricted maneuvering 

room of the Philippine 

islands and close-by enemy 

land-based aircraft, Kinkaid 

wanted landing operations 

delayed so Allied airpower 

could neutralize the threat. 

Persuaded by the analysis 

of Kinkaid and other naval 

leaders, MacArthur finally 

agreed to delays in the 

operations. 

By early 1944 

MacArthur’s amphibious 

forces deployed the veteran 

1st Marine Division on New 

Britain and bypassed Japanese forces on New Guinea 

to land Army troops to their rear. When the general 

concluded that enemy forces were weak in the 

Admiralties north of New Guinea, he exploited the 

mobility and flexibility of the Seventh Fleet to seize 

the strategic islands. On 29 February 1944 amphibious

forces under Rear Admiral William M. Fechteler, a 

future Chief of Naval Operations, landed elements 

of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division on Los Negros. 

Not content to view the operation from the relative 

safety of light cruiser Phoenix (CL 46), MacArthur 

went ashore where troops were under fire. The general 

believed that personal bravery was a true mark of 

combat leadership. In short order U.S. forces secured 

the Admiralty Islands. 

In an even more daring action, MacArthur used 

the Seventh Fleet to put two Army divisions 300 

miles behind Japanese lines at Hollandia on New 

Guinea. This operation was a joint success story. 

General Kenny’s Fifth Air Force, Admiral Marc 

Mitcher’s fast carriers, and a task force of escort 

carriers from Halsey’s Third Fleet eliminated shorebased Japanese aircraft in range of Hollandia and 

compelled enemy surface combatants and supply 

Battleship Arizona (BB 39) explodes during the Japanese 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. 

NA K-13513
MacArthur’s Flagship

Commissioned in 1938, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser Nashville (CL 43) was a mainstay of Seventh 

Fleet operations in World War II. Even before deploying with Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid’s fleet 

in early in 1943, Nashville joined Hornet (CV 8) in the famous Halsey-Doolittle bomber raid on Tokyo 

and later shelled Japanese forces on Kiska Island in the Aleutians. The warship, with General Douglas 

MacArthur frequently embarked, took part in the Seventh Fleet’s major amphibious operations in the 

Solomons, New Guinea, the Admiralties, and the Philippines. Several months after the pivotal Battle of 

Leyte Gulf, a Japanese kamikaze plane hit the cruiser, killing 133 Sailors, wounding another 190, and 

severely damaging the ship. After stateside repairs, she was back in the fight in 1945 for operations in 

the Netherlands East Indies and the South China Sea. 

After the Japanese surrender, Nashville supported operations on China’s Yangtze River as part 

of Task Force 73 under Rear Admiral C. Turner Joy and protected amphibious ships transporting U.S. 

Marines to northern China. The light cruiser then took part in Operation Magic Carpet that returned 

millions of U.S. servicemen and women home. The Navy decommissioned Nashville in June 1946, 

placed her in “mothballs” until 1951, and then sold the cruiser to Chile. The proud Seventh Fleet 

veteran served in the Chilean Navy until the early 1980s. 

General Douglas MacArthur, third from right, and other officers observe the landing at Leyte in the Philippines from 

the bridge of light cruiser Nashville (CL 43), October 1944.

U.S. Army C-259
4 READY SEAPOWER

ships to flee the area. Cut off by air and sea, the 

Japanese forces ashore were doomed to defeat. 

MacArthur next targeted the heavily fortified 

island of Biak, about 325 miles northwest of 

Hollandia. The Imperial Japanese Navy sent battleship 

Fuso, two cruisers, and five destroyers loaded 

with troop reinforcements to support the island’s 

defense. More than 200 enemy planes covered the 

naval flotilla. Thanks to discovery by Seventh Fleet 

submarines and patrol aircraft, however, the enemy 

force reversed course and withdrew. Conversely, 

covering the Allied landing at Biak were Australian 

heavy cruisers Australia and Shropshire and U.S. light 

cruisers Phoenix, Nashville (CL 43), and Boise (CL 

47), plus several Australian and American destroyer 

divisions. This combined group frustrated a second 

Japanese attempt to reinforce the defenders of Biak. 

This naval support proved vital, for once U.S. Army 

troops landed, they needed a month to overcome the 

dug-in enemy garrison.

As other U.S. Navy forces deployed Allied 

divisions ashore at Normandy in France and the 

Mariana Islands in the Central Pacific during the 

summer of 1944, MacArthur’s U.S.-Australian 

command, including the Seventh Fleet, finished 

wresting control from the Japanese of the 1,000-

mile northern coast of New Guinea. 

These operations were immeasurably assisted 

by the work of the Seventh Fleet’s submarine 

force under Rear Admiral Ralph W. Christie. His 

boats, benefiting from a steady flow of “Ultra” 

radio intelligence gathered by MacArthur’s 

code-breakers in Australia, sent many fully loaded 

enemy merchant ships to the bottom, protected 

the amphibious task forces from surface attack, and 

supplied guerrilla bands in the Netherlands East 

Indies and southern Philippines. 

To the north, the Philippines now beckoned 

MacArthur. The commander of American and 

Filipino forces defeated there early in the war, the 

general had long expressed his determination to 

erase the memory of that catastrophic loss. When 

he pledged, “I shall return,” in speaking of the 

Philippines, Allied leaders had little doubt about 

MacArthur’s strategic preferences. Convinced by the 

general’s argument that freeing the Philippines from 

the brutal Japanese occupation was a moral and 

military imperative, President Roosevelt gave the 

go-ahead for the invasion. Commanders prepared 

their forces for a 20 October 1944 amphibious 

assault on the Philippine island of Leyte. 

The Battle of Leyte Gulf would test the Seventh 

Fleet as no other World War II fight, for the Japanese 

were determined to spare neither ships nor planes 

nor men in their desperate effort to stop the Allied 

Pacific offensive. As the fleet approached the 

Philippines, Imperial Japanese Navy commanders 

launched a long-prepared operation to destroy 

the American invasion fleet’s troop transports, 

amphibious ships, landing craft, and any warships that 

got in the way. Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Central 

Force of Yamato and Musashi and 3 other battleships, 

12 cruisers, and 15 destroyers headed through San 

Bernardino Strait on an easterly heading, intent on 

attacking the Leyte invasion site. After carrier planes 

sank Musashi, U.S. naval leaders thought this and 

other losses would compel the Central Force to 

reverse course and retire, but the Americans were 

mistaken.

Meanwhile the Southern Force of two battleships 

and 15 other warships, led by Vice Admirals Shoji 

Nishimura and Kiyohide Shima, approached Leyte 

Gulf through Surigao Strait. Deployed there to 

meet them across the northern mouth of the strait 

were Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf’s battleships 

Mississippi (BB 41), California (BB 44), Maryland

(BB 46), Pennsylvania (BB 38), Tennessee (BB 43), 

and West Virginia (BB 48) (the latter five were Pearl 

Harbor veterans) as well as 8 cruisers, 26 destroyers, 

and 39 motor torpedo boats. 

Waiting in the shadows of the mountains that 

overlooked Surigao Strait, just after 0300 on the black 

night of 25 October 1944, were the nine destroyers 

of Captain Roland Smoot’s Destroyer Squadron 56. 

High atop the superstructure of the Fletcher-class 

destroyer Bennion (DD 662) sat Lieutenant (j.g.) 

James L. Holloway III, in charge of the ship’s Mark 

37 Gun Director, peering through his binoculars. 

Flashes of gunfire lit up the night in the distance as 

American PT boats clashed with the Japanese fleet. 
MACARTHUR’S NAVY 5

One of Holloway’s men tugged his uniform sleeve 

and suggested the officer take a look through the 

director’s high-power optical device. Filling the lens 

and in its crosshairs was the distinctive “pagoda” mast 

of a Japanese battleship making 25 knots and firing 

away at unseen targets. When Holloway reported the 

sighting to the bridge, the captain, Commander Joshua 

Cooper, told the lieutenant to get a lock with the fire 

control radar on the second of now two battleships in 

column but wait until given the order to launch five of 

the ship’s torpedoes. Meanwhile the Japanese fleet and 

the American destroyers rapidly closed on one another 

under the glow of star shells fired by both sides.

Enemy warships opened fire first, their 14-inch 

and 8-inch rounds sending up towering splashes all 

around the “tin can” destroyers. All of a sudden, the 

16-inch and 14-inch guns of Oldendorf’s battle line 

opened up, and within 15 to 20 seconds their shells 

roared over the destroyers and slammed into the 

enemy fleet. Looking through the director optics, 

Holloway “could clearly see the explosions of the 

shells bursting on the Japanese ships, sending up 

The officers and men of destroyer Bennion (DD 662) take part in a crossing-of-the-equator ceremony en route to the Western Pacific. 

Lieutenant (j.g.) James L. Holloway III is holding a “sword and shield” next to the commanding officer, Commander Joshua Cooper. 

Courtesy James L. Holloway III

Battleship Tennessee (BB 43), a survivor of the Pearl Harbor 

attack, exacted revenge when she helped devastate the Japanese 

fleet in Surigao Strait during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

19-N-45071
6 READY SEAPOWER

cascades of flame as they ripped away topside gun 

mounts and erupted in fiery sheets of molten steel 

tearing into the heavy armor plate.”

When Bennion and the other destroyers 

got within 6,000 yards of the enemy fleet, they 

turned to starboard for the torpedo attack. The 

captain ordered “launch torpedoes,” and Holloway 

immediately pushed the “fire” button on the 

torpedo console. As the American destroyers 

headed away from the scene at 30 knots, the young 

officer observed that the Japanese formation had 

“disintegrated, with ships circling out of control, 

dead in the water, on fire, shuddering from massive 

explosions, and unrecognizable with bows gone, 

sterns blown away and topsides mangled.”

The American attack badly hurt the enemy, 

but the fight was far from over. Holloway spotted 

another target, identified as a large Japanese warship, 

only 3,000 yards away. The captain ordered the 

launch of the destroyer’s last five torpedoes and 

seconds later the lethal weapons leaped from their 

launch tubes, slapped the water, and headed for 

the target. Later analysis confirmed that Bennion’s 

torpedoes sank the Japanese battleship Yamashiro. 

The Seventh Fleet’s victory in the Battle of Surigao 

Strait was a pivotal event in the career of Lieutenant 

Holloway—a future Korean War and Vietnam War 

combat veteran, Seventh Fleet commander, and 

Chief of Naval Operations. 

Meanwhile Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, 

commanding a group of aircraft carriers and surface 

warships—the Northern Force—bluffed Admiral 

Halsey into chasing after him with the U.S. Third 

Fleet. This action left the Leyte invasion beaches 

especially vulnerable because Halsey and Kinkaid 

each believed that the other’s major warships would 

protect the site.

To the horror of the Americans, at dawn on 25 

October, Kurita’s Central Force emerged from San 

Bernardino Strait and headed for the assemblage 

of small escort carriers, transports, and landing 

vessels—and Nashville with General MacArthur 

on board.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf not only enabled the 

liberation of the Philippines to proceed but sealed 

the fate of the Imperial Japanese Navy. U.S. air, 

surface, and submarine attacks destroyed much of 

the enemy’s remaining combat strength, sinking 

Leyte Gulf: IJN Yamashiro in Surigao Strait by John Hamilton. Oil on board.

Navy Art Collection
MACARTHUR’S NAVY 7

Seventh Fleet Warrior

The Seventh Fleet’s decisive defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy 

at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 can be credited to many 

brave, determined, and self-sacrificing American Sailors. Commander 

Ernest E. Evans, the commanding officer of the Fletcher-class 

destroyer Johnston (DD 557), stood out among them. 

Evans, whose mother was Cherokee and father, half-white, 

half-Creek Indian, graduated from a nearly all-white Oklahoma high 

school at a time when prejudice was the norm. He enlisted in the Navy 

and then won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating 

with the class of 1931. During the 1930s he served on board cruisers 

and destroyers, taking command of Johnston at her commissioning on 

27 October 1943. At that ceremony Evans told his crew, in John Paul 

Jones’s immortal words, “I intend to go in harm’s way.” 

Commander Evans and Johnston were clearly in harm’s way on 

25 October 1944 when Japanese Admiral Takeo Kurita’s fleet of 23 

battleships, cruisers, and destroyers suddenly appeared through the 

morning mist off the Philippine island of Samar and headed for the 

invasion beach at Leyte. All that stood between the enemy force and the 

virtually defenseless transports landing U.S. Army troops were the escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer 

escorts of Seventh Fleet Task Group 77.4, which included Task Unit 77.4.3, or “Taffy 3,” under Rear Admiral 

Clifton A. “Ziggy” Sprague.

With his destroyer nearest to the Japanese fleet, Evans immediately turned his ship and zigzagged 

toward the enemy at flank speed. Seeing this maneuver, Sprague directed the destroyers Hoel (DD 533) 

and Heermann (DD 532) and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413) to follow suit. The admiral also 

ordered aircraft from the escort carriers to attack the enemy with whatever ordnance they had on hand. 

Evans had his helmsman steer the ship through enemy shell splashes on the assumption that 

“lightning never strikes twice in the same place.” When the destroyer got within range of Kurita’s fleet, 

the commander barked out the order, “fire torpedoes;” one of ten “fish” tore the bow off the Japanese 

cruiser Kumano. But now enemy battleship and cruiser rounds found their mark, riddling Johnston and 

killing and wounding Sailors.

With two fingers blown off and his face and torso cut and bleeding, Evans calmly conned his ship as the 

5-inch guns fired rounds that seemed to bounce off the enemy 

vessels. Only when his destroyer went dead in the water and 

could no longer fight back did Evans give the order to abandon 

ship. Johnston rolled over and sank taking the commanding 

officer with her. In a tribute rarely seen in the brutal Pacific war, 

the captain of a Japanese destroyer saluted as he passed by the 

surviving crewmen fighting to stay afloat in the ocean. 

The hard fight put up by Evans and the other men of Taffy 3 

persuaded Kurita that he could not succeed in his mission; he 

ordered his fleet back through San Bernardino Strait. Taffy 3 and 

Commander Evans, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for 

his valor, had saved the American forces off Leyte from destruction. 

Lieutenant Commander Ernest E. Evans and the crew of 

Johnston (DD 557) at the destroyer’s commissioning in 1943.

NH 63499

Destroyer Johnston one year before her date with destiny 

in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

NH 63195
8 READY SEAPOWER

four enemy aircraft carriers, three battleships, 

eight cruisers, and eight destroyers. Fear of enemy 

seapower would never again trouble Allied leaders 

as they engineered the final defeat of Japan. 

Securing the Philippines

A new word, however, quickly spread fear 

among Seventh Fleet Sailors—kamikaze. Japanese 

pilots, in a desperate attempt to stave off the Allied 

Pacific advance and ultimate invasion of Japan, 

deliberating sacrificed their lives by crashing aircraft 

into fleet vessels. The first large ship to suffer this 

attack, escort carrier St. Lo (CVE 63), went down 

off the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte 

Gulf. In October and November 1944, kamikaze 

pilots operating from airfields ashore sank or badly 

damaged dozens of fleet carriers, escort carriers, 

cruisers, destroyers, and other naval vessels.

The Allied conquest of the Philippines continued 

on 15 December when Seventh Fleet forces under 

Rear Admiral Arthur D. Struble landed 27,000 

Army troops on Mindoro, a strategic island between 

Leyte and Lingayen Gulf. The Japanese sent waves 

of aircraft in desperate attacks against fleet units off 

the island. The experiences of LST 738 and LST 472, 

deployed off White Beach, were not uncommon. 

A group of ten enemy aircraft made it through the 

defensive screen to pounce on the amphibious ships. 

One plane crashed into LST 738 commanded by 

Naval Reserve Lieutenant J. T. Barnett, punching 

through the hull near the waterline and exploding in 

the tank deck amid stores of fuel and ammunition. 

The destroyer Moale (DD 693), operating nearby, 

shot down another plane headed for the LST and 

then moved close aboard to help fight the fire. The 

three explosions that rocked the LST killed one 

Sailor on the destroyer and wounded ten others. 

Barnett finally ordered the vessel abandoned.

Meanwhile LST 472 commanded by Lieutenant 

John H. Blakley attracted Japanese attention off 

Mindoro. One enemy plane dropped a bomb that 

holed the landing ship, and then crashed into her, 

spewing burning engine parts across the deck. Four 

other planes attacked the LST; nearby ships splashed 

two of them. The destroyers O’Brien (DD 725) and 

Hopewell (DD 681) and PCE 851 then moved in 

close to aid the stricken vessel. Despite the heroic 

effort, explosions and fire tore through the ship, 

prompting Blakely to order abandon ship. The 

attack killed or wounded nine crewmen. 

Within a month, Seabees and Army engineers had 

the airfield on Mindoro up and running to provide 

air cover for the Lingayen landing on Luzon. Despite 

fierce Japanese air opposition to the fleet’s presence 

off Mindoro, Navy and Army air units returned the 

favor during December, destroying hundreds of 

enemy planes on the ground and in the air. 

With the fleet now closer to enemy airfields 

on Luzon and Formosa, Kinkaid and his task force 

commanders were especially concerned about 

the danger of concentrated enemy air attacks. To 

support the major landing at Lingayen, Halsey’s 

Third Fleet launched devastating air attacks against 

airfields and ports on Formosa, Hong Kong, and 

Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, commander of the Japanese naval 

force that attacked the Leyte invasion ships off Samar until turned 

back by destroyer Johnston and the other destroyer-type ships and 

escort carriers of “Taffy 3.”

NH 63694
MACARTHUR’S NAVY 9

Guangzhou (Canton) and merchant ships in the 

South China Sea. Army Air Forces and the units 

of British Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme 

Commander Southeast Asia Command, also hit 

enemy airfields and conducted diversionary attacks.

Despite this heavy air suppression, Japanese 

kamikaze and conventional air attacks still sank and 

damaged Seventh Fleet ships advancing from Leyte 

to Lingayen for the assault landing. Their attacks 

sank the escort carrier Ommaney Bay (CVE 79) 

and destroyer minesweeper Long (DMS 12) and 

damaged the escort carrier Manila Bay (CVE 61), 

battleships New Mexico (BB 40) and California, 

Australian cruiser Australia, and American cruisers 

Louisville (CA 28) and Columbia (CL 56). The 

air assault on New Mexico killed Rear Admiral 

Theodore E. Chandler, a task force commander and 

grandson of a 19th-century Secretary of the Navy.

On 9 January 1945 an Army-Navy force under 

Vice Admiral Kinkaid, commander of the Luzon 

Attack Force (CTF 77) for the operation, assembled 

off the invasion beach in Lingayen Gulf. Task Force 

78 led by Vice Admiral Barbey deployed ashore 

the Army’s I Corps consisting of the U.S. 43rd and 

6th infantry divisions. Vice Admiral Theodore S. 

Wilkinson’s Task Force 79 landed the XIV Corps with 

its U.S. 37th and 40th infantry divisions. The major 

naval units supporting the landing—six battleships, 

nine heavy and light cruisers, and numerous 

destroyers—pounded the enemy-held shore. Escort 

carriers and submarines established protective barriers 

around the assault force.

NH 97259

Destroyer Moale (DD 693) maneuvers to assist LST 738, burning furiously after a kamikaze attack. 
10 READY SEAPOWER

Having learned from previous 

amphibious assaults the near 

impossibility of stopping allied 

combat power coming from the sea, 

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, in 

charge of enemy forces on Luzon, 

ordered his troops to refuse battle 

on the beaches and withdraw to the 

mountains so they could fight on 

longer against the Allies. 

At the end of the month 

Kinkaid’s amphibious forces landed 

additional U.S. Army troops on 

Bataan Peninsula, site of fierce 

fighting earlier in the war. The swift 

Allied advance on Luzon came to 

an abrupt halt when the U.S. Sixth 

Army’s divisions reached Manila 

where the local enemy commander 

had decided to fight to the finish. 

It took more than a month of hard 

combat to destroy the Japanese 

garrison and capture the battered 

capital city in a battle that cost the lives 

of 100,000 Filipinos. It took another four months 

for General MacArthur’s ground troops, deployed 

ashore by the Seventh Fleet’s amphibious arm, to 

defeat Japanese forces on the Philippine islands of 

Mindanao, Cebu, and Negros. Kinkaid capped his 

fleet’s successful Southwest Pacific campaign with 

a 16-day bombardment by U.S., Australian, and 

Dutch warships against enemy troops at Balikpapan 

on Borneo, followed by the landing there of the 

Australian 7th Infantry Division. 

Seventh Fleet officers and men emerged from 

World War II as masters of joint and combined 

warfare, especially amphibious operations. Under 

the sure guidance of Kinkaid, Rear Admirals Barbey 

and Fechteler led naval forces in one successful 

assault landing after another. These men interacted 

well with their U.S. Army and Australian military 

counterparts as MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific 

Command moved with speed and power from 

one island to the next in the unrelenting march 

on Japan. Led by Vice Admiral Kinkaid and Rear 

Admirals Oldendorf and Sprague, the Sailors of the 

fleet fought and won the decisive Battle of Leyte 

Gulf that sealed the fate of the Imperial Japanese 

Navy. The stellar performance of their World War II

predecessors would inspire Seventh Fleet Sailors for 

many years to come. ★★★

NH 84675

Vice Admiral Kinkaid oversees the Seventh Fleet’s amphibious assault at Lingayen 

Gulf in January 1945.
11

Chapter 2

Weathering Postwar Turmoil in Asia

Before the end of World War II, the Seventh Fleet embarked on a mission that 

would take on increasing importance—supporting U.S. foreign policy in the Far East. 

The defeat of Japan ushered in an era in which the United States faced the rise of Soviet 

power and militant independence movements, many of them communist in orientation.

The administration of President Harry S. 

Truman was ambivalent about U.S. goals in Asia 

after 1945. Most of the millions of American men 

and women in military service at the end of World 

War II wanted nothing more than to turn in their 

uniforms and resume their lives as civilians in a 

country at peace. Truman also wanted the U.S. 

economy, for four years the “arsenal of democracy” 

that produced mountains of war material, to focus 

anew on overseas trade and domestic commerce. 

To boost the economy, Truman made fewer defense 

dollars available to maintain large naval and military 

forces. A greatly diminished military establishment 

would be hard-pressed to support an ambitious U.S. 

foreign policy. Further complicating the situation, 

Truman and his chief advisors saw their first priority 

as strengthening the economies of western Europe 

and deterring the aggressive actions of Joseph 

Stalin’s Soviet Union in eastern Europe.

The administration viewed the situation in Asia 

as even more chaotic than in Europe and hence 

harder to deal with. The death and destruction 

President Harry S. Truman.

NA 80-G-K-4192

Author File

Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator and spiritual father 

of the international Communist movement. The 

USSR’s military power and territorial interests in 

Northeast Asia at the end of World War II concerned 

U.S. leaders.
12 READY SEAPOWER

visited by Japanese armies on China from 1937 to 

1945 disrupted the central government’s control of 

that nation, leading many observers to predict the 

outbreak of civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s 

Republic of China government and Mao Zedong’s 

Chinese Communist Party. With the end in August 

1945 of Japan’s harsh, 40-year occupation of Korea, 

various Korean independence movements prepared 

to fight for control of the country. Japan’s march of 

aggression had also seriously weakened the control 

of the British, French, and Dutch governments over 

their Asian colonies of Malaya, Indochina, and the 

Netherlands East Indies. Native peoples, many of 

whom who had fought the Japanese, were determined 

to end their status as “colonials.” Postwar Asia seethed 

with political, social, and economic discontent. 

Missions in Korea and China

Well before the Japanese surrender on board the 

battleship Missouri (BB 63) on 2 September 1945, 

the Seventh Fleet had prepared for a new mission. 

The wartime Allies faced the need to repatriate 

On 2 September 1945 Allied leaders and the Sailors of battleship Missouri (BB 63) witness Japan’s surrender in World War II. 

SC-210649
WEATHERING POSTWAR TURMOIL IN ASIA 13

hundreds of thousands of 

defeated, sullen, and potentially 

hostile Japanese troops. General 

Order Number 1 provided 

instructions for the surrender of 

Japanese forces throughout Asia, 

and between January 1946 and 

April 1947, the fleet repatriated 

from China and Korea more than 

400,000 men who had served the 

Empire of Japan in World War II. 

As directed by MacArthur, 

Vice Admiral Kinkaid organized 

the transport of the Army’s XXIV

Corps under Major General 

John R. Hodge from Okinawa 

to Incheon (Inchon) on the west 

coast of Korea. As agreed to by 

Washington and Moscow, Soviet 

forces moved into Korea north 

of the temporary dividing line, 

the 38th parallel, as American troops occupied the 

south. Kinkaid’s fleet then returned to Okinawa, 

embarked the 1st Marine Division, and moved the 

veteran combat unit to Tianjin (Tientsin) southeast 

of Beijing (Peking) in China. A later operation 

deployed the 6th Marine Division to North China. 

During this same period Lieutenant (j.g.) Elmo R. 

Zumwalt Jr., a future Chief of Naval Operations, 

conned a captured Japanese minesweeper up the 

Yangtze River to Shanghai, the first Seventh Fleet 

officer to enter China’s major port.

As laid out in Operation Plan 13-45 of 26 

August 1945, Kinkaid established five major task 

forces to manage operations in the Western Pacific: 

Task Force 71, the North China Force with 75 

ships; Task Force 72, the Fast Carrier Force, directed 

to provide air cover to the Marines going ashore 

and discourage with dramatic aerial flyovers any 

Communist forces that might oppose the operation; 

Task Force 73, the Yangtze Patrol Force with 

another 75 combatants; Task Force 74, the South 

China Force, ordered to protect the transportation 

of Japanese and Chinese Nationalist troops from 

that region; and Task Force 78, the Amphibious 

Force, charged with the movement of the III Marine 

Amphibious Corps to China. 

Kinkaid continued to serve as the naval 

component commander for MacArthur until V-J 

Day on 2 September, but the new responsibilities 

in Korea and China effectively ended the wartime 

connection. As Kinkaid’s ships departed Manila Bay 

on 28 August, the general graciously recognized 

the Seventh Fleet’s World War II contribution to 

the success of Allied arms in the Southwest Pacific 

Area: “I desire to express my admiration and grateful 

acknowledgement for the magnificent manner 

in which all its [Seventh Fleet] elements have 

performed their assigned tasks in the campaigns 

of this theater. To you and your officers and men 

who have with great gallantry, resourcefulness, 

and devotion to duty so fully upheld the highest 

traditions of our country’s naval service, I send 

Godspeed.”

While the purpose of the U.S. troop movements 

into Korea and China was to establish order and 

repatriate Japanese troops, both the Soviet and U.S. 

governments were determined to demonstrate their 

power to influence the postwar political situation 

Lieutenant (j.g.) Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. (a future Chief of Naval Operations), second from 

right, gives instructions to a Japanese army officer in the Chinese port of Shanghai in 

October 1945.

NA 80-G-347248
14 READY SEAPOWER

in Asia. The Truman administration expressed 

concern that Stalin would use the Soviet Red Army 

to steer Korean political developments and pressure 

the Chinese government to grant port and railway 

concessions to the USSR in Manchuria and North 

China. Even before the emergence of the Cold War 

between the United States and the Soviet Union, 

top American officials warned that Moscow had 

designs on the region. James Forrestal, Secretary of 

the Navy, and Admiral William D. Leahy, the top 

military advisor to the President and head of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, forecast that the Soviets would 

provide military support to Communist groups in 

Korea and China and work against U.S. interests. 

During September 1945 Vice Admiral Kinkaid 

employed Seventh Fleet ships and aircraft to 

impress Chinese, Koreans, and Soviets alike of 

U.S. naval power. Fleet units steamed within clear 

site of the population of Qingdao (Tsingtao). 

Carrier planes flew over Korea’s port of Incheon 

and China’s Great Wall and the cities of Shanghai, 

Tianjin, Beijing, and Dalian. At the same time 

Seventh Fleet ships evacuated Allied prisoners of 

war (POWs) from the Philippines, China, Taiwan 

(then called Formosa), and Korea. 

A group of 128 POWs to whom Kinkaid spoke 

in Seoul told a harrowing tale of their captivity. In 

the latter stages of the war the Japanese had loaded 

these men and 1,672 fellow Americans, captured 

during the early 1942 Bataan campaign in the 

Philippines, on board merchant ship Oryoku Maru

in Subic Bay. Three hundred men died when Allied 

pilots, unaware of the passengers on board, sank 

the ship. The next vessel transporting the survivors 

went down off Taiwan, killing more men. Starvation, 

disease, and exposure to the elements had reduced 

the number of POWs to 600 men by the time they 

reached Japan. Only 128 of these men remained 

alive when the Japanese moved them to Korea for 

imprisonment.

On 9 September Vice Admiral Kinkaid and 

Major General Hodge accepted the surrender of 

Japanese forces in Korea. Following the ceremony 

at a government building in Seoul, U.S. soldiers 

lowered the Japanese flag from a flagpole out front 

and ran up the Stars and Stripes.

On 16 September Kinkaid, embarked in 

minesweeper YMS 49, reached Shanghai where he 

met Rear Admiral Milton “Mary” Miles, Commander, 

Naval Group China and the top U.S. naval leader in 

China during the war. Miles arranged for the Seventh 

Fleet flagship, Rocky Mount (AGC 3), to moor at the 

Japanese transport Oryoku Maru under attack by U.S. carrier 

aircraft in Subic Bay, Philippines, on 14 December 1944. 

Unknown to the attackers, many of her passengers were American 

prisoners of war.

NH 102339

Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid and Army Major General John 

R. Hodge, commander of the XXIV Corps, sign documents in Seoul 

formalizing the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea. To the left of 

Kinkaid is a future Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Daniel 

E. Barbey.

NA 80-G-490506
WEATHERING POSTWAR TURMOIL IN ASIA 15

harbor’s most prestigious buoy, exclusively reserved 

for the Royal Navy’s station ship before the war. 

In 1945 the Chinese Nationalists had assigned a 

less desirable site upriver for the British ship. Local 

officials brushed off British complaints; the Chinese 

decided there was a new postwar power equation in 

the Far East.

Kinkaid established Seventh Fleet headquarters 

in Shanghai and met with the Army’s Commanding 

General, China Theater, Lieutenant General Albert 

C. Wedemeyer, U.S. Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 

and other chief U.S. and Chinese officials and 

military leaders. On 20 September Kinkaid flew 

to Chongqing (Chungking), then the Republic of 

China’s capital, to meet with Generalissimo Chiang 

Kai-shek and Madame Chiang, his charming and 

internationally known wife. The American admiral 

was praised and feted by his hosts who wanted to 

impress on him that the Seventh Fleet and the U.S. 

Navy were welcome in Chinese waters. 

The Seventh Fleet did not get much of a 

breather in the months after the war. Kinkaid wrote 

to his wife that “the Navy out here is like a five-ring 

circus. The 7th Fleet has been landing the Army 

in Korea, the Marines at [Tianjin], another Marine 

force [the 6th Marine Division] will land at another 

point at an early date, and we are about to start 

the movement of several Chinese armies from one 

point to another. At the same time we are in the 

process of changing the organization of the Fleet 

. . . and setting up organizations to assist China 

Theater forces.” The fleet also transported service 

personnel home to America. In Operation Magic 

Carpet, between October 1945 and May 1946, 369 

naval vessels deployed in the Pacific brought more 

than two million men and women home from war. 

The situation in China soon became especially 

tense. Marines of the III Marine Amphibious Corps, 

under Major General Keller E. Rockey, deployed 

by the Seventh Fleet to Beijing, Tianjin, and 

Seventh Fleet flagship Rocky Mount (AGC 3). 

19-N-73760
16 READY SEAPOWER

other population centers in North China, found 

themselves in a hornet’s nest of political intrigue. 

Heavily armed and mutually antagonistic forces, 

including Japanese, pro-Japanese Chinese, Chinese 

Communist, and Chinese Nationalist staked their 

claims to overlapping areas.

The Communist-Nationalist dispute, however, 

caused the most concern. Throughout World War II

the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and 

the Communist guerrilla movement of Mao Zedong 

fought the Japanese. Following Japan’s surrender, 

when Chinese Communist forces occupied much of 

Manchuria and North China, Chiang moved to reassert 

the national government’s authority in those regions. 

Fighting erupted wherever the two sides made contact. 

U.S. foreign policy required Navy and Marine 

forces to support Chiang’s legally constituted 

government but steer clear of the internal Chinese 

conflict—an impossible task. The Seventh Fleet 

deployed Rockey’s Marines to some areas already 

occupied by Mao’s troops who did not like the 

intrusion. 

In some cases, Seventh Fleet leaders used 

common sense to carry out their missions and 

avoid entanglement in the Chinese civil conflict. 

For instance, Vice Admiral Daniel Barbey, Kinkaid’s 

amphibious commander, decided that it made no 

sense to land Marines at the port of Yantai (Chefoo) 

on the northern coast of the Shandong Peninsula in 

the face of opposition from local Communist forces. 

Backed by Major General Rockey, Barbey reasoned 

that with no POWs or Japanese troops in the area 

needing repatriation, and the Communists managing 

the civil administration of the port, there was no 

need to force the issue. Instead, Seventh Fleet units 

landed the Marines at Qingdao on the peninsula’s 

south side.

Still, the Seventh Fleet transported entire 

Chinese Nationalist armies to North China 

and Manchuria in support of Chiang’s effort to 

reestablish government control of all China. The 

stated reason for the mission: replace U.S. Marines 

in North China and Soviet troops in Manchuria 

with Chinese government troops (as provided 

for in Allied World War II agreements), take the 

surrender of Japanese forces, and then transport 

the latter to Japan. Americans leaders understood, 

however, that these actions would prevent the 

Chinese Communists from establishing a foothold 

in these regions. The Communists understood this 

too and blocked the debarkation of Nationalist 

troops at Huludao (Hulutao) and Yingkou, so the 

fleet landed the units further south at Qinhuangdao 

(Chinhuangtao). 

In October the Navy expanded the Seventh 

Fleet’s area of operations from the waters off 

China to French Indochina as far south as the 16th 

parallel. U.S. leaders took this action to enable the 

transportation of Chinese Nationalist troops from 

the Tonkin region of Indochina to northern China. 

In late October and early November, the 136-foot 

auxiliary motor minesweepers of Mine Squadron 

106 (Task Group 74.4), led by Commander Strauss 

S. Leon, and a number of Japanese minesweepers 

cleared the waters around Haiphong in French 

Indochina. Simultaneously, the 28 Liberty Ships, 

attack transports, and attack cargo ships of 

Major General Keller E. Rockey, commanding general of the III 

Marine Amphibious Corps.

USMC A32295
Cold War Admiral

The Navy appointed Admiral Charles M. “Savvy” Cooke Jr. Commander Seventh Fleet to deal with the 

many challenges facing U.S. foreign policy in a China devastated by World War II and civil strife. The 

gifted flag officer, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King’s wartime chief of staff and principal planner, saw his 

mission as preventing Communist inroads in Asia. He and many other Navy leaders advocated robust 

U.S. military and political support to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government to prevent 

a Soviet-Chinese Communist victory in the world’s most populace nation. Cooke regarded Marine forces 

in North China and the base at Qingdao as vital deterrents to Communist advances. This position put him 

at odds with the Truman administration’s intention to withdraw the Marines from China and close the 

base. He carried out his orders, if reluctantly.

With the end of his tour as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific and retirement looming, 

Cooke on 24 February 1948 made his views public. He joined a chorus of conservative Americans who 

decried Truman’s “loss of China” to the Communists and called for open military support to Chiang’s 

government, now on the island of Taiwan. He backed up his words with action by providing the 

generalissimo with direct advice on military strategy, tactics, and training and worked to channel U.S. 

military aid to Chiang. In the months before the Communist invasion of South Korea, the admiral called 

for the United States to make a stand in the Far East. Cooke’s advocacy and that of like-minded military 

officers influenced President Truman’s dramatic decisions in June 1950 to employ U.S. forces in defense 

of South Korea and the Seventh Fleet in defense of Taiwan.

NA 80-G-358247

Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey, left, and Admiral Charles M. Cooke Jr. at the Seventh Fleet change of command 

ceremony in January 1946. The Navy appointed a full admiral to the billet and renamed it Commander, U.S. 

Naval Forces Western Pacific, in recognition of the position’s growing diplomatic responsibilities.
18 READY SEAPOWER

Transportation Squadron 24, under Commodore 

Edwin T. Short, embarked the 23,000 troops of 

the Nationalist 52nd Army and delivered them to 

North China. 

Recognizing that naval responsibilities in China 

and Indochina would hinge more on diplomacy than 

warfighting in the postwar period, the Navy assigned 

a full admiral, Charles M. Cooke Jr., as Commander 

Seventh Fleet on 8 January 1946, and in January 

1947 renamed his billet U.S. Naval Forces Western 

Pacific. To carry out these responsibilities, Cooke’s 

forces normally operated one cruiser division, three 

destroyer divisions, an amphibious group, and a 

small number of logistic ships. 

The situation of the III Marine Amphibious 

Corps in North China became increasingly 

untenable between 1946 and 1948. An attempt by 

General George C. Marshall, the wartime Army 

chief of staff, to facilitate a Nationalist-Communist 

coalition government failed, and civil war broke out 

soon afterward. Realizing that the U.S. Navy and 

Marine Corps provided Chiang’s forces with training 

and war material, the Communists retaliated. Mao’s 

troops ambushed III Marine Amphibious Corps 

guard posts and convoys, killing and wounding 

Marines. In the face of the Communist hostility and 

his belief that the United States should openly side 

with the Nationalist government, Admiral Cooke 

and other U.S. naval leaders called for increasing 

the Marine contingent at the port of Qingdao 

from 2,000 to 5,000 and retaining the base for 

the Navy regardless of the Chinese civil war’s 

outcome. Cooke considered the base as a strong 

bar to Soviet advances in the Far East. The Truman 

administration, especially Secretary of State Dean 

Acheson, began to see Chiang’s cause as lost, so 

he rejected the admiral’s proposals. Washington 

ordered the reduction of Marine forces in North 

China and eventual withdrawal from China. 

Growing Interest in Southeast Asia

During the five years after World War II, 

Commander Seventh Fleet served, in essence, as 

America’s naval ambassador to Southeast Asia. 

With the urging of the State Department, and to 

carve out an operational area not under General 

MacArthur’s Far East Command, the Navy 

increasingly dispatched naval vessels on port visits 

to the region. The aircraft carriers Antietam (CV

36) and Boxer (CV 21), cruiser Topeka (CL 67), 

and seven destroyers were on hand off Manila for 

Philippine Independence Day, 4 July 1946. With 

the support of the newly independent government, 

the Navy established U.S. Naval Advisory Group 

Philippines. In March 1947 the two countries 

signed an agreement allowing U.S. naval forces to 

NH 98231

Light cruiser Topeka (CL 67), one of several Seventh Fleet ships that anchored off Manila to represent the United States at ceremonies 

marking Philippine Independence Day on 4 July 1946.
WEATHERING POSTWAR TURMOIL IN ASIA 19

operate bases at Subic Bay and Sangley Point. The 

Philippines would take on added importance after 

May 1949 when the fleet left Qingdao. Although 

the Navy considered the naval base at Yokosuka, 

Japan, the best place to relocate the fleet, it was 

loath to have the Seventh Fleet come under General 

MacArthur’s direct control. As a result, most fleet 

units moved to the Philippines where the Navy 

retained greater autonomy.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Forrest P. 

Sherman directed Admiral Cooke, commander of U.S. 

Naval Forces Western Pacific, to begin “showing his 

flag at Singapore and other points in that direction.”

On 8 November 1947 Task Group 70.7, with the 

flagship Estes (AGC 12), light cruiser Atlanta (CL 

104), and destroyers Rupertus (DD 851) and Mason

(DD 852), departed Qingdao for a planned 30-day 

cruise to Southeast Asia. Cooke’s ships made port 

calls at Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei Bay (Borneo), 

Manila, Subic Bay, and Keelung on Taiwan, finally 

returning to Qingdao in early December.

In late 1947, at Washington’s direction, Cooke 

sent the attack transport Renville (APA 227) to the 

Netherlands East Indies off the island of Java to 

provide a neutral venue for negotiations between 

Dutch officials and leaders of an independence 

movement. On 17 January 1948 the parties signed a 

document, thereafter called the Renville Agreement, 

which, while short-lived, demonstrated U.S. interest 

in securing the peace in Southeast Asia.

Other than diplomatic missions, the Seventh 

Fleet in this period could handle little else. In 

1947 the fleet operated two carriers and 34 

other warships, but by 1949 those numbers had 

been reduced to five small combatants and no 

permanently deployed carrier. Sherman knew 

USN 1044186

Attack transport Renville (APA 227) hosted cease-fire negotiations between representatives of the Dutch government and Indonesian 

independence leaders on 17 January 1948.
20 READY SEAPOWER

that the Truman administration was increasingly 

concerned about the situation in the Far East, and 

he obtained approval to deploy the carrier Boxer, a 

cruiser, and two destroyers “to serve as a stabilizing 

influence” in the region.

On 16 March 1950 sixty aircraft launched from 

Boxer and conducted an aerial parade over Saigon 

while the destroyers Anderson (DD 786) and Stickell

(DD 888), with Commander Seventh Fleet Vice 

Admiral Russell S. Berkey embarked, made a port 

call at the largest city in southern French Indochina. 

Seventh Fleet warships would be familiar sights 

around Saigon in years to come.

China and Korea Heat Up

While dubious about the prospects of Chiang 

Kai-shek’s government and war effort, during 

1948 and 1949 the Truman administration actually 

increased military aid to the Republic of China. As 

a result of the China Aid Act of 1948 and other 

programs, the United States government provided 

$400 million in economic and military assistance, 

transferred 165 surplus warships to the Nationalist 

navy, and established programs to train Nationalist 

forces to use American-made weapons and 

equipment. The Nationalist navy, however, fought 

poorly for the mainland. The sailors of many of the 

vessels provided by the United States and Great 

Britain eventually defected with their ships to the 

Communist side.

American support for Chiang’s government did 

little to stem the Communist tide. By mid-1949 

Mao’s troops had defeated one Nationalist army 

after another, occupied all Manchuria and northern 

China, and advanced across the broad Yangtze into 

southern China. Chiang and his remaining followers 

fled to Taiwan and numerous other islands along 

the coast. In light of the Communist advances, the 

Truman administration finally ordered the Seventh 

Fleet to evacuate Qingdao. Vice Admiral Badger 

suggested relocating the fleet’s facilities and the 

Chinese Naval Training Center to Taiwan, but 

Secretary of State Acheson rejected the proposal. 

In May 1949 Badger oversaw the redeployment 

of the Marine defense force in Qingdao to Guam 

and Japan and moved all naval personnel on 

board warships in the harbor. On 25 May 1949 

the Seventh Fleet steamed seaward, closing this 

dramatic first chapter of its Cold War history.

The defeat in China was not the only 

development threatening to undermine America’s 

hard-won power and influence in the Pacific. In 

July 1949 Mao announced a “lean to one side” 

(the Soviet side) in the growing U.S.-Soviet 

confrontation. In September the USSR became 

the second atomic power after successfully testing 

an atomic bomb. Having conquered the Chinese 

mainland, Mao Zedong stood in Beijing’s Tiananmen 

Square on 1 October 1949 and announced the 

formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

The Communists took over U.S.-owned properties 

in China and harassed U.S. diplomats. In February 

1950 the PRC and the USSR signed a 30-year Treaty 

of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. 

Soviet munitions and military advisors soon flowed 

into China. During the same period the PRC began 

supplying Ho Chi Minh’s communist-nationalist 

movement in Indochina with arms and advisors. 

In April Mao’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 

defeated Nationalist forces on the large island of 

Hainan in the South China Sea and prepared to 

assault Taiwan, Chiang’s last refuge. 

President Truman, Secretary Acheson, and other 

administration leaders, despite their anxiety over 

these developments, could do little in the short term 

to support a more ambitious foreign policy because 

of the weakness of the American military. The Navy 

in general and the Seventh Fleet in particular found 

it difficult to carry out their responsibilities. Only 

one aircraft carrier, Valley Forge (CV 45), remained 

in the Western Pacific. The rest of the Seventh Fleet 

consisted of two destroyer divisions; the submarines 

Catfish (SS 339), Cabezon (SS 334), and Segundo

(SS 398); and a pair of auxiliary ships. An even 

smaller naval contingent—Naval Forces Far East—

operated under MacArthur’s Far East Command 

headquartered in Tokyo.

Congressional actions were underway, however, 

to bolster the military capability of the United 

States and that of its Asian friends. In October 1949 
U.S. Naval Base, Qingdao, China

During the first four years of the Cold War, the Seventh Fleet called the naval base at Qingdao 

(Tsingtao) home. The port had served as a Far Eastern outpost of the German navy until a Japanese 

force seized it at the outset of World War I. Tasked after World War II with deploying U.S. Marines and 

Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist troops to northern China and repatriating Japanese troops, the 

Navy quickly recognized the port’s value as an operating base. On 11 October 1945 fleet ships landed 

the 6th Marine Division at Qingdao, and shortly afterward Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey, Commander 

Seventh Fleet, established the Chinese Naval Training Center to prepare Chinese Nationalist sailors for 

operating amphibious craft. By 1946 Seventh Fleet commanders regarded Qingdao as the fleet’s primary 

anchorage in China, with responsibilities for training Chinese sailors, transferring surplus ships and craft 

to them, and managing an airfield.

During 1947 Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist forces became increasingly hostile toward not only 

U.S. Marines stationed in North China but also naval units at Qingdao. In June Communist troops fired on 

the repair ship Deliver (ARS 23) 

working to salvage a pontoon 

that had gone adrift near the 

port. Supported by covering 

fire from Deliver and destroyer 

Benner (DD 807), whose 

purpose was to “discourage and 

drive off rather than injure the 

attackers,” a landing party from 

destroyer Hawkins (DD 873) 

recovered the pontoon. 

Two months later bad 

weather forced a Marine pilot 

to land in Communist-held territory 

near Qingdao. A landing party of Marines from the heavy cruiser Saint Paul (CA 73) and Sailors from 

the destroyer Tucker (DD 875) sent to retrieve him traded fire with Mao’s troops. To avoid inflaming the 

situation, the Americans destroyed the plane and withdrew to the ships. The Communists released the 

young naval aviator but only after protracted and lengthy negotiations with U.S. officials.

In December 1947 the Communists shot and killed a Marine and captured four other men outside 

the base and only admitted it in February 1948, along with a demand that the U.S. withdraw its forces 

from Qingdao and stop aiding Chiang’s forces. Not until April were the captured men and the body of the 

slain Marine returned to U.S. custody.

Despite these incidents, Qingdao had become a busy place by the late 1940s. Alternating flagships 

Eldorado (AGC 11) and Estes (AGC 12), aircraft carriers Valley Forge (CV 45) and Antietam (CV 36), 

hospital ship Repose (AH 16), and a host of cruisers, submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships, and 

auxiliaries operated from the base. 

But in line with directives from Washington, during 1947 and 1948 Commander, Naval Forces 

Western Pacific (formerly Commander Seventh Fleet) Admiral Charles M. Cooke Jr. withdrew the Marines 

from North China. His successor, Vice Admiral Oscar C. Badger, began closing down operations at 

Qingdao as Mao’s forces stormed across China. 

USN 120346 

Repair ship Deliver (ARS 23), fired on by Chinese Communist forces near the U.S. naval 

base at Qingdao in June 1947. 
22 READY SEAPOWER

Congress appropriated $75 million for use in the 

“general area of China.” In March 1950 the State 

Department’s Director of Policy Planning, Paul 

Nitze, authored a study to boost U.S. military and 

economic power, and that September President 

Truman approved it as National Security Council 

NSC-68. Many came to regard NSC-68 as the 

“blueprint” for America’s Cold War military buildup. 

Within the State and Defense departments, 

key officials pressed for increased military and 

economic assistance to Japan, the Nationalist 

government on Taiwan, and France, the latter 

fighting to contain Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnamese 

resistance movement. Top Army and Navy leaders 

understood that they did not have the forces to 

defeat an all-out Communist amphibious assault 

on Taiwan, but they called for everything short of 

military intervention to assist the Nationalists. If 

the PRC controlled the island, located strategically 

between Japan and the Philippines, it would 

imperil the U.S. strategic position in the Western 

Pacific. General MacArthur argued that Taiwan 

would be “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” and a 

submarine base vital to whichever side held it. 

The trigger for a rebirth of U.S. fighting power, 

however, occurred in relation to another Asian 

country touched by the sea—Korea. The military 

occupation of the peninsula by Soviet forces north 

of the 38th parallel and U.S. forces south of that 

unofficial dividing line was followed by Moscow’s 

and Washington’s support for respective Korean 

independence movements. Soviet forces withdrew 

from Korea, but Stalin supplied the Democratic 

People’s Republic of Korea, under Communist 

leader Kim Il-sung, with hundreds of aircraft, tanks, 

and artillery pieces. The thousands of repatriated, 

battle-hardened Koreans who had served in the 

PLA during the fight for the Chinese mainland 

formed the core of the Korean People’s Army. The 

late 1940s in Korea was marked by bitter fighting 

between Communists and anti-Communists who 

carried out cross-border raids, massacres, and 

political assassinations. The only U.S. military 

personnel in South Korea by 1950 were a handful 

of advisors training the anti-Communist forces of 

Syngman Rhee’s Republic of Korea (ROK) in the 

use of short-range artillery pieces, small arms, and 

small naval vessels. 

Emboldened by Communist success in 

China—and mistakenly thinking the United States 

would not oppose the action—Stalin, Mao, and Kim 

decided on war to unify the Korean peninsula under 

Kim’s Marxist-Leninist government. During the first 

six months of 1950, seven North Korean infantry 

divisions, supported by hundreds of Soviet-made 

tanks and artillery pieces, concentrated along the 38th 

parallel, preparing to invade the Republic of Korea. 

The U.S. government in Washington and 

military and naval leaders in the Pacific were 

unaware of the impending threat to peace and 

stability in Northeast Asia. As a result, in June 1950 

the ships of the much diminished postwar Seventh 

Fleet rode gently at anchor in Subic Bay in the 

Philippines. Their idyll would not last for long. ★★★
23

On 25 June North Korean armed forces, 

equipped with Soviet tanks, artillery, and combat 

aircraft, attacked the Republic of (South) Korea. 

The communist offensive quickly overran the 

border defenses and rapidly advanced south. 

President Truman ordered U.S. air, ground, and 

naval forces to help South Korean and United 

Nations forces turn back the Communist invasion. 

The Seventh Fleet sortied from its base at 

Subic Bay in the Philippines on the 27th, steamed 

to Korea via Taiwan and Okinawa, and little more 

than a week after the invasion, directed naval 

gunfire and air strikes at targets ashore. The U.S. 

Navy took full advantage of its control of the sea 

and the air above it. On 2 July the cruiser Juneau

(CL 119), British cruiser Jamaica, and British frigate 

Black Swan intercepted North Korean torpedo boats 

and motor gunboats off the east coast of South 

Korea and destroyed four of the naval vessels. The 

following day aircraft from Valley Forge and British 

NA 80-G-428152

President Truman directed carrier Valley Forge (CV 45), embarking the Navy’s 

first operational squadron of F9F Panther jet aircraft, to steam close to Taiwan as a 

signal to the new Chinese Communist government of Mao Zedong that the United 

States would oppose an invasion of the island and consequent widening of the 

Korean War.

The War in Korea, 1950–1953. Printed by permission, 

from Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, The Sea 

War in Korea (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1957).

Chapter 3

Fighting the Korean War

I

n late June 1950, after a five-year hiatus, the Seventh Fleet engaged once again in its 

primary mission of defeating America’s enemies in combat. For the next three years the fleet’s 

carrier aircraft, surface warships, and amphibious units fought the first armed conflict of the 

Cold War. The presence in the Far East of this powerful naval force also helped prevent the spread 

of conflict throughout the region. 
24 READY SEAPOWER

carrier Triumph bombed Pyongyang, the capital of 

North Korea. The fleet’s new jet fighter, the F9F

Panther, registered the Navy’s first aerial victories in 

the war when Lieutenant (j.g.) Leonard H. Plog and 

Ensign Eldon W. Brown Jr. shot down two North 

Korean YAK-9s.

Seventh Fleet aircraft and warships added 

their firepower to the UN campaign to halt the 

North Korean invading forces before they overran 

the entire peninsula. U.S. and allied cruisers 

and destroyers bombarded enemy units moving 

along coastal roads as carrier air units pounded 

Communist troops and supply convoys heading 

south on inland tracks. Naval forces from eight 

other members of the UN coalition fought 

with the U.S. Navy from the beginning of the 

war. The Royal Navy contingent (including the 

carriers Glory, Theseus, Ocean, Triumph), and the 

Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Colombian, 

NA 80-G-418592

North Korea’s east coast port of Wonsan burns after a strike by 

U.S. carrier aircraft in July 1950.

NH 97046

The United Nations war effort in Korea involved not only the U.S. Navy but the navies of other UN countries. Tied up at Sasebo, Japan, are, 

left to right, Royal Australian Navy destroyer Warramunga, Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Nootka, and Royal Navy destroyer Cockade.
Wartime Fleet Commander

Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble commanded the Seventh Fleet when it accomplished one of its most decisive 

Cold War operations—the amphibious assault at Incheon (Inchon). A 1915 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, 

he served during the years before Pearl Harbor in responsible staff positions ashore and in battleships, cruisers, 

and destroyers at sea. Convinced of Struble’s talents in amphibious warfare, after his participation in the 6 June 

1944 D-Day invasion of France, the Navy assigned him to the Seventh Fleet. As a battle leader in “MacArthur’s 

Navy,” Struble directed amphibious assaults on Leyte, Mindoro, and Luzon in the Philippines, which earned him 

the Distinguished Service Medal. In the immediate postwar years he gained valuable experience in inshore 

warfare while directing Pacific Fleet amphibious and mine clearance forces. He polished his interservice 

cooperation credentials with service in Washington in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Newly appointed Commander Seventh Fleet and promoted to vice admiral, Struble directed the fleet’s 

first strikes on North Korea in July 1950. The flag officer also established the air, surface, and submarine 

patrols demanded by President Harry S. Truman to protect Taiwan from Chinese Communist invasion. 

As Commander Task Force 7, Struble led the U.S. and UN forces that executed the masterful 

September 1950 amphibious assault on Incheon, Operation Chromite. General of the Army Douglas 

MacArthur’s bold plan, executed by the UN coalition under Struble’s command, soon liberated South 

Korea from the northern invaders. 

Until his routine relief on 28 March 1951, Vice Admiral Struble oversaw the air interdiction and 

close air support strikes of Task Force 77 and the bombardment operations of the fleet’s surface forces. 

Under his leadership, the Seventh Fleet demonstrated once again the Navy’s unique ability to support 

and sustain combat operations ashore. 

NA 80-G-668791

As Rear Admiral James H. Doyle, left, and Rear Admiral John M. Higgins look on, Commander Seventh 

Fleet Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble goes over invasion plans.
26 READY SEAPOWER

French, Dutch, and Thai naval forces all operated 

on the seas fronting Korea.

Protected from interference at sea, the ships 

of the Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service 

reinforced and resupplied UN troops holding a 

small toehold on the peninsula near the key port 

of Busan (Pusan). Without the Seventh Fleet’s 

protection of this oceangoing life line, the UN forces 

in South Korea would have been forced to make a 

costly withdrawal from the “Pusan Perimeter.”

The fleet’s mobility and command of the sea 

enabled General Douglas MacArthur and his UN

command to reverse the tide of battle in Korea. 

In mid-September 1950 Vice Admiral Arthur 

D. Struble, Commander Seventh Fleet and also 

Commander Task Force 7, led 230 U.S. and allied 

amphibious and other ships into the Yellow Sea and 

toward the North Korean-occupied port of Incheon. 

As this armada approached the narrow channel 

leading to Incheon in the early morning hours of 

15 September, a lighthouse, which had been out 

of operation for some time, suddenly illuminated. 

The man who turned on the light was Lieutenant 

Eugene F. Clark who had executed a daring 

intelligence mission behind enemy lines since the 

beginning of the month. The brave and resourceful 

NA 80-G-421944

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, flanked by Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble, on the left, and Major General O. P. Smith, 

commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, come ashore at Incheon after the successful assault landing.
FIGHTING THE KOREAN WAR 27

naval officer had been operating on a nearby island, 

Yeongheung (Yonghung), with a small party of 

South Koreans and another American to learn 

about local tides, currents, and other information 

valuable to allied amphibious planners. Clark and 

his men gathered their intelligence, fought a small 

naval action with the Communists in which the 

enemy lost two boats to accurate machine-gun 

fire, and repaired the light. The enemy overran 

Yeongheung and caught and executed 50 villagers 

who had helped the Americans, but the “Blackbeard 

of Yonghung Do,” as Clark would soon be called, 

avenged them by accomplishing his very important 

mission for the fleet. 

For days Seventh Fleet and UN naval gunfire 

support ships and carrier aircraft attacked enemy 

defensive positions ashore at Incheon. Then, at 0633 

hours on 15 September, amphibious landing craft 

disembarked a battalion of the 1st Marine Division’s 

5th Marine Regiment on Wolmi Do, an island in 

Incheon harbor. The fight for Incheon had begun.

After several days of hard combat and 

reinforcement by other Marines, South Korean 

troops, and elements of the Army’s 7th Infantry 

Division, the allies seized the port and nearby 

Gimpo (Kimpo) airfield. On the 21st, U.S. Army 

units that had broken out of the Pusan Perimeter 

linked up with the Incheon forces. A week later, 

after bloody, street-to-street fighting, the 1st Marine 

Division captured Seoul. The amphibious units 

at Incheon suffered 3,500 killed, wounded, and 

missing but they inflicted 20,000 casualties on the 

enemy. More importantly, the successful Incheon 

assault compelled the North Korean People’s 

Army to flee north in disarray and resulted in the 

liberation of South Korea.

General MacArthur hoped to destroy the 

enemy army completely and occupy northeast 

Korea with another Seventh Fleet amphibious 

assault, at Wonsan on the Sea of Japan. The Navy 

was directed to land the Army’s X Corps, which 

included the 1st Marine Division, there; the infantry 

Navy Art Collection

Inchon by Herbert C. Hahn. Colored pencil on paper.
28 READY SEAPOWER

divisions would then advance 

overland to the Yalu River and to 

North Korea’s border with the 

People’s Republic of China and the 

Soviet Union. Fast-moving South 

Korean troops, however, arrived 

at Wonsan on 10 October, a week 

before the planned landing. In 

addition, the fleet discovered—the 

hard way—that the North Koreans 

had emplaced between 2,000 and 

4,000 Soviet-made magnetic and 

contact mines in the approaches to 

the harbor. Mines sank a number 

of American and South Korean 

mine-clearing vessels before the 

task force opened a safe passage 

into the port. At long last, on 25 

October 1950, the 1st Marine 

Division began moving ashore 

from their Seventh Fleet and Naval 

Forces Far East ships and advancing 

into the forbidding mountains of 

North Korea.

The “volunteers” of the 

Chinese People’s Liberation Army 

emerged from the snow-covered 

mountains of North Korea and fell 

upon overextended Army, Marine, 

and South Korean units. X Corps 

had to fight its way back to the 

coast in bitter cold and howling 

winds. Marine and Navy attack 

squadrons operating from Task 

Force 77 carriers Philippine Sea

(CV 47), Valley Forge, Princeton (CV 37), and Leyte

(CV 32), and several escort carriers hit Chinese 

troops trying to surround UN units inland. In only 

one week of operations, naval aviators carried out 

1,700 sorties against the enemy.

Meanwhile, most of the UN ground troops had 

fought their way to the coast, where the battleship 

Missouri, cruisers Rochester (CA 124) and Saint Paul, 

and numerous destroyers and rocket vessels put a 

wall of fire between the infantry and the enemy. 

Navy and allied surface ships fired over 23,000 16-

inch, 8-inch, 5-inch, and 3-inch rounds and rockets 

at the Communist units moving toward the port of 

Hungnam.

The fleet’s dominance of the waters off Korea 

during late 1950 enabled MacArthur to withdraw his 

forces to the safety of the sea when the battle ashore 

turned against the UN command. By Christmas 

Eve the fleet’s amphibious task force completed the 

withdrawal by sea of 105,000 troops, 91,000 civilian 

NA 80-G-423625

The destruction of South Korean minesweeper YMS 516 by a Soviet-supplied sea mine in 

the approaches to Wonsan harbor.

Navy Art Collection

Tunnel Busting Mission by Morgan Wilbur. Oil on canvas.
FIGHTING THE KOREAN WAR 29

refugees, 350,000 tons of cargo, and 17,500 military 

vehicles. Air Force and Marine planes airlifted 

another 3,600 troops, 1,300 tons of cargo, and 196 

vehicles. Navy explosive demolition teams leveled the 

port facilities at Hungnam to deny their use to the 

enemy, and the Seventh Fleet steamed south. Within 

a few weeks the units withdrawn from North Korea 

were back in the fight to preserve the independence 

of the Republic of Korea.

A New Kind of War

From spring 1951 to July 1953, during the 

so-called static-war phase, naval airpower brought 

the conflict to the North Korean rear areas to 

prevent heavy weapons, ammunition, supplies, 

and construction materials from reaching enemy 

troops on the front line. Task Force 77 comprising 

large-deck aircraft carriers (11 ships served in the 

Korean War) and Task Force 95 (one light and four 

escort carriers) operated off Korea. Navy combat 

squadrons operated from the carriers, and Marine 

aviation units flew from both the escort carriers and 

shore bases. The naval aviators piloted F9F Panthers, 

F2H Banshees, and the workhorses of the war, 

propeller-driven F4U Corsairs and AD Skyraiders. 

The fleet’s fighter squadrons fought for control 

of the air against hundreds of MiG-15 jets and other 

combat aircraft flown by North Korean, Chinese, 

and Soviet aircrews and shot down 13 of them. 

Lieutenant Guy P. Bordelon became the Navy’s 

one Korean War “ace” when he downed five enemy 

aircraft, nicknamed “Bedcheck Charlies,” which flew 

over UN lines at night, dropping bombs to disturb 

sleeping troops.

The attack squadrons concentrated on enemy 

locomotives and rolling stock, bridges, tunnels, 

supply depots, power-generating dams on the Yalu 

River, and other vital targets. In one of the war’s 

most dramatic and unusual missions, eight AD 

Skyraiders of Attack Squadron (VA) 195, led by 

Commander Harold G. “Swede” Carlson and flying 

from Princeton, breached the Hwachon Reservoir 

dam with air-dropped torpedoes. Thereafter the 

Navy called the squadron the “Dambusters.” 

K-11771

As high-speed transport Begor (APD 127) stands by, explosives set by Navy demolitions teams destroy the port of Hungnam to deny the 

enemy use of its facilities.
30 READY SEAPOWER

Helicopters also proved especially well suited to 

retrieving aircrews from the sea. Aviation Machinist’s 

Mate 2nd Class Ernie L. Crawford, crewman of a 

helicopter operating from heavy cruiser Rochester, 

received the Navy Cross for heroism in saving a 

downed, unconscious pilot. Crawford got the naval 

aviator safely into the rescue helicopter and then 

floated alone for 20 minutes in the freezing ocean 

while he awaited the helicopter’s return.

Carrier and shore-based units carried out 

another critical responsibility, providing on-call 

close air support to troops on the front line. By the 

end of the war naval air crews had flown 275,000 

sorties over Korea, which represented 53 percent 

of the close air support strikes and 40 percent of 

the interdiction missions flown by Air Force, Navy, 

and Marine Corps planes. Naval aircraft dropped 

more than 178,000 tons of bombs, triggered over 

274,000 air-to-ground rockets, and fired more than 

71 million cannon rounds. 

Combat power projected from the sea came 

from another source—the battleships, cruisers, 

destroyers, and rocket vessels of the Seventh Fleet. 

Marines and soldiers facing Chinese “human wave” 

assaults eagerly sought fire from the 16-inch guns 

of World War II-built battleships Iowa (BB 61), 

New Jersey (BB 62), Missouri, and Wisconsin (BB 

64). The fleet’s surface warships also ranged along 

the Korean coast, shelling railways, roads, supply 

caches, and troop concentrations. Allied estimates 

credited U.S. and UN surface warships, which fired 

4 million rounds of naval gun ammunition, with 

killing thousands of enemy troops and destroying an 

uncounted number of buildings, trucks, bridges, and 

supply dumps. In contrast, enemy coastal guns failed 

to sink even one UN warship. 

NH 97164

Helicopters made their combat debut in the war and they proved especially useful for rescuing downed pilots in the rugged countryside of North Korea.
FIGHTING THE KOREAN WAR 31

Without question, the prodigious air effort, 

with its complementary surface force bombardment 

operations, denied the enemy vital munitions 

and saved the lives of thousands of American 

and allied soldiers fighting to take or hold ground 

at the 38th parallel—but it did not cut enemy 

supply lines or prevent the enemy from launching 

devastating offensives. Tens of thousands of North 

Korean civilians and military engineers repeatedly 

put bombed rail lines, bridges, and supply depots 

back in operation. Nighttime often cloaked supply 

movements. Moreover, enemy antiaircraft fire 

brought down 559 Navy and Marine aircraft 

and MiGs claimed another five. The Korean War 

experience demonstrated that in a new era of 

“limited war,” airpower would not be a war-winning 

instrument. That lesson would have to be relearned 

15 years later in Southeast Asia. 

Throughout the Korean War, U.S. and allied 

naval forces maintained a tight blockade of North 

Korean waters, denying the enemy use of the sea 

to transport troops and supplies. Control of the sea 

also allowed the Seventh Fleet to threaten other 

amphibious landings in the rear of the Chinese 

and North Korean armies arrayed along the 38th 

parallel. The enemy took the threat seriously and 

positioned sizable troop units along both coasts and 

far from the front lines where they 

were badly needed. To keep the 

enemy’s attention riveted to the 

sea, the fleet executed a number of 

naval feints and demonstrations. In 

Operation Decoy during October 

1952, Seventh Fleet carriers and 

surface ships attacked North 

Korean defenses around Kojo, and 

amphibious ships maneuvered as if 

to land elements of the Army’s 1st 

Cavalry Division near Wonsan. The 

enemy rushed forces to the coast 

to defeat amphibious assaults that 

never came. 

The fleet also put special 

operations forces ashore on the 

east and west coasts of North 

Korea and on many of the hundreds of islands that 

studded those waters. The blockade of Wonsan 

from February 1951 to the end of the war kept the 

Communists from using the potentially important 

port. Ships also landed underwater demolition 

teams, U.S. Marines, and British and South Korean 

naval commandos to destroy highway bridges, 

supply dumps, railroad tracks, and railroad tunnels 

behind enemy lines. 

Some Seventh Fleet warships off Korea used 

whaleboats to carry the action to the enemy. 

Commander James A. Dare, the enterprising 

commanding officer of destroyer Douglas H. Fox

(DD 779), manned his ship’s whaleboat with his 

most resourceful officers and daring bluejackets and 

equipped them with a 75-millimeter recoilless rifle, 

small arms, demolition charges, grenades, a radio, 

and tools for destroying fishing nets. Every night the 

boat crew would deploy five to seven miles from 

the ship (within range of the destroyer’s radios and 

surface search radar) to seize fishing boats and their 

crews and return both to the ship. By destroying 

fishermen’s nets, impounding their boats, and 

otherwise disrupting the local fishing activity, the 

fleet forces denied enemy troops the bounty of the 

sea. In addition, quite often the prisoners would 

provide information on where the North Koreans NA 80-G-K-435681 

The 16-inch rifles of battleship New Jersey (BB 62) open up against enemy targets in 

North Korea.
32 READY SEAPOWER

had positioned their coastal artillery and the daily 

routines of the gun crews.

The Sailors also practiced a little psychological 

warfare on the enemy. The night before May Day 

1952—the Communist countries celebrated 1 May 

as International Labor Day—Douglas H. Fox’s 

whaleboat Sailors planted an American flag on an 

island at the mouth of Wonsan harbor. So, as the 

sun rose in the east on the big day, the enemy’s first 

sight was Old Glory flapping gaily in the sea breeze.

The Seventh Fleet’s warships and the air units 

operating from carriers and from shore airfields 

provided essential support to U.S. and allied troops 

fighting this first “limited war” of the Cold War. 

The fleet did not lose a single major warship in 

the Korean War. More than 1,177,000 Seventh 

Fleet and Naval Forces Far East personnel served 

in Korea. Four hundred fifty-eight Sailors were 

killed in action, 1,576 suffered wounds, and 4,043 

succumbed to injury or disease. Without the 

dedicated service and sacrifices made by Navy 

men and women, ashore and afloat, the UN would 

not have been able to preserve the independence 

of the Republic of Korea or achieve the armistice 

agreement with China and North Korea that ended 

the conflict on 27 July 1953.

Keeping the Korean War Limited

As the Seventh Fleet carried out its vital combat 

mission in Korea, it handled an equally important 

responsibility—preventing the conflict’s spread 

throughout the Far East. The Truman administration 

and its UN allies did not want the fighting in Korea 

to spark a global or a regional war with the Soviet 

K-14194

U.S. and South Korean officers question a captured North Korean fisherman.
FIGHTING THE KOREAN WAR 33

Union and the People’s Republic of China. Indeed, 

the Seventh Fleet’s first action in the war was to 

deter both a Chinese Communist invasion of Taiwan 

and Chinese Nationalist attacks on the PRC. Days 

after the outbreak of the Korean War, President 

Truman announced that he believed “the occupation 

of Formosa [Taiwan] by Communist forces would be 

a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area and 

to United States forces.” He added, “I have ordered 

the Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa” 

and called on Chiang’s government to “cease all 

air and sea operations against the mainland.” He 

emphasized, “the Seventh Fleet will see that this is 

done.” As they headed for Korea from Subic Bay in 

the Philippines on 27 June, the carrier Valley Forge, 

heavy cruiser Rochester, and eight destroyers made a 

show of force along the China coast. A formation of 

Valley Forge aircraft flew up the Taiwan Strait on the 

29th to signal Beijing that the United States would 

prevent an attack on Taiwan.

The Seventh Fleet’s quick deployment to 

the Yellow Sea/West Sea (China and South 

Korea use different names for the same body of 

water) and reinforcement by surface and air units 

based in Japan and the United States also sent a 

strong message to the Communist powers—any 

involvement of Soviet or Chinese naval forces in 

the Korean War put the 

coastal cities and military 

bases of these countries 

at great risk from Seventh 

Fleet retaliation. This 

understanding helped 

persuade Stalin to limit 

the use of his air forces in 

support of Chinese and 

North Korean troops and 

to keep his large submarine 

force operating close to the 

homeport of Vladivostok. 

Throughout the 

Korean War, Seventh Fleet 

submarines, land-based 

patrol aircraft, and carrier 

task forces kept watch on the 

seas and coastal areas of Asia to gather intelligence. 

In mid-July 1950 the submarines Catfish and 

Pickerel (SS 524) sortied from the U.S. naval base 

at Yokosuka, Japan, for a secret mission. Directed 

to patrol the Taiwan Strait, approaching no closer 

than 12 miles of mainland China and six miles to 

Taiwan, the two submarines patrolled submerged 

during the day off Xiamen (Amoy) and Shantou 

(Swatow) for ten days. A Chinese Communist radio 

news broadcast that 1,500 junks were en route from 

Shantou to Xiamen initially caused concern, but 

the report proved to be bogus. Finally, on 30 July 

Pickerel and Catfish ended their patrols, returning to 

Yokosuka. Once in Tokyo, the commanding officers 

of both submarines reported on their missions to 

Vice Admirals Struble and C. Turner Joy, the latter 

commander of U.S. Naval Forces Far East. Their 

reports helped counter other intelligence that the 

PRC was about to invade Taiwan.

During the second week of July, Struble and the 

commanding officers of Patrol Squadrons (VP) 28 

and 46 conferred in Taipei with Chinese Nationalist 

military leaders. On the 16th, aircraft of Fleet Air 

Wing 1 began reconnaissance missions in the strait. 

VP-28, which flew nine P4Y Privateers from Naha, 

Okinawa, inaugurated a daily surveillance of the 

northern part of the strait. The following day VP-46, NH 97021

Pickerel (SS 524) and other Seventh Fleet submarines, surface ships, and patrol planes carried out 

the Taiwan Strait Patrol to monitor military activity in the coastal waters of China.
34 READY SEAPOWER

with nine PBM-5 Mariner flying boats, kicked off 

patrols of the strait’s southern sector from the Penghu 

(Pescadore) Islands, where seaplane tender Suisun

(AVP 53) deployed on the 17th. 

American leaders feared a Chinese Communist 

invasion of Taiwan during July and August. On 

17 July the CIA concluded that the PLA could 

launch a successful amphibious assault on Taiwan 

despite U.S. opposition. Soon after, crewmen on a 

British merchant ship spotted a large concentration 

of junks in the strait. When a P4Y Privateer of 

VP-28 investigated the report on the 26th, two 

hostile fighters attacked the patrol plane, which 

made good its escape. The following day Far East 

Command officers in Taipei, Taiwan, learned that 

a Nationalist agent on the mainland had attended 

a meeting at which Communist leaders discussed 

an assault in the near future on Taiwan. In response 

to this perceived invasion threat, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff had already directed Commander in Chief, 

Far East to mount another naval show of force in 

the strait. The JCS thought that the presence of 

Seventh Fleet elements in the strait, even for a 

short time, would demonstrate U.S. resolve and 

serve as a deterrent.

On 26 July Struble dispatched to the strait 

Rear Admiral Charles C. Hartman’s surface task 

group, comprising the heavy cruiser Helena (CA

75) and three destroyers of Destroyer Division 111. 

Hartman’s group, joined by the light cruiser Juneau, 

reached the northern end of the strait on the 28th 

and began a sweep southward. 

On 4 August Struble established the Formosa 

Patrol around the ships of this group, which were to 

operate from Keelung, Taiwan. Hence, for the first 

time since the evacuation of the mainland naval base 

at Qingdao in May 1949, U.S. naval forces deployed 

from a Nationalist port. The Formosa Patrol Force 

(Task Force 72)—later the Taiwan Patrol Force—

would operate in the strait for the next two decades 

of the Cold War.

These fleet operations were not a bluff. In 

September 1950, for instance, American carrier planes 

shot down a Soviet bomber on a reconnaissance 

mission when it flew too close to the UN fleet in the 

Yellow Sea/West Sea. The Soviets did not retaliate 

and indeed did not make the incident public. At 

least partly because of this UN naval presence, at no 

time during the war did Beijing or Moscow use the 

sea or the air above it to support Communist forces 

fighting hard on the Korean peninsula. But they did 

on occasion attack fleet patrol units, downing aircraft 

and killing Navy crewmen. On 6 November 1951, for 

instance, Soviet fighter planes shot down a Navy P2V

Neptune conducting a reconnaissance flight close to 

the USSR in the Sea of Japan/East Sea.

The Chinese Communists also attacked patrol 

units that operated off the mainland during the 

war. Seaplanes and patrol aircraft 

based on Chinese Nationalist 

islands, Okinawa, and the 

Philippines flew along and over 

the Asian littoral. Photographic 

reconnaissance planes often flew 

deep into China. U.S. destroyers 

of the Taiwan Patrol Force and 

submarines also made their 

presence known in Chinese waters. 

To give substance to Truman’s 

warning that Chinese Communist 

forces stay away from Taiwan, 

Seventh Fleet forces twice left 

the combat theater off Korea 

and made a show of force along 

NH 52364

Light cruiser Juneau (CL 119) operating in Far Eastern waters during the Korean War. 
FIGHTING THE KOREAN WAR 35

the PRC coast. In April 1951 the 

carriers Philippine Sea and Boxer

steamed south along the coast and 

launched aircraft that flew over the 

coastal cities of Xiamen, Shantou, 

and Fuchau (Foochow). Chinese 

antiaircraft fire greeted them. The 

following year, in July, carriers Essex

(CV 9) and Philippine Sea, along 

with eight destroyers, set a course 

from Korea all the way to the island 

of Hainan in the South China 

Sea where their aircraft executed 

low-level photoreconnaissance of 

Chinese military facilities. Chinese 

antiaircraft fire and MiG interceptors 

failed to frustrate the mission. During 

the latter operation, a spokesman 

for Admiral Arthur W. Radford, 

Commander in Chief, Pacific, 

informed the press that the mission 

would “show that the Navy could 

bomb the coastal cities of Amoy, 

Foochow, and Swatow anytime.” 

The following day Admiral William 

Fechteler, Chief of Naval Operations, 

announced during a visit to the Far 

East that the Navy “could deliver 

baby atom bombs in Korea [and by 

implication anywhere else in the 

region] if it is ordered to do so.”

The following January antiaircraft 

fire from the PRC shot up another 

patrol plane, killing crewmembers, and 

forcing the pilot to ditch close to the 

China coast. While trying to rescue 

the crew, a U.S. Coast Guard seaplane 

crashed and sank, with further loss of 

life. Fire from Chinese Communist 

coastal guns fell all around the U.S. 

and Hong Kong-based British ships 

coming to the rescue. 

So these Seventh Fleet patrols 

could be costly, but they demonstrated 

to Beijing that U.S. seapower would 

NH 92980

A P2V Neptune heads out to sea from Japan to take part in a patrol. Aviation units 

based in Okinawa and the Philippines routinely monitored oceangoing traffic in the 

Taiwan Strait.

K-18427

Carrier Philippine Sea (CV 47) and other Seventh Fleet units steamed along the 

coast of China during the Korean War to deter Beijing from attacking Taiwan.
36 READY SEAPOWER

oppose an attack on Taiwan. According to one 

Nationalist spy who attended a high-level meeting 

of Communist leaders, they were concerned that 

any invasion fleet would “last only few [hours] 

against 7th Flt and US Air Force.” This fear held 

throughout the Korean War. Beijing committed a 

massive ground army and large air forces to the war 

on the Korean peninsula and, as new scholarship 

makes clear, the Soviets intervened in the war with 

hundreds of Russian-piloted aircraft and other air 

defense units. The presence of the combined UN

fleet off Chinese and Russian shores, however, 

discouraged a comparable naval effort. The Chinese 

and Soviets never exploited the sea to support the 

war in Korea. 

The Seventh Fleet demonstrated in the Korean 

War that sea power was critical to success in fighting 

a conflict far from the United States and on the 

continent of Asia. The fleet denied the enemy use of 

the sea; projected naval power ashore in the form of 

carrier strikes, surface ship gunfire, and amphibious 

assaults; and ensured troop reinforcement and 

logistic support to UN forces for the duration of the 

war. Moreover, the Seventh Fleet symbolized U.S. 

determination and capacity to prevent the spread of 

conflict beyond the Korean peninsula. The United 

States would have been especially challenged to 

contain this first “limited war” of the Cold War without 

the presence of strong and flexible naval forces in the 

Far East. ★★★

Navy Art Collection

Army General Mark Clark, Commander in Chief, Far East, signs the Korean War armistice on 27 July 1953 as Vice Admiral Robert P. 

Briscoe, Commander, Naval Forces Far East, and Vice Admiral J. J. “Jocko” Clark, Commander Seventh Fleet, look on in this painting by 

Orlando S. Lagman.
37

Chapter 4 

Deterring Conflict in the Far East

T he end of the Korean War brought no end to hostilities in the Far East and 

no respite for the Seventh Fleet. The global conflict between the United States and its 

allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union and fellow Marxist-Leninist nations on the 

other was especially intense in Asia. During the 1950s the Seventh Fleet faced off with Chinese 

and Vietnamese Communists in several confrontations that threatened to escalate to nuclear war. 

To meet these challenges, Washington strengthened the combat power and base structure of its 

fighting fleet in the Western Pacific. 

After the Korean War, Communist military 

forces continued to attack Seventh Fleet units. Patrol 

planes conducting intelligence-gathering missions 

over or near the coast of the USSR faced frequent 

attacks from Soviet military 

units. In September 1954 

a MiG-15 forced a patrol 

aircraft to ditch in the frigid 

waters off Siberia, killing 

one crewman. Two years 

later Chinese fighters shot 

down a P4M Mercator flying 

near Wenzhou (Wenchow), 

China, killing all 16 crew 

members. 

After the death of 

Soviet dictator Joseph 

Stalin in March 1953, Mao 

Zedong, the leader of the 

People’s Republic of China, 

increasingly advertised 

himself as the leader of the 

Communist movement, 

especially in Asia. He 

championed not only the 

totalitarian North Korean state but Communist 

insurgencies and guerrilla movements throughout 

Southeast Asia, including that led by Ho Chi Minh 

in French Indochina. Artillery, mortars, small arms, 

ammunition, military advisors, and a host of other 

support provided by China enabled the Vietnamese 

Viet Minh guerrillas to defeat one French military 

force after another between 1950 and 1954. 

The Truman and later 

Dwight D. Eisenhower 

administrations were 

determined to strengthen 

the French government in 

its fight with Communists 

at home in France and in 

Indochina. Washington 

provided French forces in 

Indochina with $2.6 billion 

in military aid that included 

two light aircraft carriers, 

500 aircraft, 438 amphibious 

landing ships and river patrol 

vessels, artillery, trucks, and 

ammunition. To demonstrate 

U.S. support for the French 

war effort, Seventh Fleet 

ships frequently visited ports 

in Vietnam. The four “tin 

cans” of Destroyer Division 

30 made a visit to Saigon in October 1953. That 

same month the transport General W.M. Black

(APB 5) moved from Korea to Vietnam a French 

infantry battalion, which had served with distinction NHHC L File

Ho Chi Minh, a fervent Communist and Vietnamese 

nationalist. 
38 READY SEAPOWER

during the war as part of the U.S. 2nd Infantry 

Division. The French soldiers still proudly displayed 

the American unit’s shoulder patch when they 

disembarked at Saigon.

Because of the Navy’s requirement to defend 

Japan in Northeast Asia and the increasing obligation 

to promote U.S. interests in Southeast Asia, in 1953 

Chief of Naval Operations Robert B. Carney and other 

naval leaders argued that three carriers should always 

be forward-deployed with the Seventh Fleet. The Navy 

also wanted to maintain three carriers in the Far East 

to justify a budget for keeping 14 carriers in operation 

worldwide in what the service considered a vital Cold 

War requirement. President Eisenhower approved the 

proposal, and Congress authorized the expenditure.

The French Indochina War

Despite American military assistance, by the 

spring of 1954 French forces were on the verge 

of defeat at the hands of the Viet Minh army and 

Chinese Communist arms suppliers. The elite 

combat forces of France—Foreign Legionnaires 

and paratroopers—found themselves surrounded 

and virtually cut off from outside support at Dien 

Bien Phu, the site of a small, remote airfield on the 

jungled and mountainous Tonkin border with Laos. 

The Eisenhower administration, contemplating 

military intervention to rescue the French forces 

at Dien Bien Phu, directed the deployment of 

carrier task forces to the South China Sea. The 

Navy assigned command of the deployment to 

Vice Admiral William K. Phillips, commander of 

the West Coast-based U.S. First Fleet, rather than 

Commander Seventh Fleet because the latter served 

under the Far East Command in Tokyo, led by an 

Army general. Naval leaders in Washington wanted 

more leeway to guide Phillips’ operations so they 

assigned at one time or another carriers from both 

fleets, including Wasp (CVA 18), Essex, Boxer, and 

Philippine Sea. 

NHHC

Southeast Asia.

NHHC L File

Admiral Felix B. Stump, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 

left, greets Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, on board a U.S. warship. Both men were concerned 

about Communist activities in the Far East during the 1950s.
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 39

Some of the aircraft that operated from these 

carriers were capable of dropping nuclear bombs. 

A few U.S. leaders, especially Admiral Radford in 

his new position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, pushed for serious consideration of using 

nuclear weapons to help the French out of their 

predicament. In the end Eisenhower decided against 

intervening to save the French. America’s British 

allies strongly opposed the idea, and the President 

doubted American air forces, whether using nuclear 

or conventional weapons, could be decisive. On 7 

May Viet Minh forces overwhelmed the last French 

defenders of Dien Bien Phu. This military defeat 

spelled the end of French fortunes in Indochina. 

Months before the end at 

Dien Bien Phu, the world’s major 

powers had come together at 

Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss 

resolution of the conflict in 

Indochina. France agreed to 

the eventual independence of 

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 

The Agreement on the Cessation 

of Hostilities divided Vietnam 

into two zones for the separation 

of Viet Minh and French forces. 

Ho Chi Minh’s troops were to 

concentrate in the Tonkin region 

north of the 17th parallel, and 

French and allied Vietnamese 

forces would gather to the south of 

that provisional demarcation line. 

Vietnamese civilians were allowed 

to settle wherever they wished. 

In answer to the French 

government’s call for assistance, 

Washington directed the Navy to 

evacuate French-allied military 

forces and civilian refugees from 

Haiphong in the north to Saigon in 

the south. Rear Admiral Lorenzo 

S. Sabin, Commander, Amphibious 

Force Western Pacific, took charge 

of what came to be known as 

Operation Passage to Freedom. 

His task force included 74 tank landing ships, 

transports, attack cargo ships, dock landing ships, 

and other vessels provided by the Seventh Fleet and 

the First Fleet, and 39 vessels of the Military Sea 

Transportation Service. Oilers, cargo, provision, repair, 

salvage, and hospital ships of the Logistic Support 

Force Western Pacific operated from Danang Bay, 

located midway between Haiphong and Saigon. 

Naval medical officers and enlisted Sailors based at 

the fleet hospital in Yokosuka deployed to Haiphong 

to provide medical and disease prevention services at 

the port’s refugee camps. 

Between August 1954 and May 1955, Sabin’s 

flotilla transported 17,800 Vietnamese soldiers, 

NHHC L File

In Operation Passage to Freedom, Seventh Fleet and other U.S. naval vessels transported 

from northern to southern Vietnam more than 293,000 refugees who did not want to live 

under the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh.
40 READY SEAPOWER

8,135 vehicles, and 68,757 tons of cargo to the 

southern zone. In a special lift hospital ship Haven

(AH 12) steamed from Korea to Saigon, embarked 

721 French soldiers recently released from Viet 

Minh prisoner of war camps, and transported them 

to Marseilles, France. The U.S. Navy also transported 

to the south 293,000 Vietnamese, many of them 

Catholics, who opted to live under a separate 

noncommunist Vietnamese government in southern 

Indochina rather than under the authoritarian, 

antireligious regime of Ho Chi Minh.

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–1955

Emboldened by the Communist victory over 

Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in China, the 

positive showing of the People’s Liberation Army 

during the Korean War, and the Vietnamese-Chinese 

defeat of French forces in Indochina, Mao Zedong 

embarked on an aggressive course in the Far East. 

Aggravated that the Seventh Fleet continued 

the Taiwan Strait air patrol begun in 1950, the 

Chinese leader ordered his air forces to attack one 

of the surveillance planes. On 7 July 1954 Chinese 

Communist MiGs pounced on a Seventh Fleet P2V

in the strait; the patrol plane barely managed to 

escape its attackers. 

A defenseless British Air Cathay passenger plane 

en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong on the 22nd 

did not fare as well. PLA fighters destroyed the 

aircraft and killed 18 passengers 20 miles southeast 

NH 94616

Sailors hoist a PBM Mariner from the water after a patrol mission 

in the Far East.

NA 80-G-K-16519

Hospital Ship Haven (AH 12).
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 41

of Hainan Island. A Seventh Fleet task force 

under Rear Admiral Harry D. Felt, which included 

carrier Philippine Sea on an exercise in the South 

China Sea, immediately deployed to the area and 

rescued nine survivors. Only four days later a pair 

of LA-7 Chinese fighters attacked AD Skyraiders 

from Philippine Sea’s Carrier Air Group 5 led by 

Commander G. C. Duncan. The assailants made 

head-on firing runs on the ADs piloted by Duncan 

and Lieutenant Roy M. Tatham but failed to score 

any hits. The hunters then became the hunted; 

Tatham and his fellow naval aviators splashed both 

aggressors. 

There would be no let up in hostile Chinese 

behavior. On 3 September 1954 artillery batteries 

opposite Jinmen (Quemoy), only a few miles from 

the port of Xiamen, began a furious shelling of 

the Nationalist-held island. Beijing announced its 

ultimate intention to seize all Nationalist islands, 

including Taiwan itself, and destroy Chiang Kaishek’s government. A direct threat to the Dachen 

(Tachen) Islands, 200 miles north of Taiwan, 

developed after midnight on 14 November when 

a pair of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 

vessels attacked Nationalist navy destroyer escort 

Tai Ping, on patrol in nearby waters. Tai Ping opened 

fire with 3-inch and 40-millimeter guns, but before 

her fire could take effect, a PLAN torpedo slammed 

into the warship. Destroyer escort Tai Ho took Tai 

Ping under tow the following morning, but Tai 

Ping’s hull buckled and she sank before reaching 

a friendly port. 

The assault on the Dachens began in earnest 

in January 1955 when the PLA air force launched 

a bombing campaign against Nationalist military 

facilities on the islands. The 200-mile distance 

between the Dachens and Taiwan made it especially 

difficult for Nationalist air units to provide air cover 

for troops in the island chain. On the 20th, Chinese 

Communist amphibious forces seized Yijiangshan 

(Ichiang) Island in a surprise attack. 

At the direction of higher headquarters, 

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral Alfred 

M. Pride Jr. deployed his forces to nearby waters 

prepared for likely 

contingencies. A flotilla of 

five carriers—Kearsarge

(CVA 33), Essex, Wasp, 

Midway (CVA 41), and 

Yorktown (CVA 10) and 

their cruiser and destroyer 

escorts concentrated off 

the Dachens. 

The United States and 

the Republic of China had 

signed a Mutual Defense 

Treaty on 2 December 

1954, and on 28 January 

1955 Congress passed the 

Formosa Resolution that 

empowered the President 

to use the U.S. armed 

forces as he saw fit in 

defense of Taiwan and the 

Nationalist-held offshore 

islands. Eisenhower was 

NHHC L File

Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Republic of China, meets with Commander Seventh Fleet Vice 

Admiral Alfred M. Pride during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1955.
42 READY SEAPOWER

prepared to wage war against the PRC to defend 

Taiwan, but he did not want a fight for the distant 

and hard-to-defend Dachens. In exchange for the 

promise of a formal U.S.–Republic of China mutual 

defense treaty, the President had persuaded Chiang 

Kai-shek to evacuate the islands. On 6 February the 

Seventh Fleet amassed a powerful armada within 

range of the Dachens to signal Beijing that any 

interference with the evacuation operation by the 

PLA would be met by overwhelming U.S. force. 

The Surface Action Force (TF 75) patrolled 

around the islands, covered overhead by the carrier 

air wings of the Attack Carrier Striking Force (TF

77). A hunter-killer group (TG 70.4) managed 

antisubmarine protection. The Taiwan Patrol Force 

(TF 72) and U.S. and Nationalist air force units 

provided additional air cover out to 100 miles. 

During the next several days the Amphibious 

Evacuation Force (TF 76) and Nationalist navy units 

embarked 11,120 soldiers, 8,630 tons of military 

supplies and equipment, 166 artillery pieces, and 

128 vehicles. The fleet units also evacuated to 

Taiwan 15,627 Dachen Island civilians, most of 

whom would never see their ancestral homes again.

Just as suddenly as Mao had precipitated an 

armed confrontation with the United States and the 

Republic of China in 1954–1955, he ended it. His 

officials announced on 23 April 1955 that the PRC 

was willing to negotiate, and on 1 May the PLA

ended its shelling of Jinmen and Mazu. During the 

remainder of 1955 and for the next two years the 

Chinese chief launched a “peace offensive” to win 

leadership of the newly independent, “non-aligned” 

nations of the so-called “third world.” At Indonesia’s 

Bandung Conference in April 1955, the PRC 

showcased itself to Asian and African nations as an 

international peacemaker, anti-imperialist stalwart, 

and friend of the dispossessed of the world.

Despite this display of international comity, 

during these same years Beijing provided diplomatic, 

NA 80-G-654920

Chinese civilians prepare to board Seventh Fleet landing craft during the evacuation of an island in the Dachen group southeast of Shanghai 

in February 1955.
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 43

NA 80-G-K-22608

President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked closely with Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke during the tense 1958 Taiwan 

Strait crisis.
44 READY SEAPOWER

economic, and military support to Communist 

governments and subversive guerrilla movements 

throughout Asia.

Southeast Asia Beckons 

In 1954 President Eisenhower, Secretary of 

State John Foster Dulles, and friendly leaders in 

Europe and Asia expressed alarm at Communist 

advances since 1949. Communist armies had 

conquered all of mainland China and Tibet, 

launched a devastating war on the Korean peninsula, 

defeated French armed forces in cataclysmic battles, 

and threatened to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek’s 

Republic of China. Marxist-Leninist guerrilla 

movements attempted to topple legally constituted 

governments in the Philippines, Indonesia, and 

throughout Indochina. 

In September the United States and its allies 

gathered in Manila to develop a strategy and 

organization whose purpose would be to reverse 

this unwelcome trend in the Far East. The resulting 

Manila Pact signed by the United States, Great 

Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, 

Thailand, Pakistan, and France formed the Southeast 

Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), headquartered 

in Bangkok, Thailand, and agreed to oppose the 

spread of Communist military power and MarxistLeninist ideology throughout the region. Unlike 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, however, 

SEATO had no standing forces. Moreover, the 

Geneva Agreement prohibited South Vietnam, Laos, 

and Cambodia from entering any military alliance, 

even though the member states established SEATO

with the defense of these countries in mind. 

Navy Art Collection

USS Providence in Asia by John Roach. Oil on canvas.
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 45

Throughout the 1950s the 

naval forces of the member states 

carried out combined exercises, 

exchanged staff visits, and 

developed plans for the defense 

of the region. The first SEATO

exercise, Firm Link, in February 

1956, involved the Seventh 

Fleet carrier Princeton (CVS 37), 

destroyers McDermut (DD 677) 

and Tingey (DD 539), and seaplane 

tender Salisbury Sound (AV 13); 

British and Australian cruisers and 

destroyers; and Thai and Filipino 

troops. Princeton helicopters flew 

an 850-U.S. Marine assault force 

to Bangkok’s Duan Muang Airport 

while Salisbury Sound disembarked 

Filipino troops at the port. The 

following day the citizens of the 

Thai capital toured the warships. The 

exercise concluded on the 18th with a military 

parade attended by tens of thousands of people. 

During Exercise Sea Link in May 1956, Seventh 

Fleet, Australian navy, and Philippine navy warships 

practiced naval gunfire support and amphibious 

operations.

Over the next two years, the Seventh Fleet 

participated in four SEATO exercises. Exercise 

Astra, sponsored by the United Kingdom, simulated 

the defense of a convoy from Singapore to Bangkok 

against air and submarine attacks in which a trio 

of Seventh Fleet destroyers, a submarine, and 

ASW (antisubmarine warfare) patrol aircraft took 

part. In October Australia sponsored a similar 

convoy-protection exercise. That same month 

a Seventh Fleet amphibious task group, a U.S. 

Marine battalion landing team, and Thai military 

forces simulated an amphibious assault in Exercise 

Teamwork. At the end of the year the entire 

Seventh Fleet Amphibious Force, the Okinawabased 3rd Marine Division, an antisubmarine 

hunter-killer task group, and a Philippine navy 

task group worked together in Exercise Phiblink. 

Carrier task forces from the United States, the 

United Kingdom, and Australia participated in the 

multiship Exercise Ocean Link of May 1958. 

The member states of the SEATO alliance 

frequently differed over the nature of the primary 

threat to the region—whether it was from overt 

military aggression or internal subversion—but the 

exercises carried out by U.S., Australian, and New 

Zealand naval forces enhanced their cooperation. 

SEATO exercises lasted well into the 1960s. 

Development of the Fleet’s Far Eastern Bases

The defense of Japan and America’s Far Eastern 

strategic interests during and after the Korean 

War mandated development of a robust base 

establishment for the forward-deployed Seventh 

Fleet. Naval leaders considered supplying the fleet 

from logistic facilities thousands of miles across 

the Pacific in Hawaii or on the U.S. West Coast 

impractical. To be ready for the next Communist 

invasion of an Asian country or attack on U.S. military 

forces, the fleet needed close-at-hand, shore-based 

airfields; stocks of ammunition, fuel, repair parts, 

food, and other supplies; and ship repair facilities.

The Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 revised 

and made permanent a 1951 security arrangement 

Author File

U.S. Marines storm ashore on the coast of North Borneo in May 1961 as part of SEATO 

Exercise Pony Express.
46 READY SEAPOWER

with Japan. The later document stipulated that 

“for the purpose of contributing to the security of 

Japan and the maintenance of international peace 

and stability in the Far East . . . the United States 

is granted the use by its land, air, and naval forces 

of facilities in Japan.” For their part, the Japanese 

concentrated on antisubmarine warfare and control 

of the key Japanese straits. The need for Japanese 

warships, aircraft, and weapons to carry out these 

defensive tasks inspired increased defense outlays 

that, by 1975, not only helped push Japan to the 

front rank of the world’s economic powers, but led 

to the development of a navy—the Japan Maritime 

Self-Defense Force (JMSDF)—that ranked fifth in 

the world in terms of tonnage.

Yokosuka, located 40 miles southwest of Tokyo, 

was the Seventh Fleet’s most strategic base during 

and after the Cold War. A primary base of the 

Imperial Japanese Navy since the late 19th century, 

Yokosuka boasted six large dry docks and extensive 

ship-repair facilities, numerous warehouses, and 

administrative buildings. Many of Japan’s battleships, 

aircraft carriers, and submarines slid from the 

building ways there. By the end of World War II it 

had become one of the most 

modern centers for naval 

construction in all of Asia.

The Korean War revealed 

the importance of Yokosuka 

to the Seventh Fleet. The 

number of carriers, battleships, 

cruisers, destroyers, and 

other naval vessels operating 

off Korea multiplied almost 

overnight, and they needed 

base support. The ship repair 

facility, which hired thousands 

of skilled Japanese workers, 

not only repaired the fleet’s 

warships but reactivated 27 

Lend-Lease vessels returned 

by the USSR shortly after 

World War II. Yokosuka’s 

facilities provided 85 percent 

of the repair, maintenance, and 

resupply of ships that fought in Korea. In December 

1952 Commander, Naval Forces Far East shifted his 

headquarters from Tokyo to Yokosuka, a move which 

also reflected the growing significance of the base. 

Not only American naval leaders but Japanese 

civilian officials and naval officers saw the great 

benefit of a U.S. military presence at the base. The 

pacifist government in Tokyo wanted the U.S. military 

in the heart of Japan so the war-scarred country 

would not have to rearm to defend itself. Ironically, 

Japanese naval officers hoped to keep the U.S. Navy 

close by so it could help them rebuild a naval force. 

For whatever reason, Japan’s leaders wanted an 

American military presence in the island nation.

The end of the Korean War did not lead to a 

downturn in Yokosuka’s fortunes. North Korea’s 

continued belligerence, Mao’s periodic threats 

to invade Taiwan, and the growing conflict in 

Indochina required a ready and forward-deployed 

Seventh Fleet. During the ten years after the war, 

in every year but one, more carriers operated in 

the Pacific than in the Atlantic and Mediterranean 

combined. Yokosuka routinely serviced the warships 

of four carrier task groups. NHHC L File 

An aerial view of the base facilities at Yokosuka, Japan, in 1962.
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 47

The base prospered because 

the U.S. Navy encouraged and 

assisted in the development of its 

major counterpart in Northeast 

Asia, the JMSDF. Yokosuka’s high 

employment of workers from the city 

and surrounding region and generally 

positive interaction between 

Americans and Japanese kept cultural 

friction at a minimum. 

The former Imperial Japanese 

Navy base at Sasebo on the southern 

island of Kyushu became a close 

second to Yokosuka in importance 

to the fleet during the Cold War. 

New base facilities had to be raised 

literally from the ashes after 1945 

when a U.S. bombing attack and a 

fierce typhoon had leveled the old 

structures. The outbreak of war 

on the nearby Korean peninsula in 

June 1950 marked the rebirth of 

Sasebo. The naval base proved to 

be critical to the defense of South 

Korea, especially during the first 

six months of the war. In increasing 

numbers, U.S. and UN carriers, 

surface warships, amphibious vessels, 

submarines, and troopships steamed 

into port for resupply, refueling, and 

repair before deploying to the battle 

zone across the nearby Strait of 

Tsushima. 

The Korean War also breathed 

life into the old airfield at Atsugi 

located near Tokyo and Yokohama. 

After Seabees and the men of Fleet Aircraft 

Squadron 11 repaired the runway, the Navy 

established the naval air station on 1 December 

1950 to support fleet carrier operations. The 

aircraft of three or more carriers and Marine aircraft 

groups routinely operated from Atsugi during the 

war. The naval air station, manned by more than 

5,000 personnel during the 1950s, became the 

headquarters of Commander, Fleet Air Western 

Pacific. Seabees lengthened the base runways 

at the end of the decade to accommodate new 

high-performance Navy fighters and attack planes 

entering the fleet.

The Japanese island of Okinawa, site of bloody 

World War II battles ashore and afloat, took on 

added importance in the Cold War because of its 

proximity to Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. 

In the years after the Korean War, the Seventh 

NA 80-G-478506

Repair ship Ajax (AR 6) and the four destroyers she served at the Sasebo naval base 

during the Korean War.

NHHC L File

Seventh Fleet ships and base facilities at Sasebo during the early 1960s. 
48 READY SEAPOWER

Fleet’s amphibious force operated from White 

Beach on the island, and naval aviation units 

flew from a naval air station at Kadena. The 3rd 

Marine Division and 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing 

were Okinawa’s major tenants. Unlike the military 

bases in Japan proper, those on Okinawa remained 

under exclusive U.S. control. Despite determined 

and often heated political action by some Japanese 

leaders and citizens during the 1950s, Washington 

refused until 1972 to return the island or the bases 

to Japanese sovereignty, citing Cold War needs. 

Some observers referred to Okinawa as “America’s 

Gibraltar of the Pacific.”

With Southeast Asia becoming as strategic as 

Northeast Asia to U.S. interests after the Korean 

War, Washington considered a change in the 

Pacific’s joint command structure. Naval leaders 

argued that because of the increasing scope of Navy 

responsibilities throughout the broad Asia-Pacific 

region, and its maritime nature, the Seventh Fleet 

should serve only one unified commander, not two. 

After deliberating on that concept, in 1957 the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff disestablished General MacArthur’s 

old Far East Command and assigned responsibility 

for the entire region to Commander in Chief, Pacific. 

Henceforth, Commander Seventh Fleet would 

report only to the Commander in Chief, Pacific/

Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, until 1958 the 

same four-star admiral.

Continuing the work begun by Admiral Radford 

during the Korean War, the new flag officer in charge 

of the Pacific, Admiral Felix B. Stump, redoubled 

efforts to develop the Seventh Fleet base at Subic 

Bay. The naval base had been in existence in one 

form or another since the Spanish-American War of 

1898. During the latter stages of World War II the 

fleet, then under Vice Admiral Kinkaid, established 

amphibious and fleet training centers and supply 

and petroleum storage depots at the site. In 1947 

Washington and Manila signed an agreement for a 

99-year lease of the land for use by the Navy and 

the other U.S. armed services, but until the Korean 

War logistic activity at the base was limited. That 

conflict, however, spurred the construction of 

facilities there, and by 1953 more than 7,000 Sailors 

and Filipino civilians worked on the base. In July 

1956 the Navy opened U.S. Naval Hospital Subic 

Bay, which served the medical needs of fleet Sailors 

whose numbers swelled during the period. 

The naval aviation establishment experienced 

an even more dramatic growth in the Philippines. 

By 1953 Seabees had extended the runway at 

the Sangley Point naval air station to 8,000 feet 

to accommodate jet aircraft, and close to 4,000 

Americans and Filipinos operated the facility. Just 

three years later four squadrons flew from Sangley 

Point, and the naval air station boasted plane and 

fuel storage space to handle fighter, attack, patrol, 

transportation, training, and seaplane squadrons. 

In one of the most remarkable construction 

projects of the Cold War, Seabees literally carved 

out of the jungle an air facility at Cubi Point 

opposite the Subic Bay naval base. From 1951 to 

1956, Naval Mobile Construction Battalions 3 and 

5 cut a mountain in half at the site and used the 

fill from the excavation to build a 10,000-footlong airstrip out into Subic Bay. The Seabees also 

constructed a pier able to accommodate the largest 

aircraft carriers. When completed on 25 July 1956, 

at a cost of $100 million and 20-million labor hours, 

Naval Air Station Cubi Point stood ready to support 

fleet air operations throughout Southeast Asia. 

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958

By 1958 Mao Zedong’s “peace offensive” had 

gone nowhere on the international stage and his 

disastrous Great Leap Forward domestic economic 

program had resulted in the starvation of millions 

of his own people. As often in the past, Mao 

sparked an international crisis to rally his Chinese 

citizens against the “foreign devils” and to divert 

their attention from his colossal domestic failures. 

He took advantage of the U.S. military’s fixation 

on the Lebanon crisis in the summer of 1958 to 

once again turn up the heat in the Taiwan Strait. 

The crisis started in August 1958 when Mao 

initiated a campaign to see if the United States 

would back Chiang Kai-shek’s government, even 

at the risk of war. He ordered the PLA to bombard 

and cut Jinmen Island off from supply. Chiang 
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 49

had increased the island’s garrison since the earlier 

1954–1955 crisis from 30,000 to 86,000 of his best 

Nationalist soldiers. 

Mao believed that loss of Jinmen and the 

thousands of Chiang’s soldiers there would 

demoralize the Nationalist armed forces on the 

larger island of Taiwan. In a matter of two hours, 

on 23 August, some 40,000 shells fell on Jinmen. 

The men on the heavily fortified island weathered 

the storm with few casualties, but they would not 

be able to withstand the bombardment for long 

unless resupplied with ammunition, food, and 

other necessities. At the same time, Communist 

forces shelled more distant Mazu Island and 

launched an unsuccessful amphibious assault on 

Tung Ting, a smaller island 18 miles from Jinmen. 

Naval units also attacked and sank a Nationalist 

warship near the island.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh 

Burke served as Washington’s “executive agent” 

or authorized manager of military operations 

during the crisis. The Navy’s top flag officer and 

Commander Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Wallace 

M. Beakley, had anticipated the possibility of 

a U.S. military response in support of Chiang’s 

government, as provided for in the Mutual Defense 

Treaty of 1954. They deployed the bulk of the 

Seventh Fleet to waters off Taiwan. At the time 

the fleet consisted of carriers Hancock (CVA 19), 

Lexington (CVA 16), and Princeton, 2 cruisers, 36 

destroyers, 4 submarines, and 20 amphibious and 

support ships. Burke also directed the Essex carrier 

NH 54905

The long-time leader of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek, greets Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke in 1955.
50 READY SEAPOWER

task group, then in the Mediterranean, and the 

Midway carrier task group on the U.S. West Coast 

to reinforce the fleet. By the 28th a host of aircraft 

carriers, surface warships, and submarines had 

established a formidable presence in the Taiwan 

Strait and nearby waters. 

The Taiwan Patrol Force deployed a cruiser 

and four destroyers on surface patrol of the 

strait and started day and night air patrols over 

its waters. The aircraft were armed with depth 

charges and torpedoes. Jet fighters from the carriers 

flew through the strait but never closer than 20 

miles to the mainland—to remind the PLA of the 

Seventh Fleet’s presence and combat power. The 

demonstration cost the fleet the loss of three naval 

aviators and four planes to operational accidents. 

Given great latitude by Admiral Burke, Admiral 

Roland N. Smoot, the commander of the Taiwan 

Defense Command, and Vice Admiral Beakley planned 

and executed the military operations and deployments 

off Jinmen. Cautioned by Washington to respond 

only in self-defense if U.S. or Nationalist ships were 

attacked, Beakley told his subordinate commanders to 

“remember, the shot you fire will be heard around the 

world, maybe [on] the floor of the UN. Be right.” 

U.S. strategy during this period emphasized 

nuclear warfare, and plans existed for the use 

of these weapons in defense of the Nationalists’ 

offshore islands. Since the summer of 1953 Navy 

carriers had been authorized to carry nuclear bombs, 

and by 1958 many of the carrier aircraft were 

equipped to drop them. Eisenhower, however, made 

it clear that nuclear weapons would only be used as 

a last resort, and only with his specific authorization.

Contrary to his public assertions, Mao feared 

America’s nuclear arsenal and the Seventh Fleet. The 

Chinese leader also found out he could not count on 

the backing of his Soviet allies, who were aghast at 

Mao’s provocative behavior in the crisis. Hence, Mao 

issued strict orders to even low levels of the Chinese 

military that U.S. warships were not to be attacked. 

He even refused permission for PLA units to fire back 

if fired upon. Throughout the crisis PLA aircraft and 

torpedo boats hovered menacingly at a distance from 

U.S.-Nationalist operations but did not come close. 

Communist artillery fire targeting Nationalist ships 

ceased when Seventh Fleet destroyer types Hopewell

and McGinty (DE 365) rushed to the assistance of 

their allies on two separate occasions.

The Nationalist navy, however, proved unable 

to get its supply vessels through to Jinmen because 

of the Communist shelling and naval attacks. PLAN

torpedo boats sank one Nationalist LST and heavily 

damaged another. On 5 September Chiang’s generals 

reported that the shelling had prevented three of four 

LSTs sent to Jinmen from delivering their cargoes; 

stocks of artillery shells and fuel were becoming 

alarmingly low on the island. 

Chiang wanted to initiate air strikes against PLA

targets on the mainland, but Eisenhower shied away 

from that drastic step. As a less hostile alternative, 

on 29 August the President authorized the Seventh 

Fleet to escort Nationalist resupply convoys to within 

three nautical miles of Jinmen; that is in international 

waters as interpreted by Washington (the PRC 

claimed 12 miles off shore as their territorial limit). 

On 7 September, in Operation Lightning, heavy 

cruiser Helena, with Beakley embarked, another 

cruiser, four destroyers, and four Nationalist naval 

vessels escorted a pair of Nationalist medium landing 

ships (LSMs) so they could deliver their critical 

supplies without Communist interference. The next 

three Lightning operations did not fare so well; PLAN

NH 89658-KN

Destroyer Hopewell (DD 681) steams through the waters of the Western Pacific.
DETERRING CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST 51

artillery fire destroyed one LSM, damaged another, 

and frustrated the offloading of supplies. From 14 to 

19 September, however, the Nationalists used U.S.-

supplied tracked landing vehicles (LVTs) able to move 

cargoes from the sea directly to fortified storage sites; 

each convoy delivered 151 tons of supplies.

To drive home the point that the United States 

would not countenance Mao’s seizure of Jinmen, 

on the nights of 18 and 20 September Nationalist 

landing craft carried by dock landing ship Catamount 

(LSD 17) delivered six 8-inch howitzers—artillery 

pieces capable of firing not only conventional but 

nuclear rounds—to Jinmen. The United States also 

transferred to the Nationalists the revolutionary heatseeking, rocket-powered Sidewinder air-to-air missile 

and trained their pilots in its use. On 25 September a 

Chinese Nationalist flight of U.S.-built F-86F Sabres 

engaged MiG-17 jets over the strait and downed 

four of them with Sidewinders. With these missiles 

and other weapons to strengthen Chiang’s forces, 

Nationalist jets destroyed 33 opponents during the 

crisis for the loss of four of their own planes. 

Once Mao understood that the blockade of 

Jinmen would not succeed because the Seventh 

Fleet protected the resupply convoys, he ended the 

confrontation. On 6 October Beijing announced 

a one-week cease-fire on the condition that the 

Seventh Fleet end its convoy escorts, which it did on 

the 8th. The PLA temporarily resumed shelling on 

the 20th to protest the visit to Taiwan of Secretary 

of State Dulles. Eventually, Mao directed his coastal 

artillery forces to shell Jinmen only on odd days, 

which in effect allowed the Nationalists to resupply 

the island unhindered on the even days. The odd-day 

shelling went on for years, but only for show. U.S. 

seapower had called Mao’s bluff and won the hand.

Once more, in 1962, Mao triggered a confrontation 

on the coast of China when he deployed sizable ground 

NA 80-G-K-66945

A landing craft and a tracked landing vehicle enter the well deck of dock landing ship Catamount (LSD 17).
52 READY SEAPOWER

forces to Fujian Province across from Taiwan. The 

ostensible reason was a similar buildup of Nationalist 

forces in the offshore islands. The action coincided with 

growing support for North Vietnamese military actions 

in Laos and South Vietnam and efforts to dissuade the 

United States from escalating the conflict in Indochina. 

The fleet’s Taiwan Patrol Force kept a wary eye on the 

waters of the strait, but Mao did not follow up the 

troop concentration with other provocations. 

For the Seventh Fleet, the interlude between 

the Korean War and the Vietnam War cannot be 

described as peaceful. To support U.S. foreign policy 

and deter mainland Chinese aggression, American 

Sailors conducted air and sea surveillance operations 

that often tested their endurance and sometimes 

claimed their lives. Seapower helped resolve the 

Taiwan Strait crises of 1954–1955 and 1958 but could 

not reverse French fortunes in Indochina. The fleet’s 

actions and buildup of bases strengthened America’s 

alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Republic of 

China, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. 

The fleet became a cornerstone of SEATO’s military 

power. And, as in every era, the Navy’s humanitarian 

operations—evacuation of the Dachens and Passage to 

Freedom—demonstrated America’s concern for people 

dispossessed by conflict and natural disaster. The fleet 

and its Sailors were challenged in the political and 

ideological cauldron of the Far East in the 1950s, but 

they met that challenge. The deterrence of aggression 

remains a core function of today’s Seventh Fleet. ★★★

KN 3548

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral William A. Schoech, second from left, with American and Chinese Nationalist officers during his 

1962 visit to Taiwan.
53

Chapter 5

Combat and Confrontation

Aggressive activity by North Vietnam increasingly drew the Seventh Fleet 

into Southeast Asian waters during the late 1950s and 1960s. Battle forces deployed to 

the South China Sea first to limit Communist inroads in Laos and South Vietnam and 

then to engage in full-scale combat from the sea. Despite its heavy engagement in the Vietnam 

War, the fleet also responded vigorously when North Korean forces attacked U.S. naval vessels and 

patrol planes in Northeast Asia. 

The conflict for Southeast Asia began in earnest 

in 1959 when Ho Chi Minh’s Communist regime 

in North Vietnam decided on an armed struggle 

to overthrow the Ngo Dinh Diem government of 

the Republic of (South) Vietnam. The People’s 

Republic of China fully supported the Vietnamese 

Communists in that decision. Frustrated by the 

Seventh Fleet’s 

successful defense of 

the Korean peninsula 

during the 1950–1953 

war and the island 

of Taiwan during 

the 1954–1955 and 

1958 crises, Chinese 

leader Mao Zedong 

set his sights on a 

ground campaign in 

Indochina to advance 

Communist regional 

and international 

goals. The PRC backed 

up that support to 

Hanoi with $100 

million worth of small 

arms, ammunition, 

and artillery.

The United States was equally determined to 

frustrate Communist designs. Several times from 

1959 to 1963 Washington dispatched Seventh Fleet 

carrier task forces to the South China Sea and the 

Gulf of Siam (Thailand) to influence an unstable 

political situation in Laos. Communist Pathet Lao 

guerrilla forces, backed by North Vietnam, fought 

for control of the country with noncommunist 

Laotian groups. In May 1962, for instance, President 

John F. Kennedy ordered the fleet to deploy Marine 

and Army troops to Thailand’s land border with 

Laos. These shows 

of force convinced 

Hanoi, Beijing, and 

Moscow that if their 

actions continued 

the United States 

might position 

military forces on 

the very borders 

of North Vietnam 

and China—an 

unwelcome outcome 

from their standpoint. 

Consequently, at 

the 1962 Geneva 

conference the major 

world powers agreed 

to a cease-fire in Laos. 

In following years 

none of the powers fully 

respected either the cease-fire or the sovereignty of 

Laos; fighting continued but at a lower level than 

before, and not until 1975 did a major antagonist 

move to occupy the entire country. Author File

President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Navy flag officers. As a former naval 

officer, the President understood and used seapower to influence events ashore 

in Southeast Asia.
54 READY SEAPOWER

Southeast Asian Threats

Washington also expressed concern that 

indigenous Communist groups in the Philippines, 

Malaya, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian 

countries supported by the PRC would overthrow 

those governments. Unlike Laos and North 

Vietnam, however, those countries did not 

border on China or North Vietnam, so the PRC 

had a much tougher time supplying arms to 

local insurgents and could not offer them ready 

sanctuary when noncommunist forces closed in. 

The Seventh Fleet and the navies of the British 

Commonwealth dominated the waters of the 

South China Sea and Indonesian Archipelago, 

further limiting the material support guerrilla 

groups could expect from overseas sources. Hence, 

by 1965 government forces in the Philippines, 

Malaya, and Indonesia, backed by the United States 

and its allies, destroyed or suppressed the armed 

strength of their insurgent groups.

The administration of President John F. Kennedy 

understood, however, that it would be much more 

difficult to eliminate the Communist insurgency in 

South Vietnam. In addition to providing advisors 

and military assistance to the Saigon government, 

Washington directed the Pacific Command to take 

other positive actions. The Seventh Fleet responded 

with “show-the-flag” demonstrations to bolster the 

new Saigon government and discourage enemies, 

both foreign and domestic. Flagships Saint Paul and 

Oklahoma City (CLG 5) and other Seventh Fleet 

warships frequently made port calls at Saigon and 

hosted onboard visits by President Diem and other 

South Vietnamese officials.

U.S.Army CC-26860

Guided missile light cruiser Oklahoma City (CLG 5), flagship of the Seventh Fleet, makes a show-the-flag visit to Saigon in July 1964.
Seventh Fleet Icon

The quarter-century service of the 13,600-ton 

heavy cruiser Saint Paul (CA 73) paralleled a 

momentous era in the history of the Seventh Fleet. 

Saint Paul took part in the bombardment of the 

Japanese home islands at the end of World War II and 

rode at anchor in Tokyo Bay when Japanese officials 

surrendered on board battleship Missouri (BB 63) on 

2 September 1945. The heavy cruiser then operated 

out of Shanghai and other mainland ports during the 

tumultuous years of the Chinese civil war.

In the fall of 1950 Saint Paul stood ready in the 

Taiwan Strait to discourage a Chinese Communist 

invasion of Taiwan. In November she deployed to the 

Sea of Japan/East Sea off Korea and protected Task Force 77 

carriers conducting strike operations. The guns of Saint Paul

and other Seventh Fleet warships ensured that Communist troops did not contest the UN evacuation of 

Hungnam in December. Throughout the war the heavy cruiser brought her formidable suite of 8-inch 

and 5-inch guns to bear against enemy gun emplacements, railway tunnels, troop concentrations, 

and other military targets ashore, destroying hundreds of them. These successful operations were not 

without cost; a turret explosion in April 1952 killed 30 Sailors. Saint Paul conducted the last surface 

ship bombardment of the war, firing an 8-inch shell at 2159 on 27 July 1953, one minute before the 

cease-fire went into effect.

Throughout the 1950s Saint Paul accomplished Far East deployments for the Taiwan Strait Crisis 

of 1954–1955 and numerous diplomatic presence and port call missions. From May 1959 to August 

1962, Saint Paul became the first U.S. warship homeported overseas since before World War II, conducting 

operations from Yokosuka, Japan. During much of 

this period she served as the flagship of Commander 

Seventh Fleet. In October 1960, for instance, Vice 

Admiral Charles D. Griffin visited Saigon, South 

Vietnam, on board Saint Paul. 

In great demand during the Vietnam War, the biggun cruiser earned eight battle stars bombarding roads 

and railways, bridges, coastal artillery batteries, supply 

depots, and other lucrative targets in North Vietnam. 

Saint Paul’s 8-inch/55-caliber guns, with a range of 

26,000 yards, also supported amphibious assaults 

and helped defeat enemy attacks on American and 

allied troops in South Vietnam. The valiant warrior and 

diplomatic star finally ended her Seventh Fleet service 

and was decommissioned in 1971.

Author File

Commander Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Charles D. Griffin, right, 

welcomes Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the Republic of Vietnam, and 

U.S. Ambassador Eldridge Durbrow on board the flagship Saint Paul

(CA 73) in October 1960.

K-33437

Heavy cruiser Saint Paul fires her 8-inch guns at targets in 

Vietnam during 1966.
56 READY SEAPOWER

Despite the best efforts of 16,000 American 

naval and military advisors and the supply of naval 

vessels, aircraft, artillery, and armored vehicles, 

by 1964–1965 Communist insurgents called Viet 

Cong increasingly threatened the survival of the 

government of South Vietnam. The assassinations of 

Diem and Kennedy in November 1963 prompted 

the Vietnamese Communists to redouble their 

military and political efforts to seize control of South 

Vietnam. Hanoi increased the flow of munitions 

to Viet Cong forces via the so-called Ho Chi Minh 

Trail that wound its way through the panhandle of 

Laos and into South Vietnam. In addition, the North 

Vietnamese government began dispatching entire 

infantry regiments of the People’s Army of Vietnam 

(PAVN) down the trail to reinforce the Viet Cong. 

Incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin

President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s 

successor, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. 

McNamara decided to put military pressure on 

North Vietnam. The American leaders believed 

that seapower could influence Hanoi to cease its 

support for the Viet Cong. In 1964 the U.S. Navy 

provided the Vietnam Navy with Norwegian-built 

fast patrol boats (PTFs), trained their crews, and 

repaired the boats in Danang. The PTFs then carried 

out covert attacks, in Operation 34A, on the coast 

of North Vietnam. On numerous occasions the 

patrol boats landed saboteurs to destroy bridges and 

other military targets and bombarded coastal radar 

stations and other military sites. The operations were 

hindered, however, by the lack of good intelligence 

about enemy defenses. 

To correct the deficiency, Washington ordered 

the Seventh Fleet to use destroyers to collect 

intelligence on North Vietnam as they had been 

doing along the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, 

and North Korea since 1962 in Desoto Patrol 

operations. In early August 1964 destroyer Maddox

(DD 731), with Captain John J. Herrick in tactical 

command, carried out an intelligence cruise in the 

KN 9045

Destroyer Maddox (DD 731) operating in the Western Pacific.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 57

Gulf of Tonkin along the coast of North Vietnam. 

Shortly before the mission the American-backed 

South Vietnamese 34A patrol force had bombarded 

targets further to the south. North Vietnamese naval 

units were on alert. They had often tried but failed 

to catch the South Vietnamese boat force. But on 

2 August Maddox presented the Communists with 

a slower target, and they sent three Soviet-built 

P-4 motor torpedo boats to attack the destroyer in 

broad daylight. The P-4s fired torpedoes that missed 

their mark, but one round from a deck gun hit the 

American warship. Planes sent from Task Force 77 

carrier Ticonderoga (CVA 14) to support Maddox

strafed the attackers and left one boat dead in the 

water. Maddox steamed safely out of the area and 

joined the fleet at the mouth of the gulf. 

That the North Vietnamese not only failed to 

back down to U.S. pressure but responded to it in 

such a hostile manner surprised President Johnson. 

He and naval leaders in the Pacific, however, 

decided that they could not retreat from this brazen 

challenge to the Seventh Fleet. Admiral Thomas 

H. Moorer, the Pacific Fleet commander, ordered 

Maddox reinforced by destroyer Turner Joy (DD 

951) and sent the pair back along the coast of North 

Vietnam to continue the intelligence mission. On 

the night of 4 August the two warships reported 

KN 9907

Captain John J. Herrick, left, the on-scene commander during the 

Tonkin Gulf incidents of August 1964, and Commander Herbert 

L. Ogier, commanding officer of Maddox.

NHHC

The Naval Engagement of 2 August 1964. 

NHHC L File

As Commander Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, 

right, speaks with Commander in Chief, Pacific Command 

Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp. Both naval leaders advocated 

strong measures to deter Communist actions in Southeast Asia.
58 READY SEAPOWER

being attacked by and returning fire on several fast 

craft far out to sea in the gulf. Signals intelligence 

and other information convinced Moorer and other 

officers in the Pacific naval chain of command and 

leaders in Washington that North Vietnamese naval 

forces had attacked the two destroyers. It is now 

clear, however, that the U.S. intelligence analysts 

erred; no North Vietnamese attack occurred on the 

night of 4 August. 

Sure at least about the 2 August attack, the 

President ordered Seventh Fleet carrier forces to 

launch retaliatory strikes, which took place against 

North Vietnam on 5 August. Aircraft from carriers 

Ticonderoga and Constellation (CVA 64) demolished 

an oil storage site at Vinh and damaged or destroyed 

about 30 enemy naval vessels in port or along the 

coast. Of greater significance, on 7 August the U.S. 

Congress overwhelmingly passed the Tonkin Gulf 

Resolution, which allowed the President to employ 

military force as he deemed necessary against the 

Vietnamese Communists.

Undeterred by the fleet’s actions in the Gulf of 

Tonkin, the Communists stepped up their terrorist 

attacks in South Vietnam. In late 1964 saboteurs 

destroyed U.S. combat planes at Bien Hoa airfield 

north of Saigon, and on Christmas Eve exploded 

a bomb at a bachelor officer’s quarters in Saigon. 

The blast killed two Americans and wounded more 

than 100 Americans, Australians, and Vietnamese. 

In early 1965 insurgents attacked the American 

embassy in Saigon and U.S. military facilities 

in Pleiku and Qui Nhon. Convinced these acts 

demanded a robust response, President Johnson 

ordered a full-scale bombing campaign against 

North Vietnam. 

North Vietnam did not act alone in its 

confrontation with the United States. The Soviet 

Union and the other Communist countries liberally 

supplied Hanoi with war material. Between 1965 

and 1970 the People’s Republic of China deployed 

a total of 300,000 military personnel to North 

Vietnam. To free North Vietnamese troops for 

USN 1110183

Commander Task Force 77 Rear Admiral Henry L. Miller and his chief of staff observe carrier operations from the bridge of carrier Ranger

(CVA 61) in early 1965.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 59

battles in the South, Chinese soldiers operated 

antiaircraft guns, built coastal fortifications, and 

repaired damaged bridges, railroads, and roads. 

Hanoi benefited significantly from this support. 

For fear of the Seventh Fleet’s power, however, 

Mao expressly forbid any Chinese naval or air 

action against the Americans, even though the fleet 

steamed in waters just off his nation’s southern 

coast. PRC air defense units did, however, shoot 

down several U.S. aircraft that inadvertently strayed 

into PRC air space. 

Carrier Operations from the South China Sea 

The Attack Carrier Striking Force, Task Force 

77, proved to be the Seventh Fleet’s heavy hitter of 

the Vietnam War’s Rolling Thunder and Linebacker 

bombing campaigns. During 1965 and 1966 some 

carrier forces operated at Dixie Station southeast of 

Cam Ranh Bay. Thereafter, the Navy concentrated 

Task Force 77 in the gulf in an area centered at 

17 ̊30'N, 108 ̊30'E. This staging area—Yankee 

Station—became one of the most recognizable 

names of the war in Southeast Asia. Carrier planes 

bombed enemy power plants, fuel and supply 

facilities, highway and railroad bridges, and rail lines 

in North Vietnam and Laos.

A carrier’s air wing normally comprised 

two fighter squadrons, three attack squadrons, 

and smaller fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter 

detachments. Enterprise and the Forrestal-class 

carriers, which had sizable flight decks, could handle 

as many as 100 aircraft. The smaller Essex-class 

ships routinely operated around 70 planes. The F-8 

Crusader and F-4 Phantom II served as the Attack 

Carrier Striking Force’s principal fighter planes. 

The A-4 Skyhawk, A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II, and 

prop-driven A-1 Skyraider executed the majority of 

the air attack sorties. 

For photoreconnaissance missions in North 

Vietnam and Laos, the task force used the RF-8A

Crusader, RA-3B Skywarrior, and RA-5C Vigilante. 

The E-2 Hawkeye provided airborne command 

control, early warning, and communications 

support for the multi-aircraft “Alpha strike” groups. 

Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King and Kaman UH-2 Sea 

Sprite helicopters, along with U.S. Air Force aircraft, 

focused on the land and sea rescue of aircrews shot 

down or forced to ditch in the ocean during combat 

operations. 

The fleet’s fighter and attack planes carried 

a deadly load of bombs, rockets, missiles, and 

guns. Strike aircraft dropped 250, 500, 1,000, 

and 2,000-pound general purpose bombs (“iron 

bombs),” napalm bombs, and magnetic sea mines; 

and fired 5-inch Zuni and 2.75-inch “Mighty Mouse” 

rockets. The “Iron Hand” aircraft responsible for 

destroying enemy surface-to-air missile (SAM) 

radars used Shrike missiles, Bullpup glide bombs, 

and television-guided Walleye bombs. Task Force 

77’s fighters employed Sidewinder heat-seeking and 

Sparrow radar-guided missiles and 20-millimeter 

machine guns to shoot down the enemy’s MiG

interceptors. 

In one action, the air wings from Coral Sea

(CVA 43) and Hancock attacked enemy radar sites 

NHHC

Carrier stations off Indochina.
60 READY SEAPOWER

on the coast and on Bach Long Vi 

(Nightingale Island) in the Gulf 

of Tonkin. The 70 planes in the 

operation destroyed the mainland 

targets but had to return to complete 

the job on the island. During this 

action North Vietnamese air defense 

forces directed their fire to the lead 

aircraft. They hit the planes of three 

American squadron commanders. 

Commander Jack Harris, commanding 

officer of Attack Squadron 155, 

ejected from his plane and parachuted 

safely into the sea. To his surprise, 

the periscope of an American 

submarine broke the surface near 

him, and he was soon safely on board. 

Commander Peter Mongilardi, the 

leader of VA-153, employed his years of 

flying Navy aircraft and professional skill 

to guide his damaged plane home. Fuel streamed 

from many holes in his shot-up A-4 Skyhawk, so he 

set up a rendezvous with an A-3 “Whale” tanker en 

route to Coral Sea. The two planes, connected by a 

refueling hose, then flew together back to the ship 

for safe recoveries on board. 

The commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 

(VF) 154, Commander William N. Donnelly, 

had an even more remarkable experience. He 

“punched out” of his damaged F-8 Crusader fighter 

but sustained severe injuries in the process. Even 

though he had a dislocated shoulder and six cracked 

vertebrae, Donnelly inflated a life raft and managed 

to climb in. All through the day and night, he floated 

just off Bach Long Vi under cover of flame and 

smoke from the carrier strikes. Enemy searchlights 

traversed the water in search of downed American 

aviators. Finally, after 45 hours in the water, planes 

from Hancock spotted Donnelly. An Air Force HU-16 

amphibian aircraft landed close by, and a paramedic 

joined Donnelly in the water. With sharks all around, 

the airman eased the Navy pilot into the plane for 

the return to his carrier home.

Seventh Fleet aviators were more successful 

a few months later when four North Vietnamese 

MiG-21s jumped VF-21 F-4 Phantom II jets flying 

a combat air patrol over Thanh Hoa. As the MiGs 

approached the American planes, Commander 

Louis C. Page and his radar intercept officer (RIO), 

Lieutenant Commander John C. Smith, destroyed 

one of the attackers with a radar-guided Sparrow 

air-to-air missile. Simultaneously, Lieutenant Jack E. 

Batson and his RIO, Lieutenant Commander Robert 

B. Doremus, shot down another MiG. The two 

surviving North Vietnamese fighters then reversed 

course and beat a retreat for home. 

Task Force 77 developed new tactics over the 

next several years that improved the effectiveness of 

carrier operations. Instead of multiplane Alpha strikes, 

operational planners increasingly relied on two or 

single-aircraft attacks. In one of the latter operations, 

Lieutenant Commander Charles B. Hunter and his 

bombardier/navigator, Lieutenant Lyle F. Bull, flew 

their all-weather, day-night A-6 Intruder attack plane 

into the “heart of darkness.” The men volunteered 

for an extremely dangerous night attack on a railroad 

ferry slip near Hanoi, protected by surface-to-air 

missile batteries, antiaircraft artillery sites, and MiG

bases. The Intruder launched from Constellation on 

30 October 1967 and flew low and fast through the 

Navy Art Collection

Sudden Squall by R. G. Smith. Oil on canvas. The painting depicts the destroyer De 

Haven (DD 727), which is providing antiaircraft and antisubmarine protection for the 

carrier Coral Sea (CV 43) on Yankee Station.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 61

mountain valleys of northeast North 

Vietnam. The A-6 got to within 18 

miles of the target before North 

Vietnamese radars picked it up. The 

pilot flew the plane at treetop level and 

“jinked” left and right to avoid SA-2 

Guideline SAMs that the enemy sent 

up in profusion. As antiaircraft fire and 

searchlights crisscrossed the sky, Hunter 

and Bull pressed home their attack 

and dropped eighteen 500-pound 

bombs on the railroad ferry slip. As the 

Intruder banked and headed for the sea, 

the target exploded in a brilliant display 

behind the attack plane. 

The Seventh Fleet commanded 

the sea off North Vietnam, even 

though Hanoi operated about forty 

motor gunboats and fast attack craft. 

On a few occasions, however, the 

North Vietnamese challenged the 

American fleet’s presence in the Gulf 

of Tonkin. In July 1966 the North 

Vietnamese sent a trio of P-4 torpedo 

boats against U.S. warships offshore. 

In that incident Task Force 77 aircraft 

used rockets, bombs, and cannon to 

sink all three fast attack boats, which 

had the destroyer Rogers (DD 876) 

and the guided missile frigate Coontz

(DLG 8) in their sights. 

Fire posed a much greater 

threat than enemy naval vessels 

to the carriers on Yankee Station. 

In October 1966 a seaman on 

board carrier Oriskany (CVA 34) 

improperly handled a flare that 

ignited other munitions and set 

the ship ablaze, knocking her out of action and 

killing 44 Sailors. The following year, in July, 

another carrier fire sent Forrestal (CVA 59) home 

for repairs and resulted in the death of 135 naval 

aviators and ship’s personnel. 

From 1965 to 1968 the Navy’s carrier 

squadrons destroyed only two enemy planes for 

every one they lost in aerial engagements; this was 

an unacceptable win-loss ratio. Intensive air-to-air 

combat training at Naval Air Station Miramar, 

California—the “Top Gun” school—changed all 

that. During air operations in 1972 and early 1973, 

the ratio improved to 12-to-1. Lieutenant Randy 

Cunningham and Lieutenant (j.g.) Willie Driscoll, 

K 54021

A pair of Constellation (CVA 64) A-6 Intruder attack planes en route to North Vietnam for a 

bombing mission.

Courtesy Dino Brugioni

A Soviet-made SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile explodes below a carrier plane, sending 

shards of hot, lethal shrapnel in all directions.
62 READY SEAPOWER

graduates of the Top Gun school, were exemplars 

of that training. On 10 May 1972, during the early 

days of the Linebacker campaign, Cunningham and 

Driscoll, flying an F-4J Phantom II of VF-96 from 

Constellation, destroyed three MiGs. Combined 

with two earlier MiG shootdowns, these victories 

made the Phantom crew the first aces of the 

Vietnam War. 

Surface-ship Sailors were part of the team that 

reduced the enemy’s MiG force. From 1965 to 

1973 Task Force 77 positioned a cruiser equipped 

with advanced radars and communications gear 

between the enemy coast and the fleet at the 

PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) 

radar picket station. The ship, with the call sign 

“Red Crown,” tracked all planes over the eastern 

regions of North Vietnam and the gulf. Despite this 

precaution, in April 1972 two North Vietnamese 

MiG-17s attacked destroyer Higbee (DD 806), one 

of which dropped a bomb on the ship, wounding 

four Sailors. A surface-to-air missile fired by cruiser 

Sterett (CG 31) positioned nearby then downed 

one of the assailants. Red Crown often alerted 

Navy and Air Force aircraft of 

approaching MiGs and then sent 

escorting fighters to the rescue. 

Senior Chief Radarman Larry 

Nowell, serving on board guided 

missile cruiser Chicago (CG 11) in 

August 1972, received the Navy 

Distinguished Service Medal for 

helping American air units destroy 

12 North Vietnamese MiGs.

Despite the best efforts of 

naval aviators, fleet Sailors, and 

Air Force fliers, the multiyear 

Rolling Thunder, Linebacker, 

and other major air operations 

did not achieve their primary 

objective of cutting enemy 

supply lines. Moreover, the air 

war cost the death or capture of 

881 naval aviators and the loss 

of 900 aircraft. The campaigns, 

however, undoubtedly destroyed 

an enormous amount of war material, delayed 

and weakened Communist ground offensives 

throughout Indochina, and finally persuaded Hanoi 

to negotiate an end to the war. 

Bombardment and Amphibious Assault from 

the Sea

Seventh Fleet surface ships provided invaluable 

service along the coast on either side of the 

demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and 

South Vietnam. In Operation Sea Dragon, the 

16-inch guns of battleship New Jersey, 8-inch- and 

6-inch guns of heavy and light cruisers, and 5-inch 

guns of destroyers bombarded bridges, radar sites, 

rail lines, and coastal artillery positions in North 

Vietnam. Royal Australian Navy destroyers Hobart, 

Perth, Brisbane, and Vendetta steamed at one time 

or another with the Seventh Fleet on the gun line 

off Vietnam. Communist coastal guns, sometimes 

fortified in caves, often returned fire and hit allied 

ships, killing and wounding sailors. The enemy guns, 

however, failed to sink even one U.S. or Australian 

combatant during the war. USN 18254

Guided missile cruiser Chicago (CG 11) steaming in the Pacific. The warship often served 

as the fleet’s “Red Crown” ship to monitor and direct U.S. operations in the air over North 

Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 63

Joined by Vietnam Navy, Royal Australian 

Navy, and U.S. amphibious and patrol vessels, the 

major Seventh Fleet warships also ranged along 

the coast of South Vietnam to strike PAVN troop 

concentrations, supply caches, and fortified bunker 

complexes. During the Communist Easter Offensive 

of 1972, the fleet’s gunfire support ships savaged 

North Vietnamese tank and troop units advancing 

south on the coast road to attack the cities of 

northern South Vietnam.

Amphibious forces exploited their mobility and 

flexibility to attack the enemy all along the South 

Vietnamese coastline, from the DMZ in the north to 

the Gulf of Siam in the south. During August 1965, 

in Operation Starlite, the war’s most successful 

amphibious assault, the fleet’s amphibious vessels 

put Marine units ashore, which then linked up 

with Army of Vietnam troops to destroy the 1st 

Viet Cong Regiment. In later years large enemy 

units stayed clear of the coastal areas and employed 

mostly booby traps and snipers to oppose allied 

ground operations. Commander Seventh Fleet then 

used the Navy–Marine Corps Amphibious Ready 

Group/Special Landing Force as a floating reserve, 

especially during the hard-fought ground battles of 

the 1968 Tet Offensive. 

Seaborne Supply 

The Seventh Fleet had greater success limiting 

Communist infiltration of supplies into South 

Vietnam by sea than it had interdicting the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail. Commander Seventh Fleet directed the 

destroyer escorts, ocean minesweepers, and patrol 

planes that formed the blue-water contingent during 

USN 1116663

A 100-ton North Vietnamese trawler caught trying to land weapons and ammunition on a beach in South Vietnam. Seventh Fleet destroyer 

escorts, ocean minesweepers, and patrol planes, in coordination with other U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and Vietnam Navy units, mounted 

the successful Market Time anti-infiltration operation along the 1,200-mile coastline of South Vietnam.
64 READY SEAPOWER

the early days of the Market Time anti-infiltration 

patrol. Later, Commander, Naval Forces Vietnam 

took charge and supplemented the warships with 

Coast Guard cutters and U.S. Navy and Vietnam 

Navy gunboats, patrol craft, junks, coastal radars, 

and command centers. The efforts of both commands 

succeeded in severely limiting North Vietnam’s 

seaborne infiltration. It became almost impossible 

for the enemy to slip a munitions-laden, 100-ton 

supply ship past the Market Time patrol.

The Communists did get supplies through 

by sea to their forces fighting in South Vietnam, 

however. Soviet and other merchant ships brazenly 

steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin to deliver 

their cargoes to the docks of Haiphong. Chinese 

merchantmen also openly deposited their military 

cargoes at the port of Sihanoukville in supposedly 

“neutral” Cambodia. The Communists then ferried 

the munitions across the nearby Cambodia-South 

Vietnam border into the Mekong Delta. At least 

during Johnson’s presidency, Washington prohibited 

K-72713

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H. Moorer assured President Richard Nixon that the Seventh Fleet could cut off North 

Vietnam from oceangoing supply by mining Haiphong and the nation’s other major ports. Author File

Merchantmen such as SS American Corsair, operated by the 

Navy’s Military Sealift Command, kept U.S. and allied troops well 

supplied. Minesweepers like the one in the foreground cleared mines 

from the 45-mile-long river between Saigon and the sea.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 65

the Seventh Fleet from interfering 

with these enemy sea lines of 

communication. At the same 

time the fleet’s dominance of the 

Western Pacific enabled the United 

States to maintain a half-millionstrong expeditionary force on 

the Asian continent, far from the 

sources of supply in America. Free 

from enemy danger at sea, Military 

Sealift Command ships transported 

95 percent of the ammunition, 

fuel, vehicles, supplies, and other 

war materials delivered to U.S. and 

allied forces in South Vietnam.

The Seventh Fleet could have 

stopped the enemy from using 

neutral merchant ships to transport 

war materials into Cambodia or 

North Vietnam, but President 

Johnson, who did not want to 

provoke open Soviet or Chinese 

intervention in the war, prohibited 

a blockade. In 1972, however, 

President Richard M. Nixon knew 

that because China and the Soviet 

Union were then at odds, there 

would be no opposition from 

Moscow or Beijing, so he ordered 

the Seventh Fleet to mine the 

waters of North Vietnam.

On 9 May 1972 Navy 

and Marine A-6 Intruders and 

A-7 Corsair IIs from Coral Sea

dropped hundreds of mines in 

the approaches to Haiphong and 

soon afterward that carrier, as 

well as Midway, Kitty Hawk, and 

Constellation, mined other major 

ports and water approaches. With 

the ports closed to shipping, North 

Vietnam could not import the 

huge amounts of fuel, ammunition, 

and weapons it needed to fight the 

tank and artillery-heavy battles 

K-94833 K-99976

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral James L. Holloway III welcomes aboard his flagship 

Blue Ridge (LCC 19) Nguyen Van Thieu, president of the Republic of Vietnam, in June 1972.

Coral Sea (CVA 43) Sailors affix sea mines to an A-7E Corsair II of Attack Squadron 94.
66 READY SEAPOWER

of the period. The Communist war effort quickly 

lost steam. The mining of North Vietnam’s ports 

in 1972, in conjunction with the Air Force–Navy 

Linebacker bombing campaign, compelled the 

enemy to accept reasonable cease-fire terms and 

release all American prisoners of war. The Paris 

Agreement of 27 January 1973 ended America’s 

direct involvement in the Vietnam War.

The End in Southeast Asia

Despite the best efforts of American, South 

Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian fighting men, in 

the spring of 1975 Communist forces were on the verge 

of success throughout Indochina. A North Vietnamese 

offensive in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam 

soon developed into a rout of Army of Vietnam 

divisions north of Saigon. In March the Navy’s Military 

Sealift Command dispatched merchant ships and large 

tugs pulling barges to Danang, Qui Nhon, and other 

ports. The vessels evacuated thousands of retreating 

South Vietnamese troops and civilian refugees.

As the enormity of the tragedy in northern 

South Vietnam became apparent, the Seventh 

Fleet deployed elements of the Amphibious Task 

Force (TF 76) to a position off Nha Trang. Because 

of the Paris Agreement restrictions on the use 

of U.S. military forces in South Vietnam and the 

availability of MSC resources, however, Washington 

limited the naval contingent, then designated the 

Refugee Assistance Task Group (TG 76.8), to a 

supporting role. For the most part, this involved 

command coordination, surface escort duties, and 

the deployment of 50-man Marine security details 

on board the MSC ships. 

Vice Admiral George P. Steele, Commander 

Seventh Fleet, now directed his attention to 

Cambodia, which he expected to fall soon to 

the radical Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. 

Since 1970 the United States had supported the 

government of President Lon Nol in its battles 

with Khmer Rouge and North Vietnamese forces 

operating on the border with South Vietnam. Despite 

significant U.S. military assistance to the Cambodian 

government, by early 1975 the Khmer Rouge 

guerrillas controlled every population center except 

Phnom Penh and were closing in on the capital.

Vice Admiral Steele directed the updating 

of relevant evacuation plans and assigned forces 

to the mission, designated Operation Eagle Pull. 

On 3 March 1975 Amphibious Ready Group 

Alpha (Task Group 76.4) and the 31st Marine 

Amphibious Unit (Task Group 79.4) reached 

a ready station off Kompong Som (previously 

Sihanoukville) in the Gulf of Siam. One month 

later the force consisted of the destroyer types 

Edson (DD 946), Henry B. Wilson (DDG 7), Knox

(DE 1052), and Kirk (DE 1087); the amphibious 

ships Okinawa, Vancouver, and Thomaston (LSD 

28); and the carrier Hancock. In addition, Marine 

Heavy Lift Helicopter Squadron 463 deployed 

on board the carrier for the operation. Expecting 

as many as 800 evacuees, naval leaders decided 

that they needed the squadron’s entire 25-plane 

contingent of helicopters as well as the 22 rotarywing aircraft on Okinawa. Naval medical-surgical 

teams and the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, slated to 

NHHC L File

Vice Admiral George P. Steele, Commander Seventh Fleet during 

the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon and the SS Mayaguez

crisis in the tumultuous spring of 1975.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 67

protect the evacuation landing zone near the U.S. 

Embassy, embarked in the amphibious group. 

Early on the morning of 12 April, Washington 

ordered the execution of Eagle Pull. At 0745 

Okinawa began launching helicopters from the Gulf 

of Siam in three waves to transport the 360-man 

Marine ground security force to the landing zone. 

After flying for an hour over hostile territory, the 

first group of helicopters touched down close to the 

embassy, and the Marines quickly set up a defensive 

perimeter. 

U.S. officials on the ground assembled the 

evacuees and directed them to the waiting Marine 

helicopters. The evacuees, numbering 276, included 

U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean, embassy staff 

members, the acting president of Cambodia and his 

senior government leaders and their families, and 

journalists. Helicopters lifted the evacuees from the 

landing zone by 1100 and the Marine security force 

soon afterward. Shortly after noon, all helicopters 

and personnel were safely on board the ships of 

Amphibious Ready Group Alpha. Without the 

loss of a single life and through detailed planning, 

preparation, and precise execution, the Seventh 

Fleet Navy–Marine force accomplished their 

evacuation mission. 

With no time to relax, the Seventh Fleet 

prepared for an even greater evacuation operation—

the withdrawal from the Republic of Vietnam. 

During March and April, Vice Admiral Steele 

USMC A150858

Marines deployed by CH 53 Sea Stallions from Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter Squadron 463 rush to establish a defensive perimeter in 

Phnom Penh during the successful Eagle Pull evacuation of April 1975. 
68 READY SEAPOWER

deployed MSC vessels off Vung Tau southeast of 

Saigon and reinforced them with Marine security 

detachments. Naval personnel loaded the ships with 

food, water, and medicine. 

The Seventh Fleet concentrated at Vung Tau, 

under Commander Task Force 76, Rear Admiral 

Donald Whitmire, Blue Ridge (LLC 19) and 11 

amphibious ships. Hancock and Midway, carrying 

Navy, Marine, and Air Force helicopters, joined 

the flotilla, as did flagship Oklahoma City, eight 

destroyer types, and amphibious ships Mount 

Vernon (LSD 39), Barbour County (LST 1195), 

and Tuscaloosa (LST 1187). The carriers Enterprise

and Coral Sea stood out in the South China Sea to 

provide air cover for the evacuation. The 9th Marine 

Amphibious Brigade (Task Group 79.1), the Marine 

evacuation contingent, consisted of three battalion 

landing teams, four helicopter squadrons, support 

units, and the deployed security detachments. 

Army of Vietnam units defending the 

approaches to Saigon finally collapsed on 21 April, 

prompting South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van 

Thieu to resign his office. On the 29th Vietnamese 

Communist forces surrounded Saigon and began 

pushing into the city. With the outcome of the 

war now crystal clear, Washington ordered the 

evacuation of Saigon—Operation Frequent Wind. 

When he received the order at 1108 local 

time on 29 April 1975, Rear Admiral Whitmire 

immediately began executing the evacuation plan. At 

1244 Hancock launched the first wave of helicopters 

that headed for the primary landing zone in the U.S. 

Defense Attaché Office (DAO) compound in Saigon. 

Soon after 2d Battalion, 4th Marines established a 

defensive perimeter, Task Force 76 helicopters began 

lifting out American, Vietnamese, and third-country 

nationals. Two Marines were killed in an earlier 

shelling of the DAO compound and two helicopters 

and their crews were lost at sea. A little after 2100 

that night, the evacuation force had lifted 5,000 

evacuees and the Marine security force from the site. 

Chaos ruled at the U.S. Embassy. Hundreds of 

desperate evacuees pressed the Marine guards and 

tried to climb over the perimeter fence to board the 

helicopters. Marine and Air Force helicopters flew at 

night dodging fire from the ground to lift evacuees 

out of dangerous landing zones, one atop a building 

close to the embassy. Nonetheless, by 0500 on 30 

April, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin and the last 

of thousands of evacuees had been rescued from the 

closing enemy forces. By the time North Vietnamese 

tanks smashed down the gates of the Presidential 

Palace, Task Force 76 had rescued more than 7,000 

Americans and Vietnamese. 

Not only U.S. but South Vietnamese helicopters 

and even fixed-wing aircraft loaded with refugees 

competed for landing space on the flight decks of 

the evacuation ships. Task force ships recovered 

41 Vietnamese aircraft, but American Sailors had 

K-107629

Drenched by a tropical downpour, South Vietnamese troops and 

civilian refugees fleeing from the North Vietnamese 1975 spring 

offensive approach Seventh Fleet ships off South Vietnam.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 69

to jettison another 54 over the side to make room 

on deck. Navy small craft rescued some but not all 

of the Vietnamese who bailed out of aircraft that 

ditched alongside the evacuation ships. 

Meanwhile an armada of junks, sampans, and 

small craft of all types loaded to the gunwales with 

people headed for the American fleet. MSC tugs 

pulling barges brought more refugees from Saigon port 

out to the ships offshore. There, the evacuees were 

helped on board, registered, inspected for weapons, 

and given a medical exam. MSC crews and Marine 

security personnel processed the new arrivals quickly 

and efficiently. The Seventh Fleet units eventually 

transferred most of the Vietnamese refugees they had 

embarked to the MSC ships. Another flotilla, this one 

consisting of 26 Vietnam Navy warships and support 

vessels loaded with 30,000 sailors, their families, and 

other civilians, congregated off the southern coast of 

the Mekong Delta. 

Task Force 76 and the MSC ships moved 

away from the coast on the afternoon of 30 April 

but for the next 24 hours continued to pick up 

seaborne refugees. At dusk on 2 May, with the 

human tide diminishing, TF 76, carrying 6,000 

USN 711644 NHHC L File

With no room left on board, Sailors push a helicopter over the side.

The war over, this former warship of the Vietnam Navy, now under 

the U.S. flag, rests in peace at the Subic Bay naval base.
70 READY SEAPOWER

passengers; the MSC flotilla with 44,000 refugees; 

and the Vietnam Navy group set sail for reception 

centers in the Philippines and Guam. The sun thus 

set on America’s 25-year effort to preserve the 

independence of the Republic of Vietnam.

The Seventh Fleet had to accomplish one more 

combat mission in Southeast Asia in the momentous 

year 1975. On 12 May Khmer Rouge guerrillas 

seized the U.S. merchant ship SS Mayaguez and her 

crew off Cambodia. Destroyer escort Harold E. Holt

(DE 1074) intercepted Mayaguez, and on 15 May 

a boarding party of Marines and Sailors retook the 

ship, which had been abandoned by the Cambodians 

earlier. Thinking that the Communists were holding 

the crewmen on nearby Koh Tang Island (they were 

actually held briefly on the mainland and were soon 

released by their captors), Air Force Lieutenant 

General John J. Burns, in charge of the operation, 

dispatched from Thailand a force of assault 

helicopters and Marines. Guided missile destroyer 

Henry B. Wilson also steamed toward Koh Tang. Due 

NHHC L File USAF 111069

With the assistance of Harold E. Holt (DE 1074) Sailors, Marines who have just boarded and taken control of merchant ship SS Mayaguez

return to the destroyer escort.

Guided missile destroyer Henry B. Wilson (DDG 7) provides 

gunfire support to Marines battling Cambodian Khmer Rouge 

guerrillas on Koh Tang Island in May 1975.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 71

to complicated command and control procedures, 

inadequate intelligence, and other factors, a storm of 

enemy ground fire unexpectedly hit the helicopter 

landing force, destroying three of the aircraft 

and pinning down the Marine contingent ashore. 

Suppressive fire by Henry B. Wilson and combat 

aircraft enabled the extrication of most of the 

assault party. The Koh Tang operation resulted in the 

death of 18 servicemen and wounding of another 

50, but it showed that the United States would not 

tolerate the seizure of its ships on the open sea.

Despite this instance of operational success, the 

Seventh Fleet suffered during the late 1970s from 

many ills. Washington-mandated budget cuts limited 

the number of combatants on station, much-needed 

ship and equipment repairs, and Sailors on duty. 

Seventh Fleet leaders had to deal with a host of 

problems such as drug and alcohol abuse among 

Sailors and antiwar and antimilitary sentiment in the 

American population that complicated recruitment 

and retention. Racial unrest especially troubled 

the fleet. Indeed, racial incidents on board Seventh 

Fleet ships operating off Vietnam first gained the 

nation’s attention to the problem. Fighting among 

Sailors, resistance to orders, and other disruptions 

in October of 1972 hampered the ability of oiler 

Hassayampa (AO 145) and carrier Kitty Hawk

to carry out their operational responsibilities. 

The Navy and the fleet took corrective measures 

that ultimately addressed Sailors’ grievances and 

improved the racial atmosphere afloat and ashore 

in subsequent years. 

Seventh Fleet Far Eastern Bases

The demands of combat in Vietnam and 

deterrence operations in the waters of Northeast 

Asia resulted in the development of Seventh Fleet 

bases that became the Navy’s largest militaryindustrial enterprises in the world. 

Even though the naval base at Subic Bay ran 

sizable ship repair, ordnance, and supply facilities 

during the 1950s, they were a pale reflection of the 

mammoth logistic establishment that operated at 

the site during the Vietnam War. After the Tonkin 

Gulf incident of August 1964, there was a four-fold 

increase in the number of U.S. warships that entered 

the bay for fuel and munitions and a 300 percent 

increase in supply issues. Construction began on 

a crash basis to establish additional magazines, 

warehouses, fuel storage tanks, piers for major 

warships and to stockpile ship and aircraft parts, 

weapons, and general supplies. Soon, the ship repair 

facility had to recondition destroyers hit by the fire 

of enemy shore batteries and repair aircraft carriers 

Oriskany and Forrestal badly damaged by accidental 

fires. The Navy deployed tenders and floating dry 

docks to the site, increased the naval contingent 

to more than 4,000 Sailors, and employed 15,000 

Filipino workers. The naval supply depot handled 

more than four million barrels of fuel oil for the 

fleet each month and pumped aviation gas to Clark 

Air Base via a 41-mile-long pipeline. During the Tet 

Offensive of 1968 and in the months afterward, the 

naval ordnance depot at Subic supplied Seventh 

Fleet warships on the gun line off Vietnam with 

600,000 rounds.

Equally busy during the Vietnam War, the 

naval air station at Sangley Point handled air 

operations over the South China Sea. In Operation 

Market Time, P2V Neptune and P-3 Orion patrol 

planes flying from Sangley Point helped find, fix, 

and destroy North Vietnamese trawlers trying to 

deliver war materials to Communist forces in South 

Vietnam. Sangley also handled the air delivery of 

supplies to the naval air facility at Cam Ranh Bay 

across the South China Sea in South Vietnam. 

With the drawdown of U.S. forces in Vietnam, the 

Seventh Fleet transferred much of the workload at 

Sangley Point to Cubi Point and disestablished the 

former naval air station on 31 August 1971. 

Cubi Point became another focal point during 

the Vietnam War for land-based naval air operations 

over the South China Sea and Indochina. Aerial 

photographic and electronic intelligence, air early 

warning, and other specialized squadrons operated 

from the naval air station. Cubi served as the 

primary site in the region for stocking aircraft repair 

parts and equipment and for aircraft repairs. Much 

of the ordnance, aviation fuel, mail, and general 

cargo destined for naval aviation units afloat and 
72 READY SEAPOWER

ashore in Southeast Asia reached there via Cubi. In 

1967, on 172,000 occasions, naval aircraft involved 

in wartime operations landed or took off from 

Cubi. To handle the traffic in the peak year of 1969, 

Seabees lengthened the airfield to 9,000 feet. With 

the closure of Sangley Point in 1971, Cubi took 

on the extra work, servicing that year 45 aircraft 

carrier and amphibious landing ship visits. During 

the evacuation from Vietnam and Cambodia in 

the spring of 1975, Cubi facilitated the airlift from 

the Philippines of more than 40,000 Vietnamese, 

Cambodian, and Laotian refugees. 

Almost as important as the Philippines bases to 

Seventh Fleet operational responsibilities during the 

war was the base at Yokosuka, Japan. The ship repair 

facility, for instance, worked on over 800 naval vessels 

in 1967 alone. The base’s naval supply depot and naval 

ordnance facility managed a similarly heavy work load. 

Yokosuka and Sasebo not only provided logistic 

support to the war effort in Vietnam but served as 

symbols of the enduring U.S.-Japan alliance. The 

visit of U.S. nuclear-powered warships during the 

1960s, while generating loud demonstrations by 

antinuclear and antimilitary parties, had the effect 

of solidifying support by the Japanese people for the 

Seventh Fleet’s long-term deterrence and stability 

responsibilities in Northeast Asia.

With only nuclear-powered submarines 

entering service with the Navy early in the 1960s, 

Washington understood that the boats would need 

to use the logistic services of the Seventh Fleet 

bases in Japan. After approval by the Japanese 

government, on the morning of 12 November 

1964 Seadragon (SSN 584) became the first 

nuclear-powered warship to enter a Japanese port 

when she proceeded into Sasebo. Because of its 

horrific experience with the atomic bombings of 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Japan 

was said to have a “nuclear allergy.” Despite noisy 

protest demonstrations in Sasebo and elsewhere in 

Japan, however, the event passed peacefully. The 

submarine returned three months later followed by 

Snook (SSN 592), Permit (SSN 594), Plunger (SSN

595), and Sargo (SSN 583) in later years.

K-105380

An A-7 Corsair II heads skyward from the naval air station at Cubi Point in the Philippines. NA 80-G-KN-3183

Attack submarine Seadragon (SSN 584), in 1964 the first 

nuclear-powered warship to enter a Japanese port, steams in the 

Western Pacific during the early 1960s.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 73

Snook’s visit to Yokosuka on 31 

May 1966 also generated heated 

opposition by some segments of the 

Japanese population, but Japanese 

political leaders stepped forward to 

stress the benefit of the submarine and 

other U.S. Navy warships to Japan’s 

security and prosperity. Japan’s oil 

imports and overseas trade depended 

on the protection afforded by the 

Seventh Fleet. As historian Roger 

Dingman has observed, the words of 

these Japanese leaders “put flesh on the concept of 

commitment to alliance with America.” Between 

May 1966 and January 1968, nine more “nuke 

boats” visited Yokosuka without major incident.

The strength of the alliance was tested on 19 

January 1968, however, when Enterprise, then the 

world’s only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and 

whose aircraft were equipped to drop nuclear bombs, 

made port at Sasebo, accompanied by nuclear-powered 

guided missile cruiser Truxtun (CGN 35) and guided 

missile frigate Halsey (DDG 23). Tens of thousands 

of protestors thronged Sasebo’s streets, fought with 

one another and the police, and threatened to break 

into the base. Once again Japanese leaders stepped 

NHHC L File Navy Art Collection

Nuclear-powered carrier Enterprise (CVAN 65) surrounded by her battle group.

Bonhomme Richard in Hong Kong Harbor by Louis Kaep. Watercolor.
74 READY SEAPOWER

forward to remind the populace that the Seventh Fleet 

provided vital security in the seas around the island 

nation. This message became especially clear as the 

Soviet Pacific Fleet began menacing Japanese interests 

in Northeast Asia in the 1970s. So, despite the brief 

furor over the nuclear carrier’s visit, between 1968 and 

1973 nuclear-powered submarines made 100 visits to 

Japan, and Enterprise herself returned for a port call in 

1978. The U.S.-Japan alliance only grew stronger in the 

coming decades.

Countering Chinese, Soviet, and North Korean 

Hostility

Although the fleet was heavily committed to 

fighting the war in Southeast Asia from 1965 to 

1975, it had to continue deterrence, sea control, 

presence, and intelligence-gathering missions 

throughout the Far East. Naval leaders had to 

contend not only with Chinese diplomatic measures 

to drive a wedge between the United States and 

Great Britain over Hong Kong but with overt Soviet 

and North Korean military actions. 

The supreme irony of the Cold War in Asia 

was that while Task Force 77 mounted combat 

operations against enemy forces in North Vietnam, 

including Chinese Communist antiaircraft and 

railroad repair units, every year hundreds of Seventh 

Fleet warships anchored peacefully in Hong Kong 

harbor only a few miles from the People’s Republic 

of China. The visit of Enterprise to Hong Kong in 

January 1966, after bombing operations against 

North Vietnam, prompted outrage in the PRC’s 

official press but little else. 

Mao Zedong often railed against the Seventh 

Fleet, which he regarded as a symbol of the Western 

seapower that had dominated China for centuries 

and continued to frustrate his foreign policy 

objectives in Asia. He told a visiting delegation from 

Syria that “the U.S. has four fleets altogether: The 

Seventh Fleet is the biggest [and it] surrounds us.” 

In contrast to the Enterprise visit to Japan a 

few years later that generated huge left-wing and 

antiwar demonstrations, no outcry from the Hong 

Kong populace greeted the ship’s 1966 visit. Indeed, 

many Hong Kong residents appreciated America’s 

commitment to the defense of South Vietnam.

American Sailors considered the British Crown 

Colony one of the best rest and recreation (R&R) 

sites in the Western Pacific. In 1966, 180,000 Sailors 

and other Americans visited Hong Kong and 390 

U.S. naval vessels entered the harbor. 

Money spent by military personnel on 

liberty in addition to other economic 

activity generated by the 400 U.S. 

commercial firms made Hong Kong 

a rich city.

Seventh Fleet Sailors and the 

residents of Hong Kong got along 

famously. The September 1966 

rescue of 46 Hong Kong fishermen 

in distress by helicopters from carrier 

Oriskany earned much positive 

comment from the local press. 

Moreover, according to historian 

Chi-kwan Mark, “they contributed to 

the local economy and social stability 

at a time of political unrest. In the 

eyes of the Hong Kong Chinese, the 

“Vietnam War tourists were not ‘ugly 

Americans’ but beautiful imperialists.” 

K-104812

Seventh Fleet warships visit the British colony of Hong Kong in the 1960s.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 75

In another example, in December 

1968 the Seventh Fleet headquarters 

issued a letter of appreciation to local 

entrepreneur Mary Soo, whose company 

sold food and drink to American Sailors 

and provided the ships with painting 

services. With British power in Asia on 

the wane during the 1960s, the People’s 

Liberation Army could have seized 

Hong Kong with relative ease. But, the 

port city also served as China’s window 

on the world for overseas trade, and 

the PRC reaped huge profits by trading 

with and through the British colony.

In support of Asian allies, Soviet 

naval vessels—called AGIs (from 

auxiliary, general, intelligence)—

routinely trailed U.S. task forces 

operating in the Gulf of Tonkin 

or elsewhere in the vast Pacific. 

These vessels tried to get as close 

to U.S. ships—even inside carrier task 

group formations—to snoop and disrupt combat 

operations. American commanders discouraged 

this activity by maintaining course and speed even 

when AGI’s crossed in front of their warships. As a 

captain in command of the carrier Enterprise, James 

L. Holloway III maintained this approach when an 

AGI moved into the path of his 90,000-ton carrier. 

The admiral observed that rather than continue the 

challenge, the AGI “got the hell out of the way.” 

U.S. and Soviet ships did not always steer clear 

of collisions, however. From November 1965 to June 

1966, Banner (AGER 1), an intelligence-gathering 

ship, ranged up and down the coast of the Soviet 

Far East in waters considered territorial by the 

USSR but not the United States. Soviet destroyers 

and other warships harassed the U.S. vessel to 

force her away from those waters but to little avail. 

Finally, on 24 June 1966, Banner and Soviet AGI

Anemometr collided in the Sea of Japan/East Sea, 

each commanding officer blaming the other man’s 

actions for the mishap. A similar occurrence took 

place in the spring of 1967 when destroyer Walker

(DD 517), then in the protective screen for carrier 

Hornet (CVS 12), worked to prevent the Soviet 

destroyer Besslednyy from interfering with the 

carrier’s flight operations. After several especially 

close and dangerous approaches, the Soviet vessel 

hit and lightly damaged the American warship. The 

next day another Soviet destroyer maneuvered 

dangerously close to the U.S. task force and this ship 

also hit Walker. With both sides recognizing the 

danger in these close ship and aircraft encounters, 

the United States and the Soviet Union finally 

exhibited good sense in May 1972 when they 

signed the Incidents at Sea Treaty that laid out clear 

instructions on how the two navies should safely 

operate while in proximity to one another. 

North Korean Belligerence

With the war in Southeast Asia drawing heavily 

on the resources of the U.S. and South Korean 

military (two infantry divisions and a brigade served 

in South Vietnam), the Seventh Fleet spent the 

1960s and early 1970s working to prevent hostilities 

on the Korean peninsula. That was no easy task 

since the North Korean regime of Kim Il-sung acted 

aggressively throughout the period. In April 1965, 

Courtesy U.S. Naval Institute

U.S. Sailors of destroyer Walker (DD 17) and Soviet bluejackets of a Krupnyy-class 

destroyer stare in amazement after their two ships collided in the Sea of Japan/East Sea 

in May 1967.
76 READY SEAPOWER

one month after the Seventh Fleet deployed U.S. 

Marines ashore at Danang in South Vietnam, a pair 

of North Korean MiG fighters attacked and damaged 

a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane in the Sea 

of Japan/East Sea. In January 1967 North Korean 

coastal batteries sank a Republic of Korea Navy 

(ROKN) patrol vessel protecting fishing craft on 

the east coast. That year numerous spies and North 

Korean guerrilla teams infiltrated the south across 

the DMZ and from the sea with the objective of 

destabilizing the Republic of Korea. 

The year 1968 proved to be especially 

challenging as the United States concentrated on 

defeating the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and dealing 

with domestic and international antiwar sentiment. 

In January a 31-man special forces team intent on 

killing the president of South Korea, Chung Hee 

Park, infiltrated South Korea and headed for his 

Seoul residence, the “Blue House.” South Korean 

forces intercepted and destroyed the assassination 

team. North Korean-sparked ambushes, raids, artillery 

exchanges, and other combat in the DMZ cost the 

lives of more than a thousand Koreans on both sides. 

In a bolder action, two days after the Blue House 

Raid, combat vessels of the North Korean navy 

attacked Pueblo (AGER 2), a U.S. ship gathering signals 

and other intelligence in international waters in the 

Sea of Japan/East Sea. The North Koreans fired on the 

U.S. ship, killing Fireman Apprentice Duane Hodges 

and compelling Commander Lloyd Bucher, the 

commanding officer, to order an end to resistance. The 

North Koreans took the ship and her vital intelligence 

gear into Wonsan harbor and imprisoned the 83 

surviving crewmen. For the next year the Communists 

tortured the men to gain “confessions” for political 

purposes and released them only when the Johnson 

administration agreed to a written apology for spying.

As the North Koreans were bringing Pueblo into 

port, the Seventh Fleet prepared to take whatever 

action Washington directed. The President, however, 

recognized that with the United States fully 

committed to the war in Vietnam, it could not 

risk another major conflict in Asia. North Korea 

had one million highly trained and motivated men 

under arms and could count on support from the 

Soviet Union. To back up their Communist ally, 

USN 1129207

Intelligence-collection ship Pueblo (AGER 2) seized by North Korean naval forces off Wonsan in January 1968.
COMBAT AND CONFRONTATION 77

the USSR deployed into the waters around Korea a 

naval task force whose ships in the following weeks 

shadowed the carrier task force. At one point an 

AGI compelled the U.S. carrier to stop and reverse 

engines lest she collide with the Soviet ship. U.S. 

naval leaders believed that the aggressive behavior 

was deliberately intended.

North Korean aggression continued. In April 

1969 a pair of North Korean MiG-21 fighters shot 

down a U.S. Navy EC-121 reconnaissance plane in 

the Sea of Japan/East Sea, killing all 31 crewmen 

on board. In June 1970 a North Korean fast attack 

vessel seized a ROKN ship and her 20 crewmen in 

the Yellow Sea/West Sea. From 1973 to 1976 North 

Korean naval vessels and combat aircraft frequently 

crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a maritime 

border in the Yellow Sea/West Sea between the 

mainland and five South Korean islands. The United 

Nations command had established the NLL after 

the armistice agreement of 1953 to make clear 

South Korea’s sovereignty over the islands. In 

reaction to Pyongyang’s provocative actions in the 

Yellow Sea/West Sea, South Korea fortified these 

islands and deployed there strong ground, air, and 

naval forces.

Then on 18 August 1976, responding to their 

officer’s orders to “kill them all,” North Korean 

guards used axes to bludgeon and kill two U.S. Army 

officers, Captain Arthur Boniface and 1st Lieutenant 

Mark Barrett, who had led a team of American and 

South Korean soldiers into the Joint Security Area 

of the DMZ to trim the branches of a poplar tree 

that impeded observation between two UN posts. 

This barbarous act related to contemporary anti-U.S. 

rhetoric by Kim Il-sung. 

With the war in Vietnam over for more than 

a year, Washington reacted much more robustly to 

this aggressive North Korean action than it had over 

Pyongyang’s seizure of Pueblo. U.S. General Richard 

Stillwell, commander of United Nations and U.S. 

forces in Korea, recommended that strong U.S. and 

South Korean forces be directed to reenter the 

area and cut down the tree. The general believed it 

important to demonstrate to the Communists that 

their heinous actions would not be tolerated.

President Gerald R. Ford knew that U.S. forces in 

Northeast Asia were now fully capable of protecting 

American and allied interests. He also understood that 

world opinion solidly opposed the brutal Pyongyangsanctioned murders. At the President’s direction, 

Admiral Holloway, now the acting Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised the defense condition 

(DEFCON) in the Pacific from 5 to 3 and initiated 

a “show of strength” in Northeast Asia. 

NHHC L File

A Navy EC-121 electronic intelligence plane in company with a carrier-based 

A-3 Sky Warrior.

NH 103808-KN

Admiral James L. Holloway III, Chief of Naval Operations and acting 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when U.S. forces launched Operation 

Paul Bunyan in August 1976.
78 READY SEAPOWER

The Pacific Command ordered the Seventh 

Fleet’s Midway carrier task force to sea from 

Yokosuka. The carrier, with Commander Carrier 

Group 7 embarked, and accompanied by the 

guided missile cruiser Gridley (CG 21); guided 

missile destroyer Cochrane; frigates Kirk (FF 1087), 

Meyerkord (FF 1058), Lang (FF 1061), and Lockwood 

(FF 1064); and oilers Ashtabula (AO 51) and 

USNS Mispillion (T-AO 105), 

immediately steamed into the Sea of 

Japan/East Sea ready to launch strikes 

against North Korea.

Commander in Chief, Pacific 

Command (CINCPAC) also deployed 

B-52 bombers close enough to North 

Korean air space to be picked up on 

Pyongyang’s radar and dispatched Air 

Force tactical aircraft to South Korean 

airfields. General Stillwell raised the 

DEFCON in Korea to 2—the highest 

readiness condition short of war—and 

readied U.S. and ROK infantry divisions 

for action. On 21 August 1976, in 

Operation Paul Bunyan, engineers armed 

with chain saws and axes and protected 

by infantrymen skilled in martial arts and 

helicopter gunships entered the DMZ 

and reduced the tree to a stump. Faced 

with the armed might of the United 

States and the Republic of Korea, the 

Communist regime in the north did 

nothing to counter the action. Indeed, 

the only thing that Kim Il-sung did was 

release a personal statement expressing 

regret that “an incident occurred in the 

Joint Security Area.”

Throughout the Vietnam era, the 

Seventh Fleet accomplished its mission 

of fighting to defend U.S. treaty alliances, 

deterring Communist aggression throughout the 

Far East, and bringing humanitarian assistance 

to tens of thousands of people in need. Seventh 

Fleet Sailors, many of whom sacrificed their 

lives in Vietnam and elsewhere, carried out their 

duties with courage, perseverance, and above all 

dedication to the basic principles held dear by the 

citizens of the United States. ★★★ KN-22932

Midway (CV 41) in 1974.
79

Chapter 6

Old Enemies and New Friends

As the Seventh Fleet fought the Vietnam War it tended to its deterrence, 

presence, and other security responsibilities in Asian waters. The Soviet navy was never 

more powerful than during the post-Vietnam period when it challenged the Seventh 

Fleet’s presence in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and Northeast Asia. The challenge 

forced the Seventh Fleet to work with renewed vigor to strengthen cooperation with allies and 

the formerly antagonistic People’s Republic of China. The end of the Cold War found the Seventh 

Fleet once more in firm control of its maritime domain. 

The Soviet navy served as the tip of the spear 

for the USSR’s global expansion during the 1970s 

and 1980s. Embarrassed by the inability of their 

naval forces to counter 

the U.S. quarantine 

of Cuba during the 

missile crisis of 1962, 

Khrushchev’s successors 

invested enormous 

resources to develop a 

first-class navy. Admiral 

Sergei Gorshkov, a gifted 

and influential strategic 

thinker, championed and 

directed this massive Cold 

War building effort. The 

world took notice in 1970 

when hundreds of Soviet 

naval units mounted a 

coordinated global exercise. 

Demonstrating an ability 

to operate far from the 

USSR in 1971, a Soviet 

Pacific Fleet battle group 

of cruisers, destroyers, 

submarines, and auxiliaries 

operated in the Gulf of 

Alaska before steaming 

to within 25 miles of Hawaii’s Diamond Head. 

OKEAN 75, an exercise that involved 200 warships 

worldwide, including 28 Soviet Pacific Fleet nuclear 

and conventional submarines, displayed a significant 

capacity to challenge the U.S. Navy for dominance 

of the world’s oceans.

During and after the 

Vietnam War, the Soviet 

Pacific Fleet also deployed 

operational squadrons into 

the South China Sea and 

beyond. Between 1966 

and 1991 its surface units 

and submarines carried out 

2,304 deployments, and 

naval aircraft completed 

21,220 sorties. According 

to historian Alexey 

Muraviev, these were “the 

golden years for Russian 

naval power in the Pacific.”

In support of USSR foreign 

policy, in the late 1960s 

and early 1970s Soviet 

Pacific Fleet warships made 

numerous port calls to 

countries in East Africa 

and South Asia, including 

Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 

India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, 

Somalia, the People’s Republic of Yemen, and 

South Yemen.

Author File

Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the father of the modern Soviet 

fleet, led the Soviet navy from 1956 to 1985.
80 READY SEAPOWER

During the latter years of the Vietnam War, the 

Soviet Pacific Fleet increasingly deployed strong 

naval units into the distant Indian Ocean in support 

of the USSR’s activities in the Horn of Africa, the 

Arabian Gulf, and South Asia. The number of days 

spent by individual Soviet warships in the Indian 

Ocean increased from 1,200 in 1968 to 11,800 in 

1980. In 1983 the helicopter carrier Minsk made a 

port visit to Bombay, India.

Soviet involvement in the Indo-Pakistan War of 

1971 directly challenged America’s commitment to 

Pakistan and the Seventh Fleet’s once preeminent 

status in the Indian Ocean. The war broke out 

when armed independence groups in East Pakistan 

(today’s nation of Bangladesh) rebelled against 

the government located in West Pakistan (today’s 

Pakistan). India came to the assistance of the rebels, 

its armed forces crushing the government forces in 

the east. 

President Richard Nixon and Secretary of 

State Henry Kissinger called for UN-sponsored 

cease-fires, but the Soviet Union twice vetoed these 

UN measures. To show its strong support for India, 

Moscow ordered a destroyer and a minesweeper 

transiting the Strait of Malacca to reinforce two 

similar ships already on station in the Indian Ocean. 

Then, on 6 December 1971, the Soviet Pacific Fleet 

sent from Vladivostok a task group comprising a 

missile cruiser and two other warships. On the 16th 

the Soviets dispatched from Vladivostok a second 

task group consisting of a missile cruiser, missile 

destroyer, and two other combatants. 

Nixon and Kissinger expressed concern 

that if the war continued, Indian armed forces 

would attack West Pakistan and activate a U.S. 

commitment to defend the Southeast Asia Treaty 

Organization ally. With American forces still fully 

engaged in the Vietnam War, the United States 

could not take on another major conflict. Nixon 

and Kissinger thought that if the United States did 

nothing in response to Soviet moves, its inaction 

would jeopardize the diplomatic effort underway to 

end more than twenty years of enmity between the 

United States and the People’s Republic of China. 

In short, they believed American credibility was on 

NHHC L File

Enterprise (CVAN 65) with her combat aircraft aligned on the 

flight deck.

K-41759

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, top left, President Lyndon B. Johnson, 

and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara on board the Navy’s 

first nuclear-powered carrier.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 81

the line with Pakistan, China, the Soviet Union, and 

other countries watching the crisis unfold. 

To create a better balance of forces in the 

region, on 9 December Washington ordered the 

Pacific Command to dispatch a Seventh Fleet task 

group centered on the carrier Enterprise from the 

Gulf of Tonkin to waters off East Pakistan in the Bay 

of Bengal. Steaming with Enterprise as part of Task 

Group 74 during late December and early January 

1972 were the amphibious assault ship Tripoli

(LPH 10), a submarine, ten destroyer types, and five 

logistic support vessels.

The ostensible and publicly given reason 

for the deployment: oversee the evacuation of 

Americans from the war-torn region. But the real 

reason was to mount a show of force, since there 

would be no American citizens there by the time 

the task group arrived. Of relevance, Washington 

told the commander of Task Group 74 to proceed 

through the Strait of Malacca during daylight “in 

full view of the world.” U.S. leaders approved a 

recommendation from Admiral Zumwalt, Chief 

of Naval Operations, to deploy the task group 

southeast of the island of Ceylon instead of to a 

more vulnerable position in the northern Bay of 

Bengal. Soon afterward, on the 16th, Pakistani 

forces in East Pakistan surrendered, and the 

next day India established a unilateral cease-fire 

throughout the war zone. Washington understood 

that since India did not intend to conquer all of 

Pakistan, the crisis was over.

The two Soviet task forces reached the Indian 

Ocean only on the 18th and 24th of December, 

but the U.S.-Soviet competition continued. 

Zumwalt related that even in January 1972, the 

“American and Russian ships circled around each 

other warily, much as their counterparts had been 

doing in the Mediterranean for years.” Zumwalt’s 

comment that “the American ships were put at a 

disadvantage,” with the concentration of Soviet 

naval forces in the Indian Ocean covered by 

warplanes in Yemen, showed significant concern. 

The United States returned its warships to the 

fight off Vietnam, but the Soviet Union solidified 

its connection both to India and the new country 

of Bangladesh, providing India with weapons and 

other war materials and clearing mines from the 

Bay of Bengal. Navy Art Collection

NH 97205

Enterprise on Yankee Station by R. G. Smith. Oil on canvas, 1968. Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., Chief of Naval 

Operations from 1970 to 1974.
82 READY SEAPOWER

Diego Garcia

Washington eased some of the Seventh Fleet’s 

problems from operational stretch when the United 

States and the United Kingdom agreed to develop a 

jointly run naval base on the island of Diego Garcia 

in the Indian Ocean. With the logistic facilities at 

Subic Bay in the Philippines some 3,550 miles away, 

Diego Garcia would be vital to fleet operations 

in the Indian Ocean, North Arabian Sea, and 

Arabian Gulf. American and British officials signed 

an executive agreement on 30 December 1966 

establishing joint administration of the military 

facilities to be built there. The withdrawal of the 

Royal Navy from “east of Suez” in 1971, however, 

made it clear that the United States would bear 

the cost of base development, and the Seventh 

Fleet, the responsibility for controlling the Indian 

Ocean. Backed by $53 million from Congress, 

between 1970 and 1974 Seventh Fleet Seabees 

built communications facilities, shops, quarters, 

and warehouses; lengthened the existing airfield 

to handle P-3 Orion patrol planes and Air Force 

long-range bombers; and dredged the lagoon to 

accommodate warships as large as an aircraft carrier. 

In 1976 London agreed to the expansion of the 

naval facilities on the island, and the following year 

Washington established the U.S. Naval Support 

Facility, Diego Garcia.

Diego Garcia took on added importance in 

1979 with the overthrow of the Iranian government 

NHHC L File

The island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 83

by a radical, anti-American revolutionary movement 

and the massive Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

By 1980, 25 Seventh Fleet warships operated in 

the Indian Ocean securing the vital sea lines of 

communication between the oil-rich Middle East 

and the waters of the Western Pacific. Diego Garcia 

kept these naval vessels refueled and resupplied. 

Washington also deployed to the site four ships 

of Maritime Prepositioning Squadron 2, which 

contained equipment and 30 days’ worth of supplies 

for a Marine expeditionary brigade of 16,500 men. 

The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Defense Logistics 

Agency stowed material in 11 other prepositioning 

ships at Diego Garcia.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 had 

a maritime dimension. As a deterrent to a possible 

U.S. military reaction, the Soviet Pacific Fleet 

deployed amphibious ships and naval infantry to 

the Red Sea and executed combined exercises with 

the naval forces of Yemen on Socotra Island in the 

Indian Ocean. The Soviet Union also established an 

air and naval base at Berbera in Somalia.

Forward Basing of Seventh Fleet Ships

With the decline of non-Vietnam-related Navy 

budgets during and after the war, the Navy looked 

for ways to cut costs but maintain the combat 

readiness of its operational forces. In the early 

1970s Washington considered reducing the fleet 

from 15 carriers to 12. At the same time, however, 

the Seventh Fleet’s responsibilities were increasing 

with deployments to East Asia and as far away as 

the Indian Ocean. One proposal: maintain ships 

and crews at forward bases rather than periodically 

return them to the United States for repair and 

overhaul and the reunion of Sailors and their 

families. There would be no need for the latter if 

families lived close to the Sailors overseas. Because of 

the vast distances between the U.S. West Coast and 

the Far East, Navy planners considered Seventh Fleet 

ships as likely candidates for forward-basing in Japan.

The Japanese government and populace reacted 

positively to the proposal. Japanese political leaders, 

foreign policy officials, and military leaders believed 

that a U.S. aircraft carrier stationed in Japan would 

strengthen the Mutual Security Treaty and reverse a 

widespread public perception that the United States 

would not risk war for Japan. The Japan Maritime 

Self-Defense Force, hoping to benefit from a closer 

USN–JMSDF connection, enthusiastically endorsed 

the concept as did Yokosuka politicians anticipating 

an economic boon to their district. Another plus, 

the U.S. offered to share the base’s dry docks and 

other facilities with commercial interests. In 1972 

Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka had word passed to 

U.S. diplomatic officials that Japan supported the 

forward-basing of a carrier at Yokosuka. Tokyo’s 

predictions that domestic opposition to the 

deployment would be minimal proved accurate. 

Midway task groups, which included Destroyer 

Squadron 15, operated out of Yokosuka from 

October 1973 to August 1991.

The base at Sasebo on the island of Kyushu 

eventually gained amphibious and mine warfare 

squadrons after having lost some U.S. Navy 

business in the immediate post-Vietnam years. The 

citizens of Sasebo demonstrated their friendship 

with America in July 1976 when thousands of 

local residents poured through the gates to help 

celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial. The forward-basing 

of Seventh Fleet ships brought economic prosperity 

to Yokosuka and Sasebo, reaffirmed to the Japanese 

people the strength of the Mutual Security Treaty, 

and improved the operational readiness and 

mobility of the fleet.

A New Power Equation 

Moscow supplanted Beijing as North Vietnam’s 

chief sponsor in the last years of the war and in 

November 1978 concluded a mutual security 

agreement with Hanoi. During a short war between 

the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist 

Republic of Vietnam in 1979, the USSR supported 

the Vietnamese by deploying naval forces off 

China’s coasts. One battle group, headed by a 

guided missile cruiser, operated in the East China 

Sea, and another battle group steamed in the South 

China Sea. Beijing expressed particular concern 

about the Soviet naval menace to China’s Hainan 

and Paracel islands.
84 READY SEAPOWER

In 1984, when Chinese and Vietnamese forces 

again clashed briefly on their mutual border, the 

Soviet Pacific Fleet and naval units of Vietnam 

executed a joint amphibious exercise off Danang 

involving the Soviet helicopter carrier Minsk, 

the amphibious ship Ivan Rogov, six other ships, 

combat aircraft, and naval infantry. In the words 

of historian Alexey Muraviev, “the significance of 

this exercise lay not just in the fact that it was 

the Soviet navy’s first amphibious exercise in the 

South China Sea or that it highlighted the extent 

to which Soviet-Vietnamese military solidarity had 

evolved during the early 1980s. More important 

was its timing; it was staged during the heaviest 

fighting since 1979 along the Sino-Vietnamese 

border.” In addition, the USSR provided the 

Vietnamese navy with corvettes, fast attack boats, 

and antisubmarine aircraft. 

At the invitation of Vietnam, Soviet warships 

and aviation units operated from the Americanbuilt base at Cam Ranh Bay. For the first time 

since the turnover of Lushun (Port Arthur) to 

China right after the Korean War, Soviet naval 

forces could now operate from a base on China’s 

maritime flank.

The USSR had become so powerful and 

menacing that its former ally, the People’s Republic 

of China, sought foreign help. In 1969 Soviet and 

Chinese troops had fought pitched battles along 

the Ussuri River border between these two huge 

countries. The PRC’s Mao Zedong then and later 

feared that the Soviet Union planned to attack his 

nation, perhaps with nuclear weapons. The Chinese 

also feared that the Soviet navy would destroy 

China’s large merchant fleet as well as launch 

amphibious assaults on Manchuria and other 

northern territories. 

To gain support from another anti-Soviet 

world power, Mao hosted visits to China by U.S. 

Presidents Nixon and Ford. To facilitate a closer 

relationship, the United States recognized the PRC 

as the sole government of China. Washington ended 

the Seventh Fleet’s 22-year Taiwan Strait Patrol 

that had defended the people on Taiwan against a 

Communist invasion. At the same time the United 

States made clear to Beijing that it would not 

tolerate the use of force by the PRC to recover 

Taiwan. On 1 January 1979, two months after the 

USSR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed 

their security agreement, the United States and the 

PRC established diplomatic relations.

The U.S.-PRC rapprochement continued under 

Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, during the 1980s. 

President Ronald Reagan visited China in 1984, 

which prompted the visit to Washington in June 

1985 of PRC Minister of Defense Zhang Aiping 

to discuss military cooperation. One year after 

Secretary of the Navy John Lehman’s 1984 trip 

to the PRC, his Chinese counterpart Liu Huaqing 

traveled to the United States. 

Going beyond reciprocal visits, in the mid1980s the United States approved commercial 

sales to China that included Sikorsky transport 

helicopters (unarmed versions of the UH-60 Black 

Hawk), General Electric gas turbine engines for new 

Chinese destroyers, and Mark 46 antisubmarine 

torpedoes (later cancelled). 

In 1983 and 1984 Chinese Communist Party 

General Hu Yaobang and Japanese Prime Minister 

Yasuhiro Nakasone exchanged visits. By the mid1980s Japan, only a few years before China’s most 

bitter enemy, had become its largest trading partner. 

During Hu’s visit, he indicated support for Japan’s 

military buildup and close defense relationship with 

the United States. Indeed, analyst Kenneth Weiss 

concluded that the United States was the “‘glue’ in a 

(very) loose anti-Soviet grouping in the Pacific that 

includes Japan, China, South Korea, the ASEAN, 

and ANZUS nations.” 

Seventh Fleet Operational Concerns

In addition to menacing China, the Soviet 

navy’s presence at Cam Ranh Bay posed an 

operational problem for the Seventh Fleet. From the 

excellent, American-built port, the Soviets could 

stretch U.S. maritime resources in the entire Pacific 

and threaten the Seventh Fleet’s large naval and air 

facilities around Subic Bay. By the mid-1980s, 20 to 

30 Soviet surface ships; 3 to 5 submarines; fighters, 

attack planes, and special mission aircraft; and naval 
Ready for Action

The Navy service of Midway (CVA 41, CV 41 

after 30 June 1975), the lead carrier in her 

class, spanned the Cold War era. Midway 

made her Seventh Fleet debut during the 

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–1955, during 

which her air wing provided cover for the 

evacuation of Chinese Nationalist troops 

and civilians from the Dachen Islands 

off China. Following modernization with 

the addition of an aft deck-edge elevator, 

angled flight deck, steam catapults, and an 

enclosed bow, the carrier operated in the South China Sea during the Laos crises of the early 1960s.

Midway steamed at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin during the spring of 1965 when Seventh 

Fleet and U.S. Air Force units inaugurated the three-year Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against 

North Vietnam. Midway aircraft were among the first carrier units to strike targets in South Vietnam 

when they bombed a Viet Cong base near Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”) northwest of Saigon in 

April. And naval aviators from the ship’s Carrier Air Wing 2 registered the first air-to-air victories of the 

war when they downed four MiG-17s in June.

After further modernization in the states, Midway returned to fight in Southeast Asia during 1971 

and 1972, taking part in the Linebacker I and II operations that stymied North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive 

in South Vietnam and helped bring about an end to the war. Marine 

and U.S. Air Force helicopters embarked in Midway were among those 

in Operation Frequent Wind that rescued Americans and Vietnamese 

fleeing the Communist conquest of South Vietnam in April 1975. 

Even as Midway’s operations in Southeast Asia were coming to 

a close, developments in other Asian waters demanded her attention. 

After an agreement between the U.S. and Japanese governments, in 

October 1973 Midway became the first carrier forward-deployed to an 

overseas base. For the next 18 years the ship and her escorts, as well 

as their Sailors and families, called Yokosuka, Japan, home. Proximity to 

likely trouble spots enabled Midway to mount a show of force in August 

1976 when North Korean soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone brutally 

murdered two U.S. Army officers. Aggressive Iranian and Soviet actions 

increasingly drew Midway to the Indian Ocean and North Arabian Sea 

during the late 1970s and 1980s. 

Along with the flagship Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and other Seventh Fleet 

ships and units, Midway deployed to the Arabian Gulf in 1990–1991 to 

counter Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait. As part 

of Battle Force Zulu, Midway launched bombing strikes against targets in 

Iraq and Kuwait. In March 1991, following the Gulf War victory, the battletested carrier returned to Japan. That fall Independence (CV 62) relieved 

Midway as the Yokosuka-based carrier; the Navy decommissioned Midway

in April 1992, thus closing her illustrious career with the Seventh Fleet.

USN 1105107

Midway operating in the Western Pacific in 1964 on the eve of the Vietnam War. 

NHHC L File 

Midway steaming in the Arabian Sea in 1991 

shortly after participating in the defeat of 

Saddam Hussein’s armed forces in Operation 

Desert Storm.
86 READY SEAPOWER

infantry operated from the Cam Ranh base, which 

had also become a “vast storage area” for weapons 

and equipment. As U.S. Pacific Fleet commander 

Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons observed, in the ten 

years after the Vietnam War the Cam Ranh base had 

quadrupled in size. He intimated that this military 

presence in Vietnam put the Soviets “astride the key 

lines of communication in the South China Sea, in 

the Strait of Malacca, and the Eastern Indian Ocean.” 

He noted that if the U.S. Navy did nothing to counter 

this presence, it would be akin to “turning over our 

friends and allies to Soviet political and military 

intimidation and eventual domination.”

Naval forces from both the USSR and the 

Socialist Republic of Vietnam posed a threat to 

Seventh Fleet ships. In June 1982 a naval vessel 

believed to be Vietnamese fired a machine gun 

round that pierced the wardroom bulkhead 

of destroyer Turner Joy operating in the South 

China Sea with guided missile cruiser Sterett

and guided missile destroyer Lynde McCormick

(DDG 8). When Lynde McCormick closed with the 

perpetrator of the attack, she too came under fire, 

prompting return warning shots that persuaded the 

Vietnamese unit to desist. 

While coping with the growing Soviet and 

Vietnamese naval presence in the South China Sea, 

the Seventh Fleet carried out other responsibilities, 

including the rescue of people in distress on the 

open ocean. In the early 1980s tens of thousands 

of refugees, the so-called “boat people,” fled from 

economic deprivation and political persecution in 

Vietnam by taking to the sea in crowded, often 

unseaworthy junks and fishing boats. In just a 

DN-SN-8409735

After surviving many grueling days at sea, Vietnamese “boat people” fleeing harsh Communist rule in Indochina prepare to board Seventh 

Fleet flagship Blue Ridge for eventual resettlement somewhere in Asia.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 87

five-day period during May 1982, for instance, the 

U.S. guided missile cruiser Fox (CG 33) and frigates 

Brewton (FF 1086) and Ouellet (FF 1077) rescued 

378 Vietnamese refugees. 

The USSR also strengthened its military forces 

in the land and sea approaches to Japan. In 1968 the 

Soviets enlarged their naval infantry force in the Far 

East from regimental to divisional size. In 1978, to 

put pressure on Japan, for the first time the Soviets 

fortified and positioned troops on the southern 

Kurile Islands (referred to as the Northern Territories 

by Japan) seized at the end of World War II. The 

following year Moscow deployed the antisubmarine 

carrier Minsk, the large amphibious ship Ivan 

Rogov, and advanced antiship Backfire bombers to 

Vladivostok. In 1982 the fleet carried out a largescale nighttime exercise in the Soviet Far East with 

amphibious ships and naval infantry units employing 

night vision devices. Soviet naval forces held live-fire 

exercises in the Sea of Japan/East Sea, and Backfire 

bombers practiced mock attacks on Seventh Fleet 

units. The Soviet Pacific Fleet conducted submarine 

and antisubmarine warfare exercises in the broad 

expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The exercises showed 

the Soviet Pacific Fleet’s greater capability for openocean operations far from the Russian heartland. 

The heightened menace from Soviet military 

forces in the Far East took concrete form in September 

1983 when a Soviet SU-15 Flagon fighter shot down a 

Korean Air Lines 747 jumbo jet near Sakhalin Island, 

killing all 269 passengers and crew on board, including 

a U.S. congressman. Soviet aircraft and naval vessels 

used aircraft “buzzings” and aggressive ship maneuvers 

to impede the salvage operation by Japanese and U.S. 

NHHC L File

Soviet antisubmarine carrier Kiev during the early 1980s.
88 READY SEAPOWER

Author File Author File

A Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer in the port of Vladivostok.

The buildup in the Far East of Soviet military forces, including these naval infantrymen armed with Kalashnikov AK-47s, 

concerned U.S. naval leaders.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 89

units dispatched to the scene. In one instance, a Soviet 

ship closed to within 30 feet of the Sterett’s stern and 

only turned away at the last minute to avoid a collision.

The Soviet Pacific Fleet increasingly operated in 

waters near Japan and South Korea. During the spring 

of 1985 a carrier battle group consisting of helicopter 

carrier Novorossiysk, four cruisers, two frigates, and 

two logistics ships exercised near Okinawa and points 

north in the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The following 

year carriers Minsk and Kiev, a dozen other surface 

ships, and 16 submarines took part in a major exercise 

near the Kuriles. Throughout the 1980s Soviet 

combat aircraft intruded into the air defense zones 

of Japan and even approached Alaskan air space. 

Vice Admiral David Jeremiah, Commander Seventh 

Fleet, commented in 1987 that there had been “more 

aggressive air activity [and] a much more aggressive 

posture in air defense” than the year before.

Between 1976 and 1986 the Soviet Pacific Fleet 

increased from 775 to 840 naval vessels, including 

120 attack and missile-launching submarines and 

85 cruisers and other major surface combatants. By 

1984 almost half of the naval vessels in the Soviet 

navy operated in the Pacific. According to Muraviev, 

by 1985 the Soviet Pacific Fleet “was possibly the 

strongest of the four Soviet naval fleets” that enabled 

the Soviet Union “to engage confidently in the 

Cold War strategic naval confrontation.” Admiral 

Lyons observed that by the mid-1980s, the Soviet 

Pacific Fleet operated 500 warships and submarines, 

including the advanced Kirov nuclear-powered 

cruiser, Sovremenny and Udaloy-class guided missile 

destroyers, and Akula-class attack submarines. One 

thousand six hundred Soviet aircraft and one-third of 

the USSR’s intermediate-range ballistic missile force 

operated in the Far East. By the mid-1980s Soviet 

military strength in Northeast Asia was formidable. 

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Fills 

the Breech

On top of reductions in U.S. fleet strength in 

the wake of Vietnam, developments in the Middle 

East in 1979 put additional strain on Seventh Fleet 

resources. At a time of troubling growth in Soviet 

Far Eastern military and naval capability, and other 

regional concerns, the Seventh Fleet had to divert 

a significant portion of its strength to operations 

in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf, 

thousands of miles from the bases in Japan and 

the Philippines. Indeed, by 1979 the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff had expanded the Seventh Fleet’s area 

of operational responsibility to include the entire 

Indian Ocean. 

In the late 1970s the administration of President 

Jimmy Carter considered a “swing strategy” that 

would remove Seventh Fleet forces from the Pacific 

in the advent of a major war. Admiral Zumwalt, the 

former Chief of Naval Operations, observed in his 

post-retirement memoir On Watch that in much of 

the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the United States 

had no “relevant power.” 

The United States did take an approach during 

and after the Vietnam War to redress this security 

imbalance, calling on Asian allies to increase their 

share of the military burden in the Far East. On 

Guam, in July 1969 President Nixon announced 

that henceforth the United States would provide 

military support to allies but expected them to take 

on the primary responsibility for their own defense. 

Key noncommunist Far Eastern nations, especially 

Japan, increased their contribution to joint defensive 

efforts. Thanks to the security shield provided by 

the Seventh Fleet since 1945, Japan, South Korea, 

and Taiwan were now much better prepared to 

share strategic responsibilities and provide their own 

military resources. Their market-oriented economies 

had prospered even as those of the Communist 

states fell apart. Historian Michael Howard has 

cogently observed that by the 1980s, capitalism 

was “transforming global society in a manner that 

made Marxist-Leninist regimes look like dinosaurs 

surviving in a kind of Jurassic Park; dinosauric in 

their size, their ferocity, their inability to adapt 

themselves and, not least, their tiny brains.”

In November 1978 U.S. and Japanese officials 

developed “Guidelines for Japan–United States 

Defense Cooperation.” The guidelines provided for 

combined operations planning and exercises. It is 

perhaps overstated, but according to Japanese analyst 

Tetsuo Maeda, the guidelines “implemented the 
90 READY SEAPOWER

security treaty as though it were a two-nation version 

of NATO.” In May 1981 Prime Minister Zenko 

Suzuki visited Washington and announced that 

“since the United States Seventh Fleet is in charge of 

security in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf, it 

cannot be in the environs of Japan.” Suzuki pledged 

that his country’s naval and air forces would defend 

the area around Japan out to several hundred miles 

and the sea lanes out to 1,000 nautical miles.

Reaffirming Maritime Supremacy in the Pacific

In the last years of the Cold War, leaders of the 

U.S. Navy were determined to counter aggressive 

Soviet naval activity around the globe, especially in 

the Western Pacific. A new Maritime Strategy guided 

this effort. It emphasized the forward deployment 

of powerful U.S. naval forces, in conjunction with 

the other armed forces, on what U.S. naval leaders 

considered the vulnerable maritime flanks of the 

Soviet Union. The concept assigned that mission in 

Northeast Asia to the Seventh Fleet. The Navy also 

took action to ensure a nearly continuous presence 

of fully capable carriers in the waters of the northern 

Pacific. In the Global Naval Force Presence Policy, the 

service staggered or delayed maintenance and training 

cycles for those carriers not deployed forward.

The naval leader who inspired the global 

Maritime Strategy first explored the concept while 

considering the power balance in the northern 

Pacific. Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, Commander 

Seventh Fleet, and then Commander in Chief, 

Pacific Fleet from 1975 to 1978, advocated a 

NHHC L File

President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam and President Richard M. Nixon of the United States meet on Guam in July 1969. 

At that time, Nixon announced a new U.S. policy of encouraging regional allies to assume greater responsibility for ground combat.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 91

USN 1180954

Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, Chief of Naval Operations from July 1978 to June 1982, inspired development of what became known as the 

Navy’s Maritime Strategy. Hayward stressed dealing with the Soviet threat in Asia because of the Pacific Ocean’s importance to America and 

the U.S. commitment to its Asian allies.

new approach for dealing with Soviet power. He 

concluded that plans by the Carter administration 

to concentrate U.S. military power in Europe and 

the Atlantic in the event of a war with the Soviet 

Union would surrender the Pacific to the enemy and 

compromise America’s Asian alliances. Japan and 

other Asian allies were concerned that Washington 

might “sacrifice the East to save the West.” Hayward 

affirmed that an offensive-minded strategy in the 

Pacific would better serve U.S. and allied interests. 

It was not lost on Hayward or other strategists that 

Japan’s failure to attack the USSR’s Far Eastern 

flank in World War II enabled the Soviets to 

concentrate forces in front of Moscow and then 

defeat Hitler’s invading legions. The insightful flag 

officer also recognized that a proactive strategy 

would help rebuild the Navy and bolster the 

morale of America’s Sailors after the debilitating 

Vietnam experience. Such an approach would also 

reassure Japan and South Korea about U.S. treaty 

commitments to their defense. 

Hayward based his concept on an understanding 

that the Soviet navy, then operating throughout 

the Western Pacific and in waters as distant as 

the Indian Ocean, depended on Vladivostok and 

Petropavlovsk and a few other vulnerable naval 

bases on the USSR’s remote North Pacific coast for 

logistic support. He proposed that in the event of 

war, the U.S. Navy destroy the bases and defenses on 

the Kamchatka Peninsula. He also reasoned that the 
92 READY SEAPOWER

U.S. threat to the Soviet Far East would compel the 

Russian fleet to withdraw from the broad Pacific and 

concentrate for defense in Northeast Asia. Studies 

at the Naval War College bolstered this appraisal. 

Hayward championed the concept that under his 

successor, Admiral James B. Watkins, became the 

new global Maritime Strategy. 

In March 1984 Secretary of the Navy John 

Lehman stated that one tactical objective of Pacific 

naval operations in the event of war with the Soviet 

Union would be to “catch the Backfires [Soviet 

antiship bombers] on the ground.” Admiral Watkins 

elaborated on this topic that same year when he 

observed: “In the Northwest Pacific . . . if we are 

swift enough on our feet we would move rapidly 

into an attack on Alekseyevka [Backfire base on the 

Kamchatka Peninsula]. We might put a carrier strike 

in there along with the Air Force. We know how to do 

that. . . . We tested our ability with the Air Force to 

coordinate strikes at Petropavlovsk or Alekseyevka.”

But U.S. naval leaders did not see warfighting 

readiness as the only good reason for deploying 

Seventh Fleet and other forces into the Soviet 

Union’s “back yard.” They also wanted to make 

abundantly clear, through shows of force and 

capability, the maritime advantage that would be 

enjoyed by the United States and its Asian allies in 

any conflict; that a display of strength stood the best 

chance of preventing war. In 1986 Admiral Lyons 

commented that if the Soviets take “that message 

back [of U.S. and allied military strength in the 

region], which is one we want him to take back, 

we’ve raised deterrence without firing a shot.” Naval 

leaders also wanted to acquire critical intelligence of 

the best warships, aircraft, weapons, and equipment 

in the Soviet arsenal by stimulating a response to 

U.S. operations close to their most vital bases. 

Seventh Fleet Buildup

Operating close to the Pacific coast of the 

Soviet Union would not have been possible if the 

Seventh Fleet had not been strengthened during 

the late 1970s and early 1980s with advanced ships, 

aircraft, and weapons systems. The Navy armed the 

fleet with Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAMs) 

able to carry nuclear or conventional warheads. 

The cruise missiles enabled fleet submarines and 

surface ships to eliminate Soviet command posts 

and radar installations prior to an attack by carrier 

planes. Harpoon antiship missiles enhanced the 

surface fleet’s ability to take out opposing warships. 

Also introduced to the fleet were advanced versions 

of the all-weather, day-night A-6 Intruder attack 

plane, the F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter, and the 

EA-6B Prowler electronic countermeasures plane. 

The Prowler could jam enemy communications and 

fire high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs) to 

destroy enemy radars and missile batteries.

Since the Maritime Strategy anticipated 

amphibious operations on the USSR’s flanks, the 

Navy recommissioned the four Iowa-class battleships, 

NHHC L File

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Watkins, along with 

Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, were the driving forces behind 

the Reagan administration’s support for the Maritime Strategy and 

a larger, “600-ship Navy.”
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 93

with their 16-inch naval guns, and armed them 

with the new Tomahawk cruise missiles. The new 

Whidbey Island (LSD 41) and Wasp (LHD 1) 

classes of amphibious ships and landing craft air 

cushion (LCAC) strengthened the fleet.

Operating in waters close to the USSR, 

however, meant that task force defenses had to 

be strong and far-seeing. The Navy introduced 

to the fleet advanced shipboard radars and 

E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft that could 

discover enemy aircraft and missiles at great 

distances. Once these systems spotted hostile 

approaching aircraft it was critical to destroy 

them before they could launch their antiship 

missiles, or in the words of Admiral Watkins, 

“shoot the archer before he releases his arrows.” 

F-14 Tomcat air superiority fighters armed with 

Author File

An F-14 Tomcat fighter loaded with long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles.

DN-ST-9109302

World War II-era battleships armed with Tomahawk land attack missiles 

strengthened the Seventh Fleet during the late Cold War.
94 READY SEAPOWER

7th Flt PA

Los Angeles (SSN 688), the lead ship of a formidable class of nuclear-powered attack submarines, proceeds through waters off Guam.

NHHC L File

An advanced Harpoon surface-to-surface missile fired from just below the ship’s Phalanx close-in weapon system.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 95

new AIM-54C Phoenix air-to-air missiles prepared the 

fleet to destroy multiple attackers hundreds of miles 

away. Guided missile cruisers of the Ticonderoga (CG

47) class equipped with the revolutionary Aegis battle 

management system, destroyers, and frigates formed 

the next line of defense. Surviving attackers would 

then face the ship-mounted Phalanx close-in weapon 

system (CIWS) that fired 3,000 depleted uranium 

rounds per minute. 

One of the Seventh Fleet’s greatest concerns 

was the Soviet Union’s large and capable attack 

and ballistic missile submarine force operating from 

the Kamchatka Peninsula. To cope with the threat, 

the Navy deployed to the Pacific a succession of 

large, stealthy Los Angeles (SSN 688)-class attack 

submarines that came off the building ways in the 

late 1970s. The Navy Department also added to its 

Far East fleet Spruance (DD 963)-class destroyers and 

Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG 7)-class frigates embarking 

SH-60B Seahawk Light Airborne Multipurpose 

System, or LAMPS, helicopters. These rotary-wing 

aircraft boasted search radars, underwater sonobuoys, 

and torpedoes. With an even more sophisticated suite 

of detection and data processing equipment, the 

fixed-wing S-3 Viking could be armed with Harpoon 

antiship missiles, bombs, mines, and torpedoes. 

Guided by the Maritime Strategy, bolstered by 

Secretary Lehman’s “600-ship” navy, and armed with 

a lethal array of new weapons and equipment, the 

Seventh Fleet made its presence known in Northeast 

Asia during the last years of the Cold War.

Assertive Seventh Fleet Operations 

As the Navy Department refined the Maritime 

Strategy in Washington, Pacific Fleet commanders 

began using Seventh Fleet operations, naval 

exercises, and “freedom of navigation” (FON) ship 

cruises to gauge how the Soviets would react to an 

Navy Art Collection

Underway Replenishment by Walter Brightwell. Oil on canvas.
96 READY SEAPOWER

increased allied naval presence in Northeast Asia. 

During May 1981 Seventh Fleet and JMSDF units 

for the first time in ten years conducted a naval 

exercise in the Sea of Japan/East Sea. At the same 

time a task group composed of Wadell (DDG 24), 

Richard S. Edwards (DDG 950), Harry W. Hill (DD 

986), and USNS Mispillion carried out a two-day 

FON mission in the Sea of Okhotsk to “demonstrate 

freedom of the seas in this area.” That September 

the guided missile cruiser William H. Standley (CG

32) and frigate Lockwood observed the naval activity 

off the Soviet submarine base at Petropavlovsk. 

If the Soviets were unsure that the U.S. had 

inaugurated a new operational approach in the 

Asia-Pacific region during 1981, they would have 

no doubt the following year when U.S. attack 

submarines began operating in the Sea of Okhotsk. 

In February Coral Sea and 13 other naval vessels 

conducted a large-scale exercise in the Sea of 

Japan/East Sea. Several months later Lockwood 

again operated near Petropavlovsk in what the U.S. 

considered international waters, but which the 

Soviets contended were their territorial waters. 

Soviet ships and planes harassed the frigate and 

communicated that the U.S. naval vessel should 

depart the area. That autumn, in the largest 

concentration of U.S. naval vessels off Alaska since 

World War II, the Enterprise and Midway carrier 

battle groups conducted flight operations 450 

miles east of Kamchatka. At the end of the year, 

in another Cold War first, U.S. Navy and Marine 

and Canadian forces practiced amphibious assaults 

on Amchitka in the western Aleutian Islands in 

Exercise Kernal Potlatch. 

To ensure that not only Soviet but North 

Korean leaders recognized the combat power 

and capability of the allied forces facing them in 

Northeast Asia, in 1983, 190,000 U.S. and South 

Korean military forces conducted the annual 

Team Spirit exercise on the Korean peninsula and 

offshore. Units under the operational control of 

Commander Seventh Fleet included the Midway

and Enterprise battle groups. 

In March and April these carriers plus Coral 

Sea and 39 other U.S. combatants exercised near 

the Aleutians in FleetEx 83. Naval leaders wanted 

to reaffirm the fleet’s presence in the region and see 

how the Soviets reacted to it. Commander in Chief, 

Pacific Fleet Admiral Sylvester R. Foley observed, 

“I’m sure we surprised the Soviets once again, 

sending them a message that our deployments are 

not going to be easily predicted.” 

The Seventh Fleet kept just as busy in 1984. 

In May frigate Lockwood patrolled close to Soviet 

territory in the Sea of Japan/East Sea. During the 

last months of the year U.S. and Japanese naval 

and marine forces conducted amphibious training 

on Hokkaido, Japan’s large northern island close 

to Soviet-held territory; the U.S. Navy and the 

JMSDF conducted a large exercise near Okinawa; 

the Midway and Carl Vinson battle groups operated 

within 50 miles of Vladivostok in the Sea of Japan/

East Sea; and cruiser Sterett and destroyer John 

Young (DD 973) entered the Sea of Okhotsk on a 

FON mission. 

Starting in February 1985, more than 200,000 

American and Korean sea, air, and ground troops 

took part in the annual Team Spirit 85 exercise, 

during which the Navy’s Military Sealift Command 

deployed a brigade of the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry 

Division to South Korea. In 1986 U.S. naval forces 

began conducting more frequent operations and 

exercises in the North Pacific and other waters 

near the Soviet Far East. In the first half of the 

year frigates Kirk and Francis Hammond (FF 1067) 

steamed in proximity to Vladivostok.

To determine if a carrier task force could 

operate without being detected near the Soviet 

Union—a key factor of the Maritime Strategy—in 

May the Ranger (CV 61) battle group made the 

transit from San Diego to the Western Pacific 

under a condition of EMCON (emissions control). 

The Soviets lost track of the battle group when 

every ship in the formation ceased electronic 

transmissions. In August and September the carrier 

Carl Vinson (CVN 70) steamed for nine days 

through Japanese waters, the North Pacific, the 

Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Sea of 

Japan/East Sea apparently without being detected 

by the Soviets.
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 97

For the first time in the Cold War, a battleship, 

New Jersey, accompanied by guided missile cruisers 

Vincennes (CG 49) and Long Beach (CGN 9), 

entered the Sea of Okhotsk and operated between 

Kamchatka and the Soviet island of Sakhalin. While 

under close observation by Soviet air and surface 

units, the battleship’s commanding officer, Captain 

W. Lewis Glenn Jr., slowed the ship to 20 knots 

NHHC L File

Ranger (CV 61) sorties from San Diego, California, in February 1987. The year before, the carrier steamed from the United States to 

Northeast Asia without communicating to keep the Soviets in the dark about her whereabouts.
98 READY SEAPOWER

and carried out a routine underway refueling of 

Vincennes. Immediately afterward, New Jersey joined 

Ranger and Constellation in the Bering Sea for the 

Cold War’s first two-carrier exercise in those waters. 

During the last half of 1986, Japanese and U.S. 

naval forces then carried out extensive exercises off 

Hokkaido and Honshu. Simultaneously, on the other 

side of the globe, NATO navies carried out Northern 

Wedding, one of the largest exercises of the Cold 

War. The U.S. Navy and its naval allies thoroughly 

tested the global viability of the Maritime Strategy.

In November 1986 Admiral Lyons, the hardcharging Pacific Fleet commander, tasked his Third 

Fleet with directing North Pacific operations. From 

1987 to 1989 Marine and Navy units returned to 

the frigid waters and barren islands of the Aleutians 

and Bering Sea to test their ability to operate in 

these harsh environs. On a number of occasions, 

Navy F-14s operating out of Adak in the Aleutians 

intercepted Soviet patrol planes in the Bering Sea and 

escorted them away from surface units. In Operation 

Shooting Star, A-6E Intruder attack planes on two 

dozen occasions flew directly toward the Kamchatka 

Peninsula and turned away only when they were 

100 miles from the Soviet Pacific Fleet base at 

Petropavlovsk. By the end of the 1980s the Navy had 

accomplished a critical goal of the Maritime Strategy: 

compel the Soviet navy to withdraw from AsianPacific waters and concentrate for defense in the Sea 

of Japan/East Sea and Sea of Okhotsk. 

Furthering U.S. Alliances and Overseas Interests

The execution of the forward strategy also 

achieved the Navy’s goal of improving allied 

cooperation and stimulating a buildup of their naval 

resources. At the beginning of the 1980s U.S. naval 

leaders had expressed concern that the Japanese were 

not sufficiently alarmed about the growth of Soviet 

military power in Northeast Asia and consequently 

were not devoting enough of their own resources 

to meet the threat. In 1981 Commander in Chief, 

Pacific Admiral Robert L.J. Long informed Secretary 

of Defense Caspar Weinberger that there needed 

to be “greater threat awareness in Japan . . . vital for 

obtaining the force improvements.”

By the end of the decade the Japanese had 

a much clearer appreciation of the threat and 

had responded accordingly. Japan increased its 

defense spending by more than 5 percent annually 

during the 1980s and increasingly joined the U.S. 

Navy in multinational exercises. The U.S. and 

Japanese navies became quite adept at combined 

antisubmarine warfare. The two naval services were 

especially effective in confining the Soviet navy to 

the Sea of Japan/East Sea and Sea of Okhotsk. By 

the end of the Cold War the JMSDF operated 81 

technologically advanced warships and submarines, 

and hundreds of aircraft, and was, in every sense of 

the term, a blue-water navy. Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. observed 

in 1986 that the “Japanese Self Defense Force [has] 

arrived. They are good and they know it.” 

In line with its own economic “miracle,” during 

the 1980s the Republic of Korea strengthened its 

navy to defend the maritime flanks of the Korean 

peninsula and to operate with the U.S. and allied 

navies against potential aggressors. In keeping with 

U.S. treaty commitments, the Seventh Fleet on many 

occasions deployed forces near the Korean peninsula 

to support the Republic of Korea. For instance, the 

Midway and Nimitz (CVN 68) battle groups made 

their presence known in the Sea of Japan/East Sea to 

discourage any North Korean thoughts of disrupting 

the 1988 Olympics held in Seoul.

The Soviets recognized the growing cooperation 

between the U.S. Navy and its Northeast Asian 

allies. In 1988 Admiral Vladimir Sidorov, the deputy 

commander in chief of the Soviet navy, observed, 

“it is significant that the troops of US allies, Japan 

and South Korea, are increasingly . . . involved in 

manoeuvres [in the Sea of Japan/East Sea].”

With the assignment of North Pacific duties 

to the Third Fleet and the growing capability of 

Japanese and South Korean naval forces, the Seventh 

Fleet looked to other weighty responsibilities 

in Asia-Pacific waters and the Indian Ocean. In 

1986, 100,000 U.S. and Thai army, navy, and 

marine forces; 30 ships; and hundreds of aircraft 

mounted near the Cambodian border Cobra Gold 

86, the largest combined exercise since the end 
OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS 99

of the Vietnam War. That same year U.S. and 

Philippine naval forces accomplished a 15-day 

amphibious exercise in the Philippines. 

Improving U.S. Relations with Asian Nations

Unlike the previous decades, the Seventh 

Fleet did not show concern about a military 

threat from the People’s Republic of China in 

the 1980s. Beijing feared a Soviet invasion of 

the country, perhaps involving nuclear weapons, 

and courted American support. Indeed, in 

January 1986, Seventh Fleet and People’s 

Liberation Army Navy warships steamed 

together in the Western Pacific. In April, Chief 

of Naval Operations Admiral Watkins met with 

PLAN Chief of Staff Admiral Liu Huaqing. 

That November the guided missile cruiser 

Reeves (GG 24), with Admiral Lyons embarked, 

and accompanied by destroyer Oldendorf (DD 

972) and frigate Rentz (FFG 46), made an 

official port call at Qingdao (homeport of the 

Seventh Fleet in the late 1940s). Lyons later 

remarked that “the Chinese clearly made every 

effort to make this visit a success. They made 

us feel like members of the family.” In 1989 the 

midshipman training ship Zheng He (named for 

the famous 15th-century admiral whose fleet 

sailed in the South China Sea and the Indian 

Ocean) became the first PLAN vessel to visit 

the United States when it made port in Hawaii.

After 1979, when the United States and 

the People’s Republic of China established 

diplomatic relations, Washington freed the 

Seventh Fleet of its previous responsibility 

to defend Taiwan from mainland attack. But 

the previous 22-year interaction between the 

United States and Taiwan, in which the Seventh 

Fleet figured prominently, had well prepared the 

Chinese on the island to defend themselves. The 

government on Taiwan exploited the country’s 

considerable economic wealth to domestically 

produced combat aircraft, tanks, and missiles 

and purchased more of these weapons systems 

overseas. By the 1990s the Chinese Nationalist 

navy operated almost 500 combat aircraft and 

DN-SN-8703563

Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 

receives a gift from an officer of the People’s Liberation Army Navy at 

Qingdao in November 1986 during the first visit to China since the late 

1940s of Seventh Fleet warships.

DN-SN-8703560

During the Seventh Fleet’s port call at Qingdao, China, in November 1986, 

American and Chinese sailors tour a warship of the Chinese navy.
100 READY SEAPOWER

180 naval vessels. Taiwan and the offshore islands 

still bristled with long-range antiship missiles, 

antisubmarine aircraft, and integrated air defenses. 

Harkening back to the earliest days of Taiwan’s 

independence from Chinese Communist control and 

General Douglas MacArthur’s memorable phrase, 

analyst Gary Klintworth observed that Taiwan was 

then, “metaphorically speaking, still an unsinkable 

aircraft carrier.” 

Much the same occurred in Southeast Asia. 

With the development of stronger economies and 

relatively stable political systems during the 1970s, 

Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and 

Thailand supported stronger defense establishments 

and blue-water flotillas. By the end of the Cold War 

these noncommunist countries of Southeast Asia 

boasted 43 surface warships and submarines and 

more than 500 combat aircraft. 

Support for the Philippines Government

As the Seventh Fleet dealt with the Soviet 

threat in Northeast Asia, it also maintained peace 

throughout its vast area of responsibility. When a 

3,000-man Philippine armed forces group led by 

Colonel Gregorio Honasan launched a coup against 

the government of Corazon Aquino on 1 December 

1989, the Pacific Command readied U.S. forces for 

likely contingencies. The rebels attacked military 

bases around Manila, stormed the capital’s financial 

district, and seized an airfield in Cebu.

Soon after the Aquino government asked for 

U.S. help, Washington established Joint Task Force 

(JTF) Philippines under the commanding general 

of the 13th Air Force headquartered at Clark Air 

Base northeast of Manila. Under the operational 

control of Commander JTF Philippines, carriers 

Midway and Enterprise entered the Philippine Sea 

with aircraft on deck-alert and dispatched E-2C 

Hawkeye aircraft for 24-hour surveillance flights 

over Manila. Commander Seventh Fleet Vice 

Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr. put Navy and Marine 

units at Subic Bay on alert to execute JTF orders. 

Marines from the Seventh Fleet’s Special Purpose 

Marine Air-Ground Task Force reinforced the U.S. 

Embassy in Manila. And two amphibious ready 

groups prepared to evacuate noncombatants from 

the troubled capital. To communicate the extent to 

which the United States would support President 

Aquino, the joint task force commander had Air 

Force F-4 Phantom II fighters mount combat air 

patrols over the bases of the Philippine air force. 

Convinced that the Aquino government had strong 

U.S. support, on 6 December the rebels agreed to 

a cease-fire and life in the Philippines gradually 

returned to normal.

In summary, the 1970s witnessed the rise of 

Soviet naval power and influence in the Asia-Pacific 

region that paralleled a decline in Seventh Fleet 

strength due to heavy operational commitments off 

Vietnam and in the Indian Ocean. The United States 

countered the Soviet threat, however, by establishing 

closer ties with the People’s Republic of China and 

encouraging America’s Asian allies to take on more 

responsibility for unilateral and multilateral defensive 

efforts. In the 1980s the United States went over to 

a full-court press on the USSR’s power base in Asia, 

adopting the Maritime Strategy, strengthening the 

battle fleet, conducting comprehensive multinational 

exercises, and deploying U.S. naval forces in waters 

right off the coast of the Soviet Far East. The end of 

the Cold War in 1989 found the United States and 

its naval forces in the Pacific never more powerful, 

and the Soviet Union only two years away from its 

ultimate demise. ★★★
101

Chapter 7

From the Arabian Gulf to 

Mount Pinatubo

S

tarting in the 1940s the Seventh Fleet protected U.S. interests in the 

Western Pacific and later the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. In the 1990s that 

responsibility spread to the Arabian Gulf where Commander Seventh Fleet directed the 

Gulf War and his forces helped liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Even 

while engaged in the Middle East, the fleet carried out its humanitarian and disaster relief mission 

in Bangladesh and the Philippines. 

When the armed forces of Iraqi dictator 

Saddam Hussein invaded the Arabian Gulf 

sheikdom of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the call 

again went out for help from America’s distant 

fighting fleet—the Seventh. On 16 August 1990 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the Seventh 

Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Henry Mauz to 

take charge of U.S. naval forces even then heading 

toward the Arabian Gulf to defend Saudi Arabia 

and America’s other friends in the region from Iraqi 

attack. Washington wanted a three-star flag officer 

with experience heading a combat fleet to handle 

maritime matters as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces 

Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT). Mauz 

kept his Seventh Fleet hat as well. 

One of the Navy’s top leaders, “Hank” Mauz

graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1959 

DN-ST-91 00563

Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr., commander of the U.S. Seventh 

Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, during Operation 

Desert Shield.

CIA

U.S. Central Command Theater.
102 READY SEAPOWER

and then served in destroyers John A. Bole (DD 

755) and Blue (DD 744). As a river patrol boat 

officer in Vietnam with River Squadron 5, he earned 

a Bronze Star with Combat V. He continued to 

impress his superiors with his performance in the 

surface warfare community and in various billets in 

the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. After 

a stint in Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers 

Europe, he served on the staff of the Pacific Fleet. 

As Commander, Battle Force Sixth Fleet in 1986, he 

planned and executed carrier strikes against Libya in 

Operation El Dorado Canyon. Mauz took the reins 

as Commander Seventh Fleet in 1988. 

That Washington tapped Commander Seventh 

Fleet to head naval operations in the Arabian 

Gulf and surrounding waters reflected the Navy’s 

Cold War mindset that had the battle commander 

directing major naval forces brought in from either 

the Pacific or the Mediterranean/Atlantic. Lowerranking naval officers commanded the small number 

of ships in the Arabian Gulf, then considered a 

secondary theater. The Navy had also resisted 

permanently assigning peacetime forces to Central 

Command, normally headed by an Army general 

headquartered in Florida. As a result, Vice Admiral 

Mauz did not gain the benefits of prewar interaction 

with General Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander in 

Chief, U.S. Central Command, and the opportunity 

to familiarize himself with the general’s plans for 

dealing with Saddam’s aggression. 

The inadequate Cold War command structure 

also delayed Mauz from taking on his new duties 

in the Middle East. The Pacific Command told the 

admiral to delay his arrival in the Central Command 

theater until the JCS officially cut an order 

appointing him COMUSNAVCENT. Mauz spent 

14 August, one week after the start of Operation 

Desert Shield, on Diego Garcia. He flew forward to 

Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf only on the 15th. He 

had to exercise his leadership from the command 

ship LaSalle (AGF 3) tied up there because his own 

flagship, Blue Ridge, would not arrive in-theater from 

Japan until 1 September. 

Despite these complications, Mauz acted at 

Schwarzkopf’s direction to coordinate seaborne 

protection for the maritime prepositioning ships 

deploying from Diego Garcia and for the U.S. carrier 

and amphibious groups en route to the operational 

area. The admiral also established contact with the 

leaders of the British, Dutch, Canadian, Australian, 

and other naval forces of the United Nations 

coalition then forming. 

By 1 October Mauz commanded a powerful 

flotilla that included the Saratoga (CV 60), John F. 

Kennedy (CV 67), and Independence carrier battle 

groups, each with an air wing of 75 aircraft and 

five to seven cruisers and destroyers; the battleship 

Wisconsin; the Sasebo-based amphibious transport 

dock Dubuque (LPD 8); and 17 other amphibious 

ships loaded with Marine infantry, helicopters, and 

Harrier vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft. 

Midway, with the guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill 

(CG 52) and destroyers Oldendorf and Fife (DD 

991), sortied from Yokosuka on 2 October. 

The admiral immediately concentrated on his 

most pressing duty, coordinating the embargo—a 

blockade in all but name—of Iraq’s imports and 

exports. As detailed in United Nations Security 

Council Resolution (UNSCR) 661 of 6 August, 

the goals of the embargo were to degrade Iraq’s 

NH 97715

Independence (CV 62) at sea on the eve of the 1990–1991 Gulf War.
FROM THE ARABIAN GULF TO MOUNT PINATUBO 103

military capabilities by cutting off access to foreign 

munitions and to compel Saddam to withdraw 

his troops from Kuwait. On 17 August U.S. naval 

forces began maritime interception operations. 

After passage of UNSCR 665, warships from 

12 nations took part in the embargo patrol. 

Vice Admiral Mauz took the lead in organizing 

the international effort. At monthly meetings, 

participating navies established common 

interception procedures, delineated patrol sectors 

covering more than 250,000 square miles of 

ocean, and handled rules of engagement, boarding 

techniques, and intelligence sharing.

A typical maritime embargo action occurred on 

8 October 1990 when the U.S. frigate Reasoner (FF

1063), British destroyer Battleaxe, and Australian 

frigate Adelaide intercepted the Iraqi merchantman 

Al Wasitti in the Gulf of Oman. Despite radioed 

demands from naval commanders and shots fired 

by UN warships across the bow of his ship, the 

Iraqi master refused to slow or stop the vessel. 

Finally, British Lynx helicopters hovered over the 

merchantman and Royal Marines “fast-roped” onto 

the deck to take charge of the ship. A U.S. Coast 

Guard law enforcement detachment then boarded 

and ensured that the ship held no contraband. Only 

then did the task force commander allow Al Wasitti

to proceed into port.

Mauz’s forces also protected the ships 

transporting the armored fighting vehicles, 

ammunition, fuel, equipment, and supplies of the 

UN coalition to the sands of Saudi Arabia. The 

U.S.-based Ready Reserve Force ships, fast sealift 

ships, maritime prepositioning ships, and chartered 

merchant vessels controlled by the Military Sealift 

Command required unhindered access to three 

key Arabian Gulf ports: Damman, Dhahran, and 

Jubail. Guarded by the 60 U.S. warships controlled 

by Mauz, a fleet of 173 ships delivered more than

one million tons of equipment, 135,000 tons of 

DN-SC-9201529

A guided missile destroyer Goldsborough (DDG 20) Sailor trains his .50-caliber machine gun on Iraqi merchant ship Zanoobia prior to her 

boarding and inspection for contraband by UN coalition naval forces in September 1990.
104 READY SEAPOWER

supplies, and 1.8 million tons of petroleum products 

to the operational theater during the first phase of 

Operation Desert Shield.

In late fall the UN coalition decided on a 

military campaign to oust Saddam’s forces from 

Kuwait. In a monumental operation 111 ships 

employed by MSC transported the Army’s tankheavy VII Corps from Germany to Saudi Arabia and 

additional troops and equipment from the United 

States. Mauz believed that the carriers in his Arabian 

Gulf-based Battle Force Zulu could deal with any 

air threat from Iraq so he deployed Independence

and her escorts into the gulf. The Midway task 

force, after a month-long voyage from Yokosuka, 

relieved Independence on station in the gulf on 1 

November. For the next two and one-half months, 

the squadrons of Midway’s air wing trained in the 

skies over Saudi Arabia and Oman and completed 

a number of multicarrier, “mirror-image” strike 

exercises with Air Force and coalition units. Midway

also took part in Imminent Thunder, a multinational 

amphibious landing exercise on the Saudi coast. 

When Vice Admiral Stanley R. Arthur became 

Commander Seventh Fleet and COMUSNAVCENT

on 1 December 1990, in a routine rotation, he 

understood that he would lead the fleet to war. Arthur 

had flown numerous combat missions in Southeast 

Asia, in the process earning the Distinguished Service 

Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, 

and other decorations. The naval aviator had served 

during the 1980s as COMUSNAVCENT so he was 

familiar with the region.

Arthur, like Mauz, considered how Navy and 

Marine forces would fight the war, and one of the 

options they ruled out was an amphibious assault on 

the coast of Kuwait. The difficult geography in the 

northern gulf, the presence of offshore minefields, 

and the concentration there of strong Iraqi armored 

and Republican Guard forces dissuaded Arthur, 

as did the fear of likely heavy Navy and Marine 

casualties. They did think, however, that the 

amphibious task force and embarked troops of the 

4th and 5th Marine expeditionary brigades under 

Vice Admiral John B. “Bat” LaPlante could act 

as a strategic reserve afloat and would be key to 

diverting Saddam’s attention from his desert flank. 

From that direction would come the killing blow 

from the Army’s VII Corps. 

Combat in the Arabian Gulf

In the early morning hours of 17 January 1991, 

the UN coalition launched a devastating air assault 

on Iraq. Tomahawk land attack missiles fired from 

U.S. battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines 

deployed around the Arabian Peninsula entered 

Iraqi air space and slammed into targets in Baghdad 

and elsewhere. In the largest air strike since World 

War II, attack planes launched from Midway and 

five other carriers stationed in the Arabian Gulf 

and Red Sea unleashed ordnance against the foe 

in Iraq and Kuwait, as did Air Force, Marine, and 

DN-ST-9108572

Vice Admiral Stanley R. Arthur, commander of the U.S. Seventh 

Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, led U.S. and allied 

naval forces in Operation Desert Storm (January–March 1991), 

one of the most successful campaigns in U.S. military history.
FROM THE ARABIAN GULF TO MOUNT PINATUBO 105

coalition squadrons. Allied fighters made short work 

of Saddam’s air force; Navy Lieutenant Commander 

Mark I. Fox and Lieutenant Nick Mongillo of 

Saratoga’s Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 81 each 

shot down an Iraqi MiG-21 with Sidewinder and 

Sparrow air-to-air missiles. 

Enemy antiaircraft weapons took a toll of 

coalition aircraft during the first 48 hours of 

Operation Desert Storm, shooting down ten 

planes, including three Navy aircraft, most of 

which approached their targets at low levels. Vice

Admiral Arthur, remembering his experiences as 

an attack pilot in Vietnam, wisely advised his naval 

air commanders to seek higher altitudes for their 

bomb runs; losses dropped almost immediately 

thereafter.

One of Arthur’s greatest attributes as a battle 

leader was his ability to work out differences 

with superiors and counterparts and accomplish 

the overall mission. Even though the admiral 

wanted naval aircraft to keep close watch over 

Iraqi mine-laying activity during Desert Shield, he 

understood General Schwarzkopf’s desire to avoid 

sparking hostilities before coalition forces were 

fully prepared for combat. He also did not press 

Air Force Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, 

the coalition’s “air boss,” to carve out a separate air 

defense zone over Iraq for Navy fighter aircraft, 

as advocated by his carrier commanders. Arthur 

was persuaded that the IFF (identification friend 

or foe) equipment on his F-14 Tomcats might not 

be good enough in the combat theater’s crowded 

air environment. The Navy did have disagreements 

with the Air Force over the target selection process, 

aerial refueling priorities, and other issues, and 

Arthur upheld the Navy’s interests. The admiral, 

however, never let disagreements hinder the joint 

effort to defeat the enemy. 

Midway, Ranger, and later in the war Theodore 

Roosevelt (CVN 71) and America (CV 66) would 

not have been able to operate in the confined space 

of the Arabian Gulf without robust defenses against 

air and surface attack. Iraqi forces posed the greatest 

threat, but only two years before Desert Shield, 

Iranian antiship missiles and naval vessels had 

attacked U.S. warships. The carriers and other ships 

operating in the gulf were protected from attack by 

multiple layers of defense. Carrier and shore-based 

fighter and early warning aircraft maintained combat 

air patrols over the gulf night and day, seven days 

a week. A force of nine U.S. cruisers and 12 U.S., 

British, Australian, Dutch, and Italian destroyers and 

frigates, most armed with surface-to-air missiles and 

Phalanx CIWS complemented the defenses. 

Because the Ticonderoga-class guided missile 

cruisers provided the world’s most advanced battle 

management system, Rear Admiral Daniel March, 

Commander, Battle Force Zulu, made the Yokosukabased warship Bunker Hill the command ship for 

fleet defense. He designated her commanding 

officer, Captain Thomas Marfiak, the antiair 

warfare commander for Battle Force Zulu. Marfiak 

employed Bunker Hill’s radars and communications 

NHHC

Naval Operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf during Operation 

Desert Storm.
106 READY SEAPOWER

equipment to coordinate the entire air defense 

picture in the gulf. The only time Saddam tested the 

air defense umbrella in the gulf, on 24 January, he 

lost two of his F-1 Mirage fighters to coalition air 

defense forces.

To divert Saddam’s attention 

from allied forces in the desert on the 

Saudi border, Vice Admiral Arthur 

conducted powerful air and surface 

combat operations in the northern 

gulf beginning in mid-January. On 

the 18th the U.S. guided missile 

frigate Nicholas (FFG 47) and two 

Kuwaiti guided missile patrol boats, 

in conjunction with U.S. Army and 

Royal Navy attack helicopters, seized 

two Iraqi gulf oil platforms, taking 23 

prisoners.

On the 24th A-6 Intruders 

from Theodore Roosevelt discovered 

and attacked a Soviet-built Iraqi 

minesweeper near Qaruh, an island 

off the coast of Kuwait. The naval 

command dispatched the Yokosukabased guided missile frigate Curts

(FFG 38), with an SH-60B and two 

U.S. Army OH-58D helicopters 

embarked, to capture the boat. After 

the aircraft strafed the enemy vessel, 

Commander Glenn H. Montgomery, 

the commanding officer of Curts, 

ordered a party of SEALs and Sailors 

to board the minesweeper, where 

they took 22 prisoners. Montgomery 

deployed other SEALs on Qaruh to 

accept the surrender of 29 more Iraqis. 

The SEALs raised the Kuwaiti and U.S. 

flags over the island, the first territory 

liberated from Saddam Hussein’s 

forces in Desert Storm. The Seventh 

Fleet guided missile frigate received 

a Navy Unit Commendation for her 

performance in the action.

Meanwhile the aircraft and 

surface ships of Battle Force Zulu 

attacked Iraqi naval vessels off Kuwait and in waters 

between Iraq and Iran. By 2 February allied units had 

destroyed or badly damaged all 13 missile boats and 

most of the other combatants in the Iraqi navy. As 

one commander observed, the campaign had driven NHHC L File

The Yokosuka-based Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate Curts (FFG 38) 

was a star performer during the Gulf War.
FROM THE ARABIAN GULF TO MOUNT PINATUBO 107

“Saddam’s navy into Neptune’s soggy arms.” On 8 

February Arthur declared that the allied coalition 

had established sea control in the Northern Arabian 

Gulf. By now his forces included command ships Blue 

Ridge and LaSalle, 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 

12 cruisers, 11 destroyers, 10 frigates, 4 mine warfare 

ships, 31 amphibious ships, 32 auxiliaries, 2 hospital 

ships, 3 submarines, numerous military sealift ships, 

and the 4th and 5th Marine expeditionary brigades.

By 23 February 1991 the air campaign launched 

against Iraqi forces in Kuwait on 17 January 

had destroyed 1,772 enemy tanks, 948 armored 

personnel carriers, and 1,477 artillery pieces. 

Of equal significance, the massive air attacks by 

Midway, the five other U.S. carriers, and allied 

warplanes based in Saudi Arabia had thoroughly 

demoralized Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait.

In preparation for the final coalition assault on 

Saddam’s occupation army, Arthur’s naval forces 

edged closer and closer to the enemy-held coast of 

Kuwait. The sea mine, an enemy weapon that had 

dogged Seventh Fleet ships in World War II, Korea, 

and Vietnam, also complicated naval operations 

in the Gulf War. On 18 February the amphibious 

assault ship Tripoli struck a mine, sustaining severe 

damage. That same day, not far from Tripoli, the 

Aegis cruiser Princeton (CG 59) set off two mines 

that buckled the keel and badly injured three 

Sailors. As damage control parties fought to keep 

both warships afloat, the Guam-based salvage and 

rescue ship Beaufort (ATS 2), despite the obvious 

danger, made her way to the stricken warships. 

Beaufort’s expert salvage officers decided that Tripoli

could steam on her own power out of the minefield. 

NHHC L File

NHHC L File

Command ship Blue Ridge (LLC 19) during Operations Desert Shield 

and Desert Storm.

The 16-inch guns of battleship Wisconsin (BB 64) open up on Iraqi 

fortifications along the coast of Kuwait in January 1991.

NHHC

Mine Warfare in the Arabian Gulf.
108 READY SEAPOWER

At the request of Princeton’s commanding officer, 

Captain Edward B. Hontz, however, Beaufort took 

the cruiser under tow and brought her safely out of 

the minefield and into Bahrain for repairs.

On 24 February the UN coalition opened the 

long-awaited ground, air, and naval campaign to 

liberate Kuwait. To keep Saddam’s eyes focused on 

the sea, Arthur’s fleet intensified operations on the 

coast and among offshore islands. SEALs and other 

special operations forces attacked targets ashore, 

and the battleships Wisconsin and Missouri moved 

in close to bombard Iraqi coastal fortifications 

and troops facing the Marines. The Guam-based 

combat stores ships Niagara Falls (AFS 3) provided 

logistic support to these ships in the northern gulf. 

Aircraft from Midway, Theodore Roosevelt, and 

America dropped tons of bombs on Iraqi troops on 

Faylaka Island. 

In a lightning campaign, U.S. Marine and Arab 

coalition forces stormed Kuwait City while the U.S. 

Army’s VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps and 

other allied forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 

desert of western Kuwait and southern Iraq. Carrier 

aircraft pummeled fleeing enemy troops on the 

so-called “highway of death” north of Kuwait City. 

By 0800 on 28 February it was over. Washington 

announced a cease-fire and directed Saddam to 

dispatch subordinates to the Iraqi village of Safwan 

to learn the terms of a permanent cease-fire spelled 

out in UN Security Council Resolution 687. 

Despite the end of hostilities, Arthur’s naval 

forces still had much work to do. For much of 1991 

allied salvage and explosive ordnance disposal teams 

cleared Kuwait’s ports of unexploded bombs and 

sunken vessels. An international flotilla with vessels 

from 11 navies cleared 1,288 sea mines from the 

approaches to Kuwait and Iraq. Not until 24 April 

1991 did Arthur relinquish control of U.S. Naval 

Forces, Central Command and returned to Yokosuka 

to resume his Seventh Fleet duties in the Far East. 

Washington recognized that even with Saddam’s 

defeat, the Middle East would remain in turmoil. 

Iraq’s internal situation remained unsettled, Iran 

still posed a threat to U.S. interests, and the ArabIsraeli conflict showed no signs of abating. Naval 

leaders decided they needed to create a permanent 

three-star billet to serve as Commander in Chief, 

Central Command’s naval component commander 

and to handle maritime affairs in the waters around 

the Arabian peninsula. This measure would relieve 

Commander Seventh Fleet, fully engaged with the 

never-ending confrontation on the Korean peninsula 

and China’s military rise, of those responsibilities. 

Hence, on 19 October 1992, the Navy established 

COMUSNAVCENT as a permanent three-star billet, 

assigning the duty to Vice Admiral Douglas Katz, and 

on 4 May 1995 Secretary of Defense William J. Perry 

approved establishment of the U.S. Fifth Fleet to 

defend America’s interests in the region. 

Seventh Fleet to the Rescue

The evacuation of people in distress and 

humanitarian relief constituted important Seventh 

Courtesy Paul. E. Tobin

The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo on the Philippine island 

of Luzon in June 1991.
FROM THE ARABIAN GULF TO MOUNT PINATUBO 109

Fleet responsibilities. Operation Fiery Vigil, the 

fleet’s response to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo 

on the Philippine island of Luzon in June 1991, 

brought these missions to the fore. On 4 June 

American and Filipino scientists determined that 

the mountain’s seismic activity had increased 

dramatically and warned that a massive eruption 

was a distinct possibility. The lives of the thousands 

of Filipinos and Americans in the vicinity were at 

great risk, as were Clark Air Base and the Subic 

Bay naval base lying within a few miles of the 

mountain.

By Sunday, 8 June, the seismic activity had 

increased to such a high degree that Commander in 

Chief, Pacific Command Admiral Charles R. Larson 

established Joint Task Force Fiery Vigil and ordered 

the closure of Clark and evacuation of all 21,000 

American service personnel and dependents there. 

This prescient decision enabled the Seventh Fleet 

to deploy ships and planes to Subic 24 hours before 

the volcano blew its top. The Air Force airlifted 

out some evacuees but transported most by vehicle 

to the Subic naval base. The following morning 

hundreds of vehicles snaked down the 50-mile-long 

road between Clark and Subic. Under the direction 

of the naval base commander, Rear Admiral Paul E. 

Tobin, chapels, classrooms, a day care center, and 

other buildings opened their doors to accommodate 

Courtesy Paul. E. Tobin

Collapsed and ash-covered buildings at Subic Bay Ship Repair Facility.
110 READY SEAPOWER

many of the tired but grateful evacuees. Service 

families willingly shared their homes with the 

families from Clark. In addition, Seabees and 3,000 

Marines provided engineering, construction, and 

medical support to the evacuees. 

On the 13th a deluge of ash forced closure of 

Manila International Airport and Naval Air Station 

Cubi Point, from which 29 fixed-wing aircraft had 

already departed. On Friday, 14 June, the ash mixed 

with the heavy rain brought by Typhoon Yunya 

to form a wet concrete-like mixture that covered 

every structure at the Subic base. By the following 

day, “Black Saturday,” the situation had become 

desperate. A massive explosion that rocked the 

volcano sent an enormous cloud high in the sky. The 

heavy ash mixture continued to fall, shutting down 

the power, water, and emergency medical systems 

and blocking out the sun. The weight of the ash 

and ground tremors collapsed 50 buildings in and 

around Subic. Earthquakes caused by the eruption 

shook the ground. The collapse of one building 

killed an Air Force dependent and a Filipino. The 

combined Clark and Subic populations were at 

great risk.

The Seventh Fleet came to the rescue. The 

destroyer tender Cape Cod (AD 43) immediately 

supplied the naval base with electrical power, food, 

fresh water, repair support, and an emergency space 

staffed by medical personnel. The base, however, 

could not long sustain the 30,000 Americans 

concentrated there, so the Seventh Fleet mounted a 

massive seaborne evacuation of Navy and Air Force 

military personnel and their dependents from Subic 

to Cebu Island, 350 miles away. On 16 June, 900 

evacuees boarded the guided missile cruiser Arkansas

(CGN 41) and the frigates Rodney M. Davis (FFG

60) and Curts for the transit. The following day 

1,700 embarked in Long Beach, Lake Champlain (CG

57), Merrill (DD 976), Gary (FFG 51), and USNS

Passumpic (T-AO 107). The amphibious assault ship 

Peleliu (LHA 5), augmented by staff members of the 

Subic Bay naval hospital, provided an emergency 

medical facility that accommodated seriously ill 

patients and pregnant women, a number of whom 

gave birth while underway. One mother on board 

carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) even named 

her newborn boy Abraham. Hundreds of evacuees 

filled the cavernous spaces of Abraham Lincoln and 

NH 96766-KN

Seventh Fleet guided missile frigate Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60).
FROM THE ARABIAN GULF TO MOUNT PINATUBO 111

Midway. For over a week 28 Seventh Fleet and other 

units transported to safety close to 17,000 men, 

women, and children.

Seventh Fleet Sailors earned the gratitude of 

their fellow Americans. One naval officer observed 

that “many evacuees visibly wept as they boarded 

the ships because of the genuine concern, warm 

welcome, and gracious hospitality exhibited by the 

Sailors. . . . Once on board the ships, the evacuees 

enjoyed their first cold drink, hot meal, shower, or 

working toilet facility in many days.” 

He added a vivid description of life on board: 

“Sailors gave up their racks for the evacuees; ships’ 

menus changed to hot dogs and potato chips for 

the children; first-class lounges became playrooms; 

cartoons played continuously over the ships’ 

televisions; razor blades were replaced by diapers in 

ships’ stores; games of jump rope were common on 

the helicopter decks; pet motels were created out of 

boxes; rubber gloves were used as baby bottles.”

Once the ships arrived at Cebu, after a 19-hour 

passage, Navy and Marine helicopters transported 

the evacuees to Mactan International Airport for 

Air Force flights to Guam and on to the United 

States. Throughout Operation Fiery Vigil, Seventh 

Fleet units and personnel demonstrated exceptional 

professional skill and concern for the well-being of 

their fellow Americans.

End of an Era for Subic Bay 

During 1991 American and Filipino government 

representatives negotiated a Treaty of Friendship, 

Peace, and Cooperation that would have allowed 

another three-year occupation of Subic, but the 

Philippine Senate refused to ratify the agreement. 

Despite once favoring a pact, the administration of 

President Cory Aquino announced on 27 December 

1991 that the Subic Bay naval base must be 

evacuated by the end of 1992.

Subic Bay had figured prominently in U.S. naval 

history since the Spanish American War of 1898. 

The fight against Japan for control of the area during 

World War II had been intense and bloody. The 

Seventh Fleet steamed from Subic Bay into battle in 

the opening days of the Korean War. The naval base, 

along with the naval air stations at Cubi Point and 

Sangley Point, proved critical to the Seventh Fleet’s 

operations afloat and ashore during the Vietnam 

War. And the Subic Bay naval base provided 

substantial support to the Navy during the conflicts 

in the Arabian Gulf and numerous crises.

Naval leaders were not only conscious of 

Subic’s legacy but concerned that the loss of the 

base would severely constrain their ability to 

support operations in the South China Sea, the 

Indian Ocean, and beyond. The Seventh Fleet 

would no longer have access to facilities and 

services offered by Subic for “one-stop shopping.” In 

1991 Subic’s ship repair facility handled 60 percent 

of the Seventh Fleet’s repairs; the naval magazine 

held 40,000 tons of ordnance; the supply depot was 

the Navy’s largest overseas depot; and the training 

facility could accommodate live-fire naval gunfire, 

close air support, and jungle training available 

nowhere else in the Western Pacific. Without Subic, 

naval vessels operating in distant waters would 

have to steam almost 2,000 miles or more to reach 

the ship repair, supply, ammunition, and training 

facilities at Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan and 

Guam in the Marianas.

Some might have considered the eruption of 

Mount Pinatubo and resulting evacuation of the Subic 

Bay Naval Base as signals from the gods that the time 

was right for the United States to vacate one of largest 

U.S. naval bases in the world. More down-to-earth 

observers, however, understood that changes in the 

international scene, American global interests, and most 

important, Filipino desires mandated Subic’s closure. 

By 1991 neither the Soviet Union nor the 

People’s Republic of China posed an immediate 

threat to Southeast Asia; Washington needed to divert 

considerable military resources to Middle Eastern 

contingencies; and the people of the Philippines were 

determined to assert full sovereignty over the bases 

on their soil. Moreover, Singapore, located on the 

strategic Strait of Malacca, had stepped in to improve 

the Seventh Fleet’s ability to operate in the Indian 

Ocean and Arabian Gulf. In November 1990 the 

United States and Singapore had signed an addendum 

to a memorandum of understanding, enabling U.S. 
112 READY SEAPOWER

warships, later including Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, 

to use the naval facilities at Changi Naval Base for 

logistics support. During 1992 the Navy moved 

mountains of material to other Pacific bases and 

turned over the facilities to Filipino authorities. On 24 

November 1992 the last U.S. naval personnel left the 

Philippines by air from the naval air station at Cubi 

Point and by sea on board the amphibious assault 

ship Belleau Wood (LHA 3).

Fortunately for the Seventh Fleet, the Gulf 

War had ended when natural disasters in South 

and Southeast Asia demanded rapid and sustained 

action to help thousands of people in distress. 

Humanitarian assistance to the victims of a cyclone 

in Bangladesh and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo 

in the Philippines received the fleet’s attention for 

much of that summer. 

Still the combat operations in the Arabian Gulf 

and humanitarian operations in the Pacific stretched 

the fleet’s resources. Separate naval leaders and forces 

were required to handle the continuing turmoil in the 

Middle East and perennial U.S. responsibilities in the 

Far East. The turnover of the Subic Bay naval base and 

the naval air stations in the Philippines during 1991–

1992 impeded the Seventh Fleet’s ability to operate in 

the far reaches of the Indian Ocean and North Arabian 

Sea. Assignment of a permanent three-star flag officer 

as COMUSNAVCENT and creation of the Fifth Fleet 

finally enabled the Seventh Fleet to tackle the weighty 

challenges it would soon face in the Far East. ★★★

DN-SC-9304371

Amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood (LHA 3) and other U.S. naval vessels tied up at the Subic Bay Ship Repair Facility in 1987.
113

Chapter 8 

Safeguarding the Peace

Aconfrontation over Taiwan and military incidents sorely tested but did not 

torpedo the U.S. relationship with the People’s Republic of China during the years 

from 1995 to 2001. The Seventh Fleet strengthened that connection and U.S. alliances 

throughout the area of responsibility with ship visits, military-to-military exchanges, and disaster 

relief operations. The fleet assisted in the international effort to restrain North Korea’s aggressive 

behavior and to bring peace to East Timor. 

As it had throughout the Cold War, the 

confrontation over Taiwan continued to trouble 

American-Chinese relations during the mid-1990s. 

The U.S.-PRC relationship had been formalized 

with the establishment of diplomatic relations in 

January 1979. That same year the Seventh Fleet’s 

Taiwan Patrol Force, which began operations at the 

start of the Korean War, officially ceased to exist. 

U.S. military personnel also withdrew from Taiwan, 

home to the government of the Republic of China, 

a bitter enemy of the People’s Republic of China. 

Washington and Beijing exchanged ambassadors 

that same month. The increasing global threat posed 

by the Soviet Union in the early 1980s continued to 

warrant close U.S.-PRC ties. 

But when the USSR began to disintegrate late 

in the decade, Beijing had less to fear from a Soviet 

attack and hence less need for a close connection 

to the United States. Further damage to U.S.-PRC 

relations occurred after the People’s Liberation 

Army massacred hundreds of students and other 

demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 

June 1989. Americans and others around the world 

watched in horror as Communist tanks and troops 

crushed the pro-democracy movement. Troubling 

actions by the People’s Liberation Army continued 

to roil the waters. In October 1994, for instance, 

when the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group trailed a 

Han-class attack submarine operating dangerously 

close to the U.S. ships, Beijing dispatched fighter 

aircraft toward the American ships, and a PLA

leader later warned that if another such incident 

occurred the planes would open fire. 

In February 1995 PLAN units occupied 

Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands some 620 miles 

from China’s Hainan Island, but only 150 miles west 

of the Philippines, an American ally and another 

claimant to the Spratly Islands. The following 

month, for the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen 

Square upheaval, a U.S. Navy warship visited China 

when the Seventh Fleet Aegis cruiser Bunker Hill

put in at Qingdao, but it did little to warm the chill 

between the two nations.

PRC determination to put pressure on Taiwan 

in 1995–1996 led to a confrontation with the 

United States, similar to the crises of 1954–1955 

and 1958. During the 1970s U.S. presidents had 

recognized that “China” included both the mainland 

and Taiwan, but in January 1979 the United States 

shifted diplomatic recognition of China from 

Taipei to Beijing. Later that year Congress passed 

the Taiwan Relations Act, which included this 

statement: “[The] United States decision to establish 

diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of 

China rests upon the expectation that the future of 

Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.” The 

United States was not about to abandon Taiwan, its 

faithful Cold War ally. 

Several developments in the early 1990s 

inspired the PRC to threaten military action 

against Taiwan. First, to Beijing’s disappointment, 

democracy had flourished on the island after 
114 READY SEAPOWER

the death of President Chiang Kai-shek and the 

retirement from public office of his son and 

successor Chiang Ching-kuo. All voting-age 

citizens would elect a chief executive in 1996.

Lee Tung-hui, the first native-born Taiwanese 

president, began openly discussing independence 

for his island nation. In addition, Taiwan was 

known as one of the “Asian Tigers” for the wealth 

of its booming free-market economy. When the 

people of Taiwan compared the benefits of life on 

their island with the lack of political freedoms and 

widespread poverty in the PRC, they were decidedly 

unenthusiastic about a union with the mainland. 

The planned May 1995 visit of Lee Tung-hui 

to the United States, for which he needed a U.S. 

government-approved visa, sparked the Taiwan 

Strait Crisis of 1995–1996. Even though President 

Lee intended only to give the commencement 

address at his alma mater, Cornell University, as a 

“private individual,” the leaders in Beijing objected 

vehemently. Chinese Communist Party hard-liners 

charged that the move was evidence of U.S. intent 

to “split” Taiwan from China and was part of a 

secret plan to “contain China” as the United States 

had done during the Cold War. Chinese leaders 

demanded that the U.S. government deny Lee’s 

request for a visa. Determined not to buckle under 

this pressure from the PRC, the U.S. House of 

Representatives voted 396 to 0 and the Senate 96 

to 1 for a resolution in support of a U.S. visa for Lee. 

President Bill Clinton wanted to diffuse the conflict, 

but reluctantly endorsed Congress’ resolution.

In response, Beijing cancelled already-planned 

visits of its officials to the United States. During 

July and August 1995 the PLAN conducted missile 

and live-fire tests in waters only 80 miles from the 

northern coast of Taiwan and close to the air and sea 

lanes between the island and Japan. Other PLAN

and air force units carried out strike maneuvers. The 

exercises were meant to demonstrate that the PLA

could not only devastate Taiwan with its ballistic 

missiles but cut off the island from outside support.

Defense Imaging 1996

Secretary of Defense William J. Perry warned China against threatening Taiwan during the PRC-U.S. confrontation of 1996.
SAFEGUARDING THE PEACE 115

Hoping to defuse the crisis, Washington 

avoided officially condemning the military 

provocations or warning Beijing to refrain from 

further such actions. President Clinton came away 

from a meeting in October 1995 with Chinese 

Premier Jiang Zemin confident the PRC wanted 

good relations with Washington. Just in case, 

State Department officials expressed to Chinese 

officials in later months that use of force by the 

PRC against Taiwan “would be a serious mistake.” 

As another signal, in December the Nimitz carrier 

battle group, en route from Japan to the Arabian 

Gulf, transited the Taiwan Strait, the first time in 

17 years a carrier had entered these waters. The 

next month the amphibious assault ship Belleau 

Wood also transited the strait. If these measures 

were intended to deter aggressive Chinese behavior, 

they did not work, as the Chinese interpreted the 

response as weak and half-hearted.

In anticipation of a national election on Taiwan 

scheduled for mid-1996, the PRC decided to 

influence the vote indirectly by military pressure. 

Chinese leaders also envisioned an opportunity to 

demonstrate to the Taiwanese and others in Asia 

that the United States would not risk war with 

China over the island. The Clinton administration 

bent over backwards to convince Beijing that 

the United States had no “contain China” plan, 

secret or otherwise. Nor did it encourage Taiwan’s 

independence, or consider Lee’s visit to Cornell 

as official in any way. PRC leaders found none of 

these explanations convincing and concluded that 

the weak response by the United States indicated a 

lack of resolve to support Taiwan. Indeed, Secretary 

of Defense William Perry admitted that “our 

diplomatic approach, although uncommonly blunt, 

had not been effective.”

Beginning in February 1996, nuclear and 

conventionally powered submarines, destroyers, 

frigates, patrol craft, and amphibious vessels 

from each of China’s three fleets converged on 

the coast of Fujian Province across from Taiwan 

as did 150,000 ground troops. Hundreds of 

high-performance aircraft, including fighters, 

bombers, and attack planes, deployed to airfields 

in range of Taiwan. The Chinese military planned 

to demonstrate in various exercises that if war 

came, PLA forces would isolate Taiwan from 

outside support by attacks on sea and air lanes 

and destroy Taiwan’s ports and airfields, power 

generation facilities, transportation centers, military 

command-and-control sites, and air defenses. After 

air and naval bombardments, special forces carried 

in aircraft and amphibious landing craft would then 

launch the ground assault. The PLA did not consider 

the difficulty of the operation or expected heavy 

losses as a deterrent to an invasion. 

From 8 to 15 March 1996—during the Taiwan 

presidential campaign—the PLA conducted live-fire 

and missile exercises in two areas only 22 and 32 

miles respectively from Taiwan. China’s official 

news agency reminded readers that the exercises 

were being held on the 17th anniversary of China’s 

1979 war with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 

when Beijing acted to teach the former Communist 

ally “a lesson” for opposing China’s policies in 

Indochina. 

This time the U.S. response was unequivocal. 

Concerned that the Chinese were preparing to 

put enormous pressure on Taiwan’s electorate to 

vote the “right” way, Washington took action. On 

7 March Secretary Perry publicly called Beijing’s 

actions “reckless” and “could only be viewed as an 

act of coercion.” Within days he announced that the 

Seventh Fleet aircraft carrier Independence, guided 

missile cruiser Bunker Hill, destroyers Hewitt (DD 

966) and O’Brien (DD 975), and frigate McClusky

(FFG 41) had deployed near Taiwan. Vice Admiral 

Archie R. Clemins, Commander Seventh Fleet, 

cancelled a port visit to Thailand and monitored 

developments from his flagship Blue Ridge in 

contiguous waters.

The Chinese upped the ante, announcing the 

next phase of exercises—live-fire demonstrations 

southwest of Taiwan by ground, air, and naval forces. 

The PRC’s defense minister made a broadcast in 

which he quoted Zhu De, a founder of the PLA: “As 

long as Taiwan is not liberated, the Chinese people’s 

historical humiliation is not washed away; as long 

as the motherland is not reunited, our people’s 
116 READY SEAPOWER

armed forces responsibility is not fulfilled.”Alarm 

bells went off in Washington that the Chinese might 

actually be planning to invade Taiwan. 

On 10 March Secretary of State Warren 

Christopher told the Chinese that the U.S. viewed 

their actions as “reckless” and “risky” and an obvious 

attempt to coerce Taiwan. He announced that if the 

PRC resorted to force to resolve the Taiwan issue, 

there would be “grave consequences,” adding, “we 

have real interests in Taiwan, and I don’t want the 

Chinese to misunderstand about that.” 

The next day the U.S. government announced 

that a second carrier battle group, comprising the 

carrier Nimitz, guided missile cruiser Port Royal

(CG 73), destroyers Callaghan (DD 994) and 

Oldendorf, frigate Ford (FFG 54), attack submarines 

Columbus (SSN 762) and Bremerton (SSN 698), 

and two auxiliary ships, operating in the Arabian 

Sea, to join the Independence battle group off 

Taiwan. Washington stated that the purpose of 

the deployment was to “make sure there is no 

miscalculation on the part of the Chinese as to our 

interest in that area” and “reassure our friends in the 

region that we will maintain an interest in both the 

peace and stability in that region.” 

The Chinese government’s reaction to the U.S. 

naval deployment was both strident and sustained. 

Official and unofficial media outlets condemned the 

action as provocative and interference in China’s 

internal affairs. Spokesmen alluded to U.S. plans 

to “contain” China and solidify its “hegemonic” 

designs on the world. Beijing, however, did not 

send additional air and naval forces into the Taiwan 

Strait or concentrate in south China the enormous 

NHHC L File

Los Angeles-class attack submarine Columbus (SSN 762).
SAFEGUARDING THE PEACE 117

number of troops, amphibious ships and craft, or 

civilian merchant vessels it would need to execute 

and sustain an invasion of Taiwan. In addition, PLA

air and naval units did not approach U.S. naval 

vessels or aircraft in the vicinity.

In reality, the Beijing government expressed 

surprise at the U.S. reaction to its pressure campaign 

against Taiwan. Given the tepid American response 

to the PRC’s 1995 exercises, Chinese leaders 

expected Washington to voice mild displeasure but 

refrain from stronger measures over the threatening 

but bloodless military movements and weapons 

demonstrations. Chinese leaders understood that the 

PLA navy and air force, much improved since Mao 

Zedong’s days, were still no match for the combat 

power of the two carrier battle groups and the U.S. 

national security establishment backing them. The 

Chinese recognized the technological superiority of 

the U.S. military, which only five years before had 

quickly and decisively destroyed Saddam Hussein’s 

Iraqi armed forces in Operation Desert Storm. 

An invasion of Taiwan in 1996, with or without 

U.S. opposition, would have 

been a herculean task for which 

the PLA was ill prepared. 

Executing an operation across 

100 miles of some of the most 

storm-tossed waters on the 

globe posed great risks. Premier 

Jiang Zemin knew that an 

invasion attempt on Taiwan, 

even a “limited” conflict (if that 

was possible) with the United 

States, would put China’s 

coastal cities and industrial 

centers at risk and jeopardize 

the country’s booming exportbased economy. The PRC’s 

foreign policy would suffer as 

the other Asian nations once 

again witnessed aggressive 

Chinese military behavior. If 

the invasion failed, the people 

on Taiwan could hardly be 

expected to favor union after 

being attacked by their “brothers.” And finally, a 

fiasco in the strait might even cause the people on 

the mainland to question the Chinese Communist 

Party’s ability to rule. 

Impact of the Crisis

While cool heads prevailed in Beijing, the 

PRC did suffer consequences for its threat to the 

democratic process in East Asia. The U.S.-PRC 

relationship, on a generally even plane since 

President Richard Nixon visited Beijing in 1972, 

experienced a dramatic downturn. From Beijing’s 

standpoint, the crisis wrought one undesirable 

result—the previously ambiguous U.S. commitment 

to the defense of Taiwan became explicit

The crisis also forged closer ties between the 

United States and Japan, a historic and potential 

future antagonist of China. One month after the 

1996 crisis, President Clinton and Japanese Prime 

Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto boarded the aircraft 

carrier Independence docked at the Seventh Fleet’s 

Yokosuka naval base. The two leaders signed the 

NH 96766-KN

Carrier Independence (CV 62) turns to port in Asian waters.
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Joint Declaration on Security Alliance for the 

Twenty-first Century. The Taiwan Strait crisis, while 

not explicitly identified in the document, clearly 

influenced it. The joint declaration affirmed the goal 

of the two nations to achieve a “more peaceful and 

stable security environment in the Asia-Pacific region 

[and] the importance of peaceful resolution of 

problems in the region.” It affirmed the two nations’ 

“commitment to the profound values that guide 

our national policies; the maintenance of freedom, 

the pursuit of democracy, and respect for human 

rights.”At the ceremony President Clinton observed 

that the Seventh Fleet’s presence in the region had 

helped “calm a rising storm,” “prevent war’s return,” 

and reassured “nations all around the Pacific.” 

As a follow up to the joint declaration, the 

Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, 

agreed upon in September 1997, and revised in 

1999, called for “cooperation in situations in areas 

surrounding Japan that will have an important 

influence on Japan’s peace and security.” Hence, 

the guidelines provided for JMSDF operational 

cooperation with U.S. forces to include enhanced 

Japanese surveillance and minesweeping support.

A number of nations observed that China’s 

actions unnecessarily threatened the peace, 

stability, and economic prosperity of Asia. Leaders 

in Seoul expressed the fear that Kim Jong-il’s 

North Korean regime, following China’s example, 

might see military force as a means for solving 

its conflict with South Korea. The government 

of the Philippines, similarly concerned about 

China’s aggressive behavior, authorized the U.S. 

submarine Bremerton, destroyers O’Brien and 

McClusky, and combat stores ship Niagara Falls

to refuel in the Philippines when those ships 

were en route from the Arabian Sea to waters 

off Taiwan during the crisis. Lee Kwan Yew, the 

iconic leader of Singapore, feared a U.S.-PRC 

conflict would badly hurt regional commerce and 

thwart “China’s hopes of becoming an industrial 

nation in 25 years.” Singapore’s defense minister 

stressed the renewed importance of his country’s 

security links to the United States, Great Britain, 

Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. Many other 

countries outside the region also reacted negatively 

to China’s threatened use of force to resolve the 

Taiwan issue and pressure on the island nation’s 

electoral process. 

Finally, if the PRC’s military leaders meant to 

scare the electorate on Taiwan to vote against Lee 

Tung-hui and other pro-independence candidates, 

they failed miserably. The people of Taiwan gave 

74 percent of their vote to Lee and his proindependence stance.

A Return to Normalcy in U.S.-PRC Relations

In many ways the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait 

crisis was atypical of U.S.-PRC relations in the 

1990s. Beijing and Washington wanted peace and 

stability to reign in the Western Pacific. In August 

1997 the Seventh Fleet flagship, with Vice Admiral 

Robert J. Natter embarked, made the first visit to 

Hong Kong since the former British colony reverted 

to Chinese rule on 1 July. Commander Seventh 

Fleet hosted PLA Lieutenant General Liu Zhenwu 

and representatives of the Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs on board Blue Ridge, and the people ashore 

warmly received American Sailors.

Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, Commander in 

Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, worked especially 

hard with the Chinese during 1996 and 1997 to 

formalize an agreement that would help each 

party understand the rules of the road at sea and 

prevent unintended but destabilizing mishaps. 

On 19 January 1998 Secretary of Defense 

William H. Cohen and Defense Minister General 

Haotian Chi of the PRC signed the Military 

Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA), 

which established a mechanism for improving 

communication and other issues of mutual 

interest between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN. 

Misperceptions on both sides had much to do 

with the outbreak of the Taiwan Strait crisis. 

Indeed, General Chi observed that the MMCA

related to maintaining “peace and stability in the 

Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.” Prueher 

understood that the Incidents at Sea agreement 

with the Soviet navy had been instrumental in 

“deconflicting” ship and aircraft operations during 
SAFEGUARDING THE PEACE 119

the Cold War. A series of meetings took place in 

China and the United States in 1998 and early 1999 

that dealt with relevant issues. In early summer, 

during President Clinton’s second visit to China, 

he and President Zemin announced that they had 

established a direct “hot line,” and shortly afterward, 

PLAN representatives attended Rim of the Pacific 

(RIMPAC) naval exercises for the first time. 

In August 1998 Blue Ridge, with Vice Admiral 

Natter embarked, and the guided missile destroyer 

John S. McCain (DDG 56) made a four-day 

goodwill visit to Qingdao. The PLAN hosted a pierside gathering for American Sailors and hosted tours 

of Chinese destroyer Qingdao and frigates Tongling

and Xining.

The accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese 

embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 during the 

NATO-led war with Serbia briefly disrupted the 

goodwill between the two countries. The PRC 

cut military-to-military contacts and temporarily 

barred Seventh Fleet ship visits to Hong Kong.

Angry Chinese demonstrators surrounded the U.S. 

Embassy in Beijing for days after the incident. But 

the crisis proved to be temporary. 

Defense Imaging 1996

Rear Admiral Charles W. Moore Jr., commander of the Independence battle group, discusses naval operations with Secretary of Defense 

William H. Cohen.

Defense Imaging 1998

Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, shown here as Commander in Chief, 

U.S. Pacific Command, became U.S. Ambassador to China after 

retiring from the Navy in 1999.
120 READY SEAPOWER

China’s top priority at the turn of the 21st 

century was to enhance the domestic prosperity of 

the developing country and to enter the ranks of the 

world’s economic powerhouses. Leaders in Beijing 

also recognized that America’s military dominance 

in Asia discouraged North Korean aggression and 

helped restrain Japanese political and military 

ambitions. As before the crisis, the United States 

wanted to nurture democratic governance and 

free market enterprise among its Asian allies and 

encourage China’s development as a “responsible 

stakeholder” in the international system.

Deterring North Korea

Washington remained concerned over the

threat posed by North Korea’s heavily armed, 

well-trained, and highly motivated military forces. 

The Communist regime of Kim Il-sung and his 

son Kim Jong-il fielded over one million fighting 

men (including a large contingent of elite special 

forces troops), 14,000 tanks, 10,000 artillery 

pieces, multiple rocket launchers, 1,000 aircraft, 

and 25 submarines during the 1990s. North Korean 

leaders deployed the bulk of these forces along 

the Demilitarized Zone near the 38th parallel 

and within striking distance of the South Korean 

capital, Seoul. 

More alarming to U.S. and allied leaders 

was North Korea’s arsenal of weapons of mass 

destruction (WMD). During the Cold War the 

Soviet Union and other countries had provided the 

North Koreans with ballistic missiles capable of 

delivering nuclear or conventional warheads and 

chemical weapons that included Sarin, Phosgene, 

and other deadly substances. 

Seventh Fleet and other U.S. armed forces 

deployed to the Western Pacific displayed their 

military strength and combat readiness in visible 

exercises meant to discourage North Korean 

aggression. In keeping with U.S. treaties of alliance 

with Japan and Republic of Korea the Seventh Fleet 

presence left no doubt that the United States would 

defend these countries.

Concern had increased in March 1993 when 

the North Korean government put the country in 

a “state of readiness for war,” declared its intention 

to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 

Treaty, and barred international inspectors from 

its nuclear processing sites. The international 

community suspected that North Korea was 

developing its own nuclear weapon capability. 

Tension heightened when North Korea fired a 

Nodong-1 missile and antiship missiles into the 

Sea of Japan/East Sea. With a range of 400 or more 

miles, the Nodong-1 could have hit targets in all of 

South Korea and parts of western Japan. 

To stiffen allied defenses, in April 1994 the 

Defense Department deployed Patriot surface-toair missile batteries, attack helicopters, armored 

fighting vehicles, and 1,000 troops to South Korea. 

The National Command Authority dispatched the 

Seventh Fleet’s forward-deployed Independence battle 

group, and later the Kitty Hawk battle group, to 

waters off the Korean peninsula. CINCPAC assigned 

Commander Seventh Fleet additional responsibility 

as Commander, Combined Naval Component 

Command for the defense of South Korea. 

As the likelihood of a destructive war 

seemed to increase, the Clinton administration 

opened negotiations with North Korea to end 

the confrontation. On 21 October 1994 the 

United States and North Korea signed an Agreed 

Framework in which the United States pledged to 

replace North Korea’s plutonium-processing facility 

with light water reactor power plants and heating 

oil supplies. 

Only a few months later, amid contentions 

that the United States was not living up to the 

provisions of the Agreed Framework, North Korea 

resumed its plutonium-processing and ballistic 

missile programs and made threatening remarks 

aimed at Japan and South Korea. In response, the 

Clinton administration placed the Enterprise and 

Abraham Lincoln battle groups on heightened 

readiness. In addition, during the summer and 

early fall of 1995, Seventh Fleet and Republic 

of Korea Navy (ROKN) forces carried out staff 

talks and naval exercises to ensure readiness for 

combat. In the annual Exercise Ulchi Focus Lens 

95 and Exercise Freedom Banner 95, U.S. Navy, 
SAFEGUARDING THE PEACE 121

U.S. Marine, and ROKN forces practiced operations 

ashore and afloat. In the former exercise, the 

Seventh Fleet leader, Vice Admiral Archie Clemins, 

served as the overall naval commander for the 

United Nations and Combined Forces commands. 

In 1995 North Korea sent heavily armed troops 

into the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom and 

combat vessels across the Northern Limit Line 

into waters claimed by the Republic of Korea. In 

September 1996 South Korean military forces 

discovered a North Korean special operations 

midget submarine run aground on the east coast 

of South Korea. They killed all but one of the 

24 crewmen and special operations troops who 

had come ashore earlier from the vessel. In July 

1997 North Korean soldiers crossed into the 

Demilitarized Zone and got into a firefight with 

South Korean troops who killed or wounded several 

of the intruders. 

On 31 August 1998 North Korea tested an 

advanced Taepo Dong missile, one section of which 

overflew Japan’s main island of Honshu. In June 

1999 things really heated up when, after repeated 

intrusions into South Korean fishing grounds, North 

Korean patrol boats, in the so-called “crab wars,” 

opened fire on ROKN combatants off the west coast. 

The South Koreans returned fire and sank an enemy 

torpedo boat and damaged five other patrol boats, 

killing anywhere from 17 to 100 North Korean 

sailors. In the Battle of Yeonpyeong, the ROKN

had only two vessels lightly damaged and nine of 

its sailors wounded. That same year Japan and the 

United States began joint work on the development 

of ship-based antimissile defenses similar to the U.S. 

Navy’s Aegis battle management system.

Despite these periodic bellicose 

demonstrations, North Korea’s leaders knew that 

resorting to hostilities ran the risk of full-scale 

combat with the military and naval power of the 

United States and its northeast Asian allies and 

the real risk of losing that war. Backed by this 

power, Washington used skillful diplomacy and 

international pressure to isolate the “rogue” North 

Korean regime and limit its nuclear and missile 

development ambitions.

Naval Diplomacy at Work

The Seventh Fleet presence reminded allies and 

potential foes alike that the United States meant 

to protect its interests in the region. The flagship 

Blue Ridge routinely visited Okinawa, Hong Kong, 

Brisbane, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Singapore, 

and numerous other ports in the Seventh Fleet area 

of responsibility where Commander Seventh Fleet 

could interact with foreign political and military 

leaders. Frequently, the ship hosted receptions and 

tours for thousands of people at each port. On the 

occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Russian 

navy in July 1996, Blue Ridge conducted a fourday visit to the port of Vladivostok and hosted a 

reception on board. 

Reflecting the growing connection between 

the United States and Singapore, in 1993 the 

city state hosted the establishment there of the 

Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific/CTF

73 headquarters. Shortly afterward the two nations 

agreed to bilateral relations between the U.S. Navy 

and Royal Singapore Navy. With the U.S. withdrawal 

from the Subic Bay naval base in the Philippines, 

this development gained importance as both nations 

stove to maintain maritime security in the South 

China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. 

Ensuring that the U.S. alliance treaties with 

Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, 

Australia, and New Zealand were not seen by friend 

or potential foe as mere pieces of paper, in any given 

year Seventh Fleet units participated in 90 to 100 

multinational (combined) and multi-U.S. service 

(joint) exercises. In 1997, a typical year of the decade, 

the Seventh Fleet organized or participated in 91 

sea, air, ground, special operations, and command 

post exercises with military forces from Japan, South 

Korea, Thailand, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Indonesia, 

Malaysia, and the Philippines.

One such event, Exercise Tandem Thrust 97, 

involved more than 28,000 personnel, 43 ships, and 

250 aircraft from the U.S. and Australian armed 

forces. Major combatants included the flagship Blue 

Ridge, carrier Independence, amphibious ships Essex

(LHD 2) and New Orleans (LPH 11), guided missile 

cruiser Mobile Bay (CG 53), and attack submarine 
122 READY SEAPOWER

Salt Lake City (SSN 716). Veteran warships Perth, 

Brisbane, Torrens, Sydney, and Melbourne represented 

the Royal Australian Navy. Throughout March, the 

two allies worked at the Shoalwater Bay Training 

Area in Queensland, Australia, to hone their skills 

in combined amphibious, airborne assault, and 

logistic operations. The primary goal of the exercise 

was to enhance the two nations’ use of electronic 

command and control technologies in conducting 

Pacific-region contingency operations. From the U.S. 

perspective, the exercise reaffirmed the benefits of 

the longtime American-Australian connection. In 

that regard, Seventh Fleet ships made 31 port visits 

to cities around the country and pumped over $10 

million into local economies.

The Seventh Fleet was vital not only to the 

defense of Asian allies from direct attack, as 

provided for in bilateral treaties, but to the peaceful 

resolution of disputes over contested maritime 

territories. Both Japan and Russia claim sovereignty 

over the Japanese Northern Territories/southern 

Kurile Islands of the North Pacific; Japan and South 

Korea lay claim to Takeshima/Dok-do in the Sea 

of Japan/East Sea; and Japan and China assert 

ownership of the potentially oil-rich Senkaku/

Diaoyutai islands in the East China Sea. At least five 

maritime nations, including the People’s Republic of 

China, claim all or part of the Spratly chain in the 

South China Sea. The United States, concerned with 

maintaining peace and stability in the region, helped 

persuade the countries involved that it would not be 

beneficial to press their claims by force.

Supporting UN Peacemaking in East Timor

The Seventh Fleet’s forward deployment and 

readiness for action proved of inestimable value in 

1999, when the United Nations worked to limit 

fighting in East Timor in the Indonesian Archipelago. 

Fighting began when armed East Timorese and rogue 

members of the Indonesian military reacted angrily 

to a vote by a sizable majority of East Timor’s citizens 

in favor of independence from Indonesia. On 15 

September 1999 UN Security Council Resolution 

1264 called on member nations to deploy ground, air, 

and naval forces to East Timor to restore peace and 

security. With Australia in the lead of International 

Forces in East Timor, or INTERFET, soldiers, sailors, 

airmen, and police from 20 nations deployed to 

the troubled country in Operation Stabilize. These 

forces oversaw and encouraged the departure from 

East Timor of all Indonesian military forces and antiindependence militias. As part of the stabilization 

process, they also provided food and medical care 

to the tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees 

displaced by the inter-communal fighting.

The Seventh Fleet guided missile cruiser Mobile 

Bay, already participating in combined exercises off 

Australia with the Royal Australian Navy, became 

immediately available. Australian commanders 

of Stabilize recognized that the ship’s advanced 

Aegis battle management system would serve as an 

especially valuable asset to the operation. The cruiser’s 

Link-16 communications suite could provide other 

warships and ground force headquarters with realtime information on potential air and surface threats 

captured on the ship’s electronic display systems. 

Mobile Bay and the Military Sealift Command’s 

Kilauea (T-AE 26), a 20,000-ton ammunition ship 

equipped with two CH-46 Sea Knight logistic support 

helicopters, constituted the initial element of U.S. 

Joint Task Force, Timor Sea Operations.

CIA

East Timor (Timor Leste).
SAFEGUARDING THE PEACE 123

Commander Seventh Fleet also dispatched to 

East Timor the Sasebo-based amphibious assault ship 

Belleau Wood carrying the Marines and helicopters of 

the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which arrived off 

Dili, the capital, on 1 October. CH-46 and CH-53 Sea 

Stallion helicopters of Marine Medium Helicopter 

Squadron 265 immediately began transporting critical 

supplies of food directly from logistic ships to refugee 

camps and isolated villages. These naval forces enabled 

the United States to limit the American “footprint” 

ashore, a key U.S. foreign policy requirement. 

Washington wanted to highlight the fact that the UN

oversaw the operation and that Australia, not the 

United States, directed the military effort. The 

helicopters operating from Belleau Wood and Kilauea

also provided critical logistical support to the military 

forces from other nations ashore and afloat.

By early November, relieved by the amphibious 

assault ship Peleliu and the Military Sealift Command 

support ship San Jose (T-AFS 7), Belleau Wood and 

Mobile Bay headed home to Japan and praise for a job 

well done. The U.S. naval commitment to Operation 

Stabilize ended in February 2000 when INTERFET

transferred operational authority to an international 

police force ashore and wrapped up its peacekeeping 

responsibilities in East Timor. The government 

and people of East Timor, free from the threat of 

politically inspired violence, could now pay attention 

to building their new nation. 

The Hainan Incident

Even in peacetime, American Sailors in the 

Western Pacific routinely carry out duties that put their 

lives in jeopardy. Their heavy responsibilities demand a 

consistent demonstration of courage, professionalism, 

and dedication to the mission. One such test occurred 

on April Fools’ Day, 2001—and it was no joke. 

Before dawn that day, an EP-3E Aries II

intelligence-collection plane of Fleet Air 

Reconnaissance Squadron (VQ) 1 took off from 

NHHC L File

Ammunition ship Kilauea (T-AE 26) supported Operation Stabilize off East Timor in 1999.
124 READY SEAPOWER

the airfield at Kadena on Okinawa for a planned and 

routine patrol along the coast of China. The Navy 

had conducted operations like this for years. The 

EP-3E, piloted by Lieutenant Shane Osborn, and 

another 23 men and women of VQ-1, the “World 

Watchers,” had almost completed the patrol by 0915 

when two J-8II “Finback” fighter interceptors of the 

Chinese PLAN approached the American plane 

over international waters about 70 miles southeast 

of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The PRC 

did not like foreign ships or aircraft operating in 

this area near its military installations on Hainan 

or further south in the Paracel Islands claimed by 

Beijing. Chinese Lieutenant Commander Wang 

Wei twice flew his fighter dangerously close to the 

EP-3E and on his third pass collided with an engine 

propeller of the American plane. The propeller 

cut the jet in two. The Chinese pilot did not 

survive when his plane crashed into the EP-3E and 

plummeted in two parts into the sea from 22,500 

feet. The other Chinese pilot asked headquarters for 

permission to shoot down the unarmed American 

plane, but his superiors denied the request.

The collision severely damaged the EP-3E’s left 

outboard propeller, radar dome, and left aileron, 

forcing the plane into a steep, upside-down 14,000-

foot dive. Lieutenant Osborn thought they would all 

be killed. But demonstrating superb airmanship, for 

which the Navy later awarded him the Distinguished 

Flying Cross, Osborn brought the aircraft under 

control, readied his crew for an emergency bail-out, 

and prepared to land the crippled plane on Hainan. 

In the meantime the well-trained crew went 

into action to destroy the plane’s intelligence 

collection equipment and highly classified data. 

As the pilot wrestled the plane toward a landing 

field on the island, the crew smashed onboard 

gear and obliterated sensitive documents. Despite 

making repeated radio calls for permission to 

make an emergency landing on Hainan, Shane’s 

communications went unanswered. But determined 

to save his crew and the plane, the lieutenant 

pressed on and safely landed 

the EP-3E. For another 15 

minutes, as armed Chinese 

guards closed in around the 

plane, the crew continued to 

destroy sensitive materials. 

For the next ten days the 

Chinese detained the crew 

on the island and tried to get 

them to “admit their guilt.” 

Despite sometimes unpleasant 

interrogation methods, 

the Chinese fed, housed, 

and treated the Americans 

decently. On 11 April U.S. 

Ambassador to China Joseph 

Prueher (former Commander 

in Chief, Pacific Command 

and retired four-star admiral) 

presented Foreign Minister 

Tang Jiaxuan with a “letter of 

two sorries.” The document 

related that the United States 

was “very sorry” for the death 

Defense Imaging 2001

Lieutenant Shane Osborn, with Admiral Thomas Fargo, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 

answers questions about the crash of a Chinese jet fighter into his unarmed patrol plane over 

international waters near Hainan Island on 1 April 2001.
Marine Flagship

Belleau Wood (LHA 3), commissioned 

in 1978 and a veteran of service in 

the Western Pacific during the 1980s, 

became the Navy’s only forward-deployed 

amphibious assault ship when she made 

her home at the Sasebo naval base in 

September 1992. Her Sailors and Marines 

hardly had time to enjoy their new 

surroundings in Japan when duty called. 

That November Belleau Wood and other 

Seventh Fleet ships evacuated American 

military and civilian personnel from 

the Subic Bay naval base, which ceased operations. For the remainder of the 1990s, the 40,000-ton 

amphibious assault ship with 30 helicopters, several landing craft, and 3,000 Sailors and Marines took 

part in numerous combined exercises with Japanese, Australian, Thai, and South Korean naval forces 

and visited ports throughout the operational area. The ship also helped evacuate U.S. and other forces 

from Somalia, monitored the UN no-fly zone over Iraq in Operation Southern Watch, and participated in 

the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor.

In 2000 Belleau Wood and the amphibious assault ship Essex (LHD 2) figured in an ingenious 

measure to minimize family separations. Essex relieved Belleau Wood in Sasebo so the latter ship could 

undergo overhaul and maintenance in San Diego; the ships simply swapped crews so the Sailors and 

their families could stay where they were in Sasebo and San Diego. 

Several years later Belleau Wood served as the flagship for the commander of the Sasebo-based 

Expeditionary Strike Group 3, Brigadier 

General Joseph V. Medina, the first 

Marine general officer to command a 

force of naval warships.

After the 11 September 2001 

attacks, Belleau Wood and the other 

ships of the expeditionary strike group 

deployed to the Western Pacific, Indian 

Ocean, and North Arabian Sea to support 

President George W. Bush’s Global War 

on Terrorism and combat operations in 

Afghanistan. The amphibious assault 

ship’s aircraft then flew close air 

support strikes in Iraq during Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. Following 27 years 

of active service, Belleau Wood was 

decommissioned on 28 October 2005.

NHHC L File

Amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood (LHA 3). NHHC L File

Amphibious assault ship Essex (LHD 2), foreground, and 

Belleau Wood steaming together.
126 READY SEAPOWER

of the Chinese pilot and for the EP-3E making 

the unauthorized landing on Hainan. The Chinese 

authorities then released the American crew and 

three months later their plane.

The incident left U.S. naval leaders questioning 

the benefit of the previous years of military-tomilitary engagement. Indeed, only two weeks 

before the Hainan incident, Commander Seventh 

Fleet, Vice Admiral James W. Metzger, had met 

in Shanghai with Vice Admiral Zhao Guojun, 

commander of the PLAN’s East Sea Fleet. Such 

meetings normally went well, but they were not 

able to prevent periodic military-to-military clashes. 

Shortly after the Hainan incident, President George 

W. Bush approved a request from Taiwan to purchase 

diesel-electric submarines, P-3 Orion antisubmarine 

aircraft, and four Kidd-class destroyers. He also allowed 

Defense Department officials to brief Taiwan’s military 

on the Patriot PAC-3 missile defense system. On 25 

April 2001 Bush said the United States would do 

“whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.”

From 1995 to 2001 the Seventh Fleet successfully 

carried out its mission of ensuring peace and stability 

in the Asia-Pacific region through deterrence and 

readiness honed in multinational exercises. The fleet 

accomplished positive actions such as military-tomilitary exchanges, port visits, multinational exercises, 

and the East Timor support operation. The successful 

performance of the mission enabled peaceful 

resolution of the confrontations with China over 

Taiwan in 1995–1996 and the EP-3E collision near 

Hainan Island in 2001. Frequent and visible U.S. shows 

of force almost always occurred when North Korea 

initiated belligerent actions in Northeast Asia. Without 

firing a shot, the Seventh Fleet helped deflate hostile 

confrontations and helped convince America’s allies 

that they could count on the U.S. commitment to their 

defense in times of peril. ★★★

Defense Imaging 2001

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Henry H. Shelton presents awards to the crew members of the Navy EP-3E Aries patrol plane 

involved in the Hainan incident.
127

Chapter 9

Terrorists, Pirates, and 

Weapons Proliferators

I

n line with national and theater objectives of the 21st century, the U.S. Seventh Fleet engaged 

primarily in activities that enhanced multinational partnerships and ensured peace and 

security in the Western Pacific’s maritime domain. The fleet joined with navies, coast guards, 

and national security agencies from many Pacific Rim nations in the successful effort to defeat 

threats from nonstate terrorists, pirates, and weapons-proliferating governments. 

The U.S. and Allied Response to 9/11

International terrorism emerged as a major 

threat to Asia’s peace, stability, and maritime 

trade in the new century. One of the most horrific 

events in modern history 

marked the year 2001. On 

11 September terrorists 

espousing a radical 

interpretation of Islam

crashed civilian airliners 

into the World Trade Center 

towers in New York City, 

the Pentagon in northern 

Virginia, and a field in 

central Pennsylvania. The 

combined attacks killed 

close to 3,000 Americans 

and hundreds of people 

from other nations. Osama 

Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda 

terrorist group promised to 

kill more American citizens 

in the United States and 

abroad. Al-Qaeda, hosted 

and protected by the Taliban 

government in Afghanistan, 

made common cause 

with like-minded Islamist 

terrorist groups in Europe, 

Africa, and Asia. These groups targeted not only 

Americans but governments and peoples around the 

world dedicated to religious tolerance, the rule of 

law, and basic human rights.

The United States responded immediately 

and robustly. In Operation Enduring Freedom, 

U.S. Special Forces units 

deployed to Afghanistan and 

teamed up with the antiTaliban, anti-al-Qaeda forces 

of the Northern Alliance to 

drive the terrorists out of 

the capital, Kabul, by the 

end of October 2001. Only 

days after 9/11, the Seventh 

Fleet dispatched the Kitty 

Hawk carrier battle group 

from Yokosuka to the North 

Arabian Sea, joining with 

other U.S. and allied naval, 

air, and ground forces to 

push the terrorists out of 

the population centers 

and into the mountains 

along the Afghan-Pakistan 

border. As a reflection of 

the Navy’s versatility and 

flexibility, Kitty Hawk

served as a launch platform 

for embarked U.S. Special 

Forces helicopters rather 

than the usual combat air wing of fixed-wing 

aircraft, which had been offloaded in Japan. USN Photo Gallery

A New York City firefighter looks up at what remains of 

the World Trade Center destroyed by Islamist terrorists 

on 11 September 2001.
128 READY SEAPOWER

Asian Terrorism and Piracy on the Rise 

The terrorist threat to Southeast Asia posed 

by Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, and other 

al-Qaeda-affiliated groups demanded the Seventh 

Fleet’s close attention. While separatist Muslims on 

Mindanao and other southern Philippine islands had 

been battling the government of the Philippines for 

decades, the Abu Sayyaf group tied their efforts to 

the global jihadist movement. The group’s founder, 

Abdurajak Janjalani, born on the Philippine island 

of Basilan, fought alongside Osama Bin Laden 

against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 

returned to his home imbued with religious zeal and 

fanatical determination.

Abu Sayyaf had a long history of violence. In 

August 1991 its guerrillas attacked the missionary 

ship MV Doulous in the port of Zamboanga City, 

killing two Christian missionaries. U.S. intelligence 

analysts directly tied Abu Sayyaf to the ambitious 

1995 plot, Operation Plan Bojinka, to kill President 

Clinton and the Pope, bomb U.S. embassies in 

Bangkok and Manila, and destroy American 

passenger planes over the Pacific. The plot was 

foiled only when explosives stored in the Manila 

apartment of the chief plotter, Ramzi Yousef, ignited 

a fire, which alerted the authorities. That same year 

Abu Sayyaf guerrillas landed by boat near Ipil in the 

Philippines, killed close to 100 people, cleaned out 

seven banks, and burned the town to the ground. 

Philippine military forces killed Abdurajak in 

December 1998, but the group lived on under his 

brother Kadaffy and increasingly resorted to piracy 

and kidnapping for ransom. The terrorists kidnapped 

21 tourists at a resort on an island off Malaysia in 

April 2000. In May 2001 the group abducted 20 

tourists, including Americans Martin and Gracia 

Burnham and Guillermo Sobero at the Dos 

Palmas resort on the Philippine island of Palawan. 

The terrorists released most of the abductees but 

beheaded Sobero. They held the Burnhams until the 

following year when a Philippine army raid resulted 

in the death of Martin but rescue of Gracia. 

USN Photo Gallery

Admiral Dennis Blair, head of the Pacific Command, speaks in early 2002 with a U.S. Special Forces officer whose men are helping train 

Philippines units going after Abu Sayyaf terrorists.
Witness to History

Kitty Hawk (CV 63) figured prominently during much of the Seventh Fleet’s history. Commissioned in 

April 1961, the carrier entered Yokosuka, Japan, in October 1962. Kitty Hawk served as the temporary 

Seventh Fleet flagship when Vice Admiral Thomas H. Moorer relieved Vice Admiral William A. Schoech 

that same month. Following a visit to the ship in June 1963, President John F. Kennedy observed that 

Kitty Hawk “gives real meaning to the phrase ‘our first line of defense’.” 

The ship’s wartime experience began in June 1964 when Communist gunners in Laos shot down 

the RF-8A Crusader flown by Lieutenant Charles F. Klusmann of Light Photographic Squadron 63. After a 

harrowing 86 days in captivity, the young pilot escaped; a search and rescue helicopter plucked him from 

the jungle. In November 1965 the ship’s air wing flew strikes against Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. 

Kitty Hawk completed five more combat 

deployments to Southeast Asia, during 

which her fighter squadrons downed six 

North Vietnamese MiGs and her attack 

squadrons hit hundreds of bridges, supply 

depots, rail yards, petroleum storage sites, 

and troop concentrations in North Vietnam, 

South Vietnam, and Laos. 

During the late 1970s and 1980s 

Kitty Hawk asserted the Seventh Fleet’s 

presence in Asian waters but especially 

in the North Pacific and Indian Ocean 

where the Soviet Pacific Fleet mounted a 

challenge. On numerous occasions Soviet 

bombers and reconnaissance planes flew 

menacingly close to the carrier, and naval 

vessels shadowed her passage. In March 

1984 the Soviets got too close; a Victor I 

attack submarine unexpectedly surfaced under the carrier then involved in an exercise with the Republic 

of Korea Navy. Despite the potential for catastrophe, the crash did not seriously damage either vessel.

After a stint in U.S. ports, Kitty Hawk operated off Somalia in support of the United Nations 

humanitarian mission and in the Arabian Gulf during the 1990s. Flying in support of Operation Southern 

Watch over Iraq to enforce a no-fly mandate, the carrier’s air wing dodged antiaircraft fire and launched 

retaliatory strikes. 

Kitty Hawk relieved Independence (CV 62) as America’s only forward-deployed carrier when she 

steamed into Yokosuka in August 1998. During the next four years the ship took part in combined and 

joint exercises in the Western Pacific. In the wake of the 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks 

on America, however, Kitty Hawk deployed to the North Arabian Sea in Operation Enduring Freedom. 

After another deployment in the Far East, the ship returned to war in March 2003, when Carrier Air Wing 

5 carried out numerous strikes against Saddam Hussein’s armed forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Kitty 

Hawk’s squadrons paid particular attention to the Medina Republican Guard armored division, which 

they bombed repeatedly with deadly precision guided munitions. The old Seventh Fleet warrior finally 

turned over her Western Pacific duties to George Washington (CVN 73) in August 2008 and headed 

home. The Navy decommissioned Kitty Hawk in 2009 after 48 years of memorable service.

USN Photo Gallery

The Seventh Fleet’s Kitty Hawk (CV 63) deployed to waters off Pakistan and hosted U.S. 

Special Forces units for Enduring Freedom operations in Afghanistan, February 2001.
130 READY SEAPOWER

Jemaah Islamiyah and other violent terrorist 

groups targeted foreigners and Western commercial 

interests in Indonesia and Malaysia. Jemaah 

Islamiyah operatives would have attacked Seventh 

Fleet warships anchored off Singapore in late 

2001 if not for swift action by local authorities 

that thwarted the plan. Regional security forces 

frustrated other radical Islamist plans to attack 

Seventh Fleet vessels offshore or in area ports. 

A video captured in Afghanistan showed that 

terrorists had staked out a bus stop in Singapore 

frequented by American Sailors. Co-religionists 

in southern Thailand launched police station and 

schoolhouse bombings to register their displeasure 

with the Bangkok government. Radical Islamists 

bombed the Indonesian ferry Kalifornia in late 

2001, killing or injuring 56 Christians. In October 

2002 al-Qaeda operatives loaded a rubber Zodiac 

boat with explosives, steered it toward the French 

tanker Limburg in the Gulf of Aden, and exploded 

the package against the hull. That same month 

Islamist terrorists exploded bombs at several 

locations on the island of Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 

Indonesians and foreigners, including 88 Australians. 

This loss to Australia, with a much smaller 

population than the United States, resembled the 

9/11 attacks on America. Bombing attacks that 

killed or wounded hundreds of mostly Indonesian 

people also occurred in 2003, 2004, and 2005. The 

success of al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist attacks in the 

United States, and later Spain and Great Britain, 

energized radicals to attack Americans throughout 

Southeast Asia and posed a real threat to peace and 

stability in the region.

The fact that piracy had existed in Asian 

waters for at least a thousand years did not lessen 

concern for the safety of maritime traffic that 

moved between the Arabian Gulf, Indian Ocean, 

South China Sea, and East China Sea. Maritime 

chokepoints, especially the narrow Strait of Malacca 

between Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, 

through which 50,000 ships passed each year, 

appeared particularly vulnerable to armed pirates 

operating from fast boats. Global authorities 

counted 2,463 pirate attacks or attempts from 2000 

to 2006, with 25 percent of them taking place in 

Indonesian waters. In 22 instances during 2005, 

armed pirates came alongside vessels underway in 

Southeast Asian waters, used grappling hooks to 

board, and made away with thousands of dollars 

worth of goods. 

In the first decade of the 21st century it was 

hard to distinguish pirates from terrorists. The former 

traditionally acted for financial gain while the latter 

sought to achieve religious and political goals. But 

pirates sometimes used religion as a cover for their 

greed, and terrorists needed money to finance their 

attacks. In one incident during 2003, guerrillas 

operating from the Indonesian province of Aceh 

seized control of a fully loaded oil tanker en route 

from Singapore to Penang in Malaysia and ransomed 

the ship’s officers for $52,000. In March 2005, 

35 pirates armed with machine guns and rocketpropelled grenade launchers seized an Indonesian 

tanker in the Strait of Malacca and extorted a ransom 

for release of their hostages. The following month, 

armed pirates stormed a ship filled with tin in a 

Malaysian port, unloaded the cargo, took the ship to 

sea, and made good their escape in a fast boat. 

These armed takeovers sometimes not only 

resulted in the deaths of crewmen and passengers 

but also forced the shipping companies to pay 

ransom, which drove up insurance rates. In the 

volatile year of 2005, the Joint War Committee of 

Lloyd’s Market Association declared the Strait of 

Malacca a “war-risk” zone, which significantly raised 

insurance rates for the ships transiting those waters. 

Counterterrorism experts worried that terrorists 

would sink a huge oil tanker in the vital strait to 

stop traffic, detonate a liquefied natural gas carrier in 

port, or use a captured vessel as a platform to launch 

missiles, drop mines, or deploy fast attack boats.

Multinational Action to Combat Terrorism 

and Piracy

The Seventh Fleet had shouldered much 

of the burden for protecting the sea lines of 

communication and oceangoing commerce in the 

Western Pacific during the Cold War. U.S. naval 

leaders then saw the major threat to maritime 
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 131

intercourse as emanating from the conventional 

naval forces of the USSR, China, and other 

Communist nations.

The early 21st century threat to oceanic 

trade proved much more diverse, complex, and 

resistant to decisive counteraction by the Seventh 

Fleet acting alone. In addition to international 

terrorism, the transfer of illegal arms and explosives, 

drug smuggling, territorial disputes, piracy, and 

other factors clearly mandated a new, more 

comprehensive multinational approach to maritime 

security. Even before 11 September 2001, Admiral 

Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the Pacific 

Command, had promoted the concept of “security 

communities.” He called for collective efforts to 

resolve “regional points of friction; contribute 

armed forces and other aid to peacekeeping and 

humanitarian operations to support diplomatic 

solutions; and plan, train, and exercise . . . armed 

forces together for these operations.”

In this new era, the United Nations and 

regional groupings often took the lead in fostering 

multinational antiterrorism and antipiracy efforts. 

As called for in the UN Convention on the Law 

of the Sea, member nations worked to bring the 

force of international law to issues relating to 

territorial waters, seabed minerals, and fisheries. In 

the aftermath of 9/11, the Asia Pacific Economic 

Cooperation (APEC) organization developed a 

counterterrorism plan that detailed measures for 

combating port and shipboard security and piracy. 

The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand 

formed an antiterrorism coalition in 2002 and their 

navies frequently exercised together. 

The following year the Association of Southeast 

Asian Nations (ASEAN) promulgated Bali Accord 

II that called on member states—the United States 

was not a member but supported its goals—to 

fight cooperatively against maritime terrorism, 

piracy, and smuggling. In July 2004 the navies of 

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore combined forces 

in Operation Malsindo, which protected maritime 

commerce against terrorists and pirates in the Strait 

of Malacca. In November 2004, 16 countries, led by 

Japan and including the ASEAN members plus China, 

South Korea, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka, signed 

the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating 

Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships. The parties 

to the agreement concurred in the establishment 

of an Information Sharing Center in Singapore that 

maintained databases, conducted analyses, and shared 

information on piracy in the region.

Singapore even considered the stationing there 

of several Seventh Fleet combatants to operate 

against pirates. The following year the UN’s 

International Maritime Organization sponsored 

the signing of a Cooperative Mechanism to 

improve security management by 25 nations whose 

ships transited the Strait of Malacca. In 2006, at 

their annual meeting, ASEAN members signed 

a Convention on Terrorism with provisions for 

tracking the region’s terrorist networks, training 

camps, and finances.

Japan Steps Up to the Plate

Conscious of the vulnerability of its sea lines 

of communication to maritime law-breakers, Japan 

vigorously advocated multinational antiterrorism and 

antipiracy efforts. Tokyo directed its efforts toward 

multinational antipiracy action after pirates seized 

the Japanese-owned merchant ship Alondra Rainbow

en route from Indonesia to Japan in 1999. The Indian 

Navy and Coast Guard recaptured the ship and 

turned her over to Japan. Shortly afterward, Japan 

sponsored an international conference to address 

the piracy issue. Japan’s coast guard joined with like 

forces from six Southeast Asian countries to conduct 

antipiracy exercises. In 2000 the Japan Maritime SelfDefense Force, aptly characterized by naval analyst 

Bernard Cole as “East Asia’s most capable naval force 

on any given day,” took part in several combined 

exercises concerning antipiracy with Seventh Fleet, 

South Korean, and other naval forces. 

The Japanese valued the U.S. connection. “The 

United States, especially its navy, is indispensable” 

and “a major contributor to regional stability,” 

observed Japanese naval officer Hiroshi Ito, adding, 

“only the U.S. military can provide common tactical 

procedures in possible conflicts based on the 

doctrines it created with its partners.”
132 READY SEAPOWER

Soon after the 11 September attacks on 

America, the JMSDF dispatched a naval tanker and 

escorting destroyers to the Indian Ocean in support 

of Operation Enduring Freedom. From 2002 on, 

this contingent included an Aegis destroyer. The 

Japanese force in the Indian Ocean eventually 

provided 30 percent of the fuel needed by ships of 

the ten-nation naval coalition. By September 2005 

the JMSDF had provided 410 million liters of fuel 

worth $140 million—free of charge. These JMSDF

support operations continued to the end of 2009.

The JMSDF favored exercising with other 

navies. As emphasized by Admiral Toru Ishikawa, 

at the time chief of staff of the JMSDF, “there are 

no borders at sea; the navies of the world share the 

high seas as a common domain. Multilateral naval 

cooperation builds a common foundation to cope 

with maritime-related problems by developing 

relationships that foster stability.”

The U.S.-Japan connection had become so well 

established and accepted by the Japanese people 

that in December 2004 both governments agreed 

to the replacement in 2008 of the conventionally 

powered carrier Kitty Hawk with nuclear-powered 

carrier George Washington (CVN 73). The issue of 

nuclear-powered ships operating in Japanese ports 

had been a hot issue before, but it caused relatively 

little stir in this new era. Indeed, the fact that U.S. 

nuclear-powered warships had visited Japanese ports 

more than 1,200 times without incident between 

1964 and 2010 helped ease local concerns.

Not only Japan but other Pacific maritime 

nations paid close attention to the piracy threat in 

Southeast Asia. In April 2004 the United States and 

ASEAN jointly sponsored a workshop on “Enhancing 

Maritime Anti-Piracy and Counter Terrorism 

Cooperation in the ASEAN Region.” In September 

2005 the United States and 33 other nations signed 

the “Jakarta Statement” that pledged increased efforts 

to assure maritime security in the Malacca area. 

By 2010 there was a decided drop-off in pirate 

attacks in the Strait of Malacca. Indeed, observers 

credited multinational efforts during the decade 

with “reducing the incidence of piracy throughout 

the Asia-Pacific, and such cooperation has knit 

the nations together in a regional counterpiracy 

community.” Vice Admiral John M. Bird determined 

that the decrease in piracy incidents in Southeast 

Asia resulted directly from the cooperative efforts 

by regional navies and his Seventh Fleet. 

Partnering with the Indian Navy 

Strong support for comprehensive policing of 

the sea lanes throughout Asia came from another, 

unexpected quarter—India. The Indian Navy took 

action to foster maritime security in the Indian 

Ocean, through which pass half of the world’s 

container ships and two-thirds of the world’s oil 

tankers. In the words of one Indian government 

document, “since trade is the lifeblood of India, 

keeping our SLOCs [sea lines of communication] 

open in times of peace, tension or hostilities is a 

primary national maritime interest.” The Indian 

Navy sponsored exercises with naval forces from 

Singapore, Britain, France, Bangladesh, China, South 

Korea, Japan, and the United States. As the Indian 

Navy’s retired Vice Admiral P. S. Das observed, joint 

naval programs with the navies of the developed 

nations “facilitate our overall interfaces with other 

major powers and establish the legitimacy of India’s 

maritime power in this part of the world.”

7th Flt PA

Rear Admiral Terry Blake, commander of Carrier Strike Group 11, 

with Indian Navy Rear Admiral Robin K. Dhowan on the bridge 

of the Indian Navy carrier Viraat during Exercise Malabar 07 in 

the Bay of Bengal.
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 133

The U.S.-India relationship blossomed in the 

early 21st century. Both countries faced a deadly 

threat from radical Islamists. Muslim separatists 

in Kashmir, Mumbai, and elsewhere have targeted 

the Indian state for decades. The United States and 

India—the latter the most populace democracy 

on earth—share a strong belief in representative 

government and the rule of law. India’s embrace of 

free market enterprise and globalization after the 

Cold War produced an economy almost as powerful 

as China’s and dependent on oceangoing commerce 

and overseas energy sources to supply better than 

90 percent of its needs.

Concerns over a growing Chinese naval 

presence in the South China Sea and the 

Bay of Bengal, territorial disputes in the 

Himalayas, and China’s transfer of nuclear 

weapons technology to Pakistan fostered a 

closer U.S.-India connection. Another aspect 

of the connection was the widespread 

belief in India—which U.S. foreign policy 

supported—that the nation should take 

its rightful place as a great power, and 

its navy—the world’s fourth largest—to 

establish an international presence.

During Operation Enduring Freedom 

in Afghanistan in 2002, the Indian Navy 

protected U.S. shipping moving through 

the Strait of Malacca, allowed over-flight 

of the country, and opened its ports 

for refueling of Seventh Fleet warships 

fighting terrorism. The navies of India and 

Indonesia began joint patrols of Six Degree 

Channel west of the Strait of Malacca 

in September 2004. In November the 

Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral 

Jonathan Greenert, met with officers of the 

Indian Navy on board Blue Ridge off Guam 

to improve the interoperability of the two 

navies. The officers paid particular attention 

to planning for Exercise Malabar 2004, an 

annual exercise held off and on since 1992. 

In June 2005 the two countries 

signed a ten-year agreement. The New 

Framework for the U.S.-India Defense 

Relationship provided for the sharing of weapons 

technology and joint protection of critical sea lanes. 

Indian naval officers recognized that “India shares 

many U.S. concerns, including the fight against 

terrorism, operations against piracy, and safety of sea 

lanes.” In the words of one study, “cleansing Asian 

waters of these universal scourges has become a 

matter of real and growing concern” to India. Much 

like the 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the United States, 

in November 2008 members of an Islamist terrorist 

organization launched attacks across the city of 

Mumbai, a major port on the Indian Ocean, killing 

165 people. 7th Flt PA

Attack submarine Santa Fe took part in the 2005 Exercise Malabar with the 

Indian Navy.
134 READY SEAPOWER

In the fall of 2005 Seventh Fleet and Indian 

Navy units carried out Malabar 05. The event 

marked India’s largest naval exercise in history 

with another navy. Carriers Nimitz and Viraat, 

cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and naval aircraft 

based afloat and ashore took part. The two navies 

practiced maritime interdiction; visit, board, 

search, and seizure drills; search and rescue; and 

antisubmarine warfare. With attack submarine 

Santa Fe (SSN 763) playing the role of the 

aggressor, the combined U.S. and Indian naval 

forces engaged in realistic antisubmarine warfare 

maneuvers.

Much the same occurred in 2007 when Malabar 

became multilateral. Indian, Japanese, Australian, 

Singaporean, and Seventh Fleet naval forces then

exercised in the Bay of Bengal. In the words of 

analyst Michael J. Green, the event sent a signal that 

“the major maritime democracies had the capacity 

to work together to maintain open sea-lanes of 

communication and welcomed others willing and 

able to do the same.” Malabar 09, which took place 

in the Pacific—far from the Indian Ocean—involved 

warships from the Seventh Fleet as well as the 

Indian Navy destroyer Ranvir and the JMSDF

destroyer Kurama. 

U.S. Initiatives to Secure the Sea Lanes

The United States and its Seventh Fleet gladly 

joined with other regional navies to maintain peace 

and stability in the Western Pacific and launched 

several new programs. The Regional Maritime 

Security Initiative, or RMSI, called for a partnership 

of willing nations to share information to identify 

and keep track of maritime threats. Normally, 

national law enforcement, coast guard, and military 

forces of the associated nations dealt with threats in 

their own waters, but American leaders envisioned 

greater success through a multinational approach. 

Although several Southeast Asian nations raised 

concern over sovereignty issues, the U.S. initiative 

spurred action. Singapore and Malaysia, for instance, 

shared intelligence and cooperated in the patrol of 

the busy Strait of Malacca.

A December 2002 incident in the Indian Ocean 

motivated Washington to initiate another measure. 

U.S. intelligence suspected that North Korean 

merchant vessel So San planned to deliver Scud 

ballistic missiles to Yemen, site of the 2000 suicide 

bombing attack on guided missile destroyer Cole

(DDG 67) and home to al-Qaeda terrorist groups. A

Spanish ship involved in the maritime interdiction 

patrol off Afghanistan with U.S. naval forces 

intercepted the merchantman. When 

special operations forces rappelled 

on board, they discovered 15 Scud 

ballistic missiles, not the cement 

itemized in its cargo manifest. The 

Spanish, however, lacked the legal 

power to seize the contraband cargo, 

so they allowed the ship to proceed 

into port. 

To address this deficiency in 

the law, in May 2003 President 

Bush announced the Proliferation 

Security Initiative (PSI), which 

stressed intercepting weapons of 

mass destruction, especially those 

being transported by sea. Intelligence 

made clear that North Korea and 

other countries were either selling 

or giving nuclear weapon materials, 

Defense Imaging

The guided missile destroyer Cole (DDG 67), heavily damaged by a terrorist attack on 

29 October 2000 in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, is towed to safety by a Military Sealift 

Command ship.
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 135

ballistic missiles, and other dangerous 

munitions to terrorist groups and rogue 

nations. The PSI detailed diplomatic and 

law enforcement measures, supported by 

intelligence information, for identifying, 

tracking, and intercepting vessels 

carrying contraband cargoes. 

The JMSDF hosted a PSI exercise 

in October 2004. In August 2005 

Singapore sponsored a PSI intercept 

exercise called Deep Sabre in the 

South China Sea that involved naval 

forces from the United States, Australia, 

New Zealand, the United Kingdom, 

and Japan. Within four years of the 

inauguration of the PSI, naval forces, 

coast guards, customs offices, and 

other government agencies from 80 

countries were sharing information on 

the suspected seaborne transportation 

of illicit materials and frustrating 

that trade. In 2009 the United States 

suspected that the Burmese military 

junta intended to acquire nuclear 

materials to develop its own arsenal 

of weapons. In June of that year U.S. 

intelligence discovered the North 

Korean-owned merchant ship Kang 

Nam heading for Burma (Myanmar) and 

determined that the ship carried illicit 

cargo. The United States referenced 

UN Security Council Resolution 1874, 

established to sanction North Korean behavior, and 

dispatched Seventh Fleet units to track the ship. In 

response to Chinese pressure on Burma and U.S. 

monitoring of the ship’s passage, Pyongyang ordered 

the merchantman back to North Korea without 

completing her mission. In August India held and 

searched another North Korean vessel supposedly 

destined for the Middle East that steamed close to 

Burma. Indeed, by the end of 2009 international 

observers credited the employment of UNSCR

1874 with frustrating a number of North Korean 

attempts to ship weapons and other suspicious 

cargoes overseas.

Multinational Exercises at Sea 

The Pacific Command’s Cooperation Afloat 

Readiness and Training (CARAT) program, begun 

in the mid-1990s, involved bilateral naval exercises 

with a number of Southeast Asian nations. After 

2001 these annual exercises practiced the maritime 

interdiction of terrorists and pirates and by the end 

of the decade involved the navies of the United 

States, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, 

Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.

The Seventh Fleet’s Commander, Logistics Group 

Western Pacific/Task Force 73 handled the overall 

coordination of CARAT from its office in Singapore. 

These multinational actions at sea worked on 

7thFlt PA 

A Sailor from guided missile cruiser Lake Champlain (CG 57) practices his visit, 

board, search, and seizure skills.
136 READY SEAPOWER

maritime surveillance, interdiction, and visit, board, 

search and seizure procedures, training designed to 

combat terrorism and other illegal activity. 

The 2007 exercise typified the CARAT program. 

Commander Destroyer Squadron 1 served as 

the CARAT task group commander reporting to 

Commander Task Force 73, Rear Admiral Kevin 

M. Quinn. Units taking part included the dock 

landing ship Fort McHenry (LSD 43), guided missile 

destroyer Paul Hamilton (DDG 60), guided missile 

frigate Rodney M. Davis, and rescue and salvage 

ship Safeguard (ARS 50). In addition, Seventh 

Fleet P-3C Orions, SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, 

Seabees, a Coast Guard training team, and Army 

veterinarians participated.

The spring 2009 CARAT program occurred in 

the Philippines. In April and May combat vessels of 

the Seventh Fleet and Philippine Navy, including 

John S. McCain, Chafee (DDG 90), Harpers Ferry 

(LSD 49), Bienvenido Salting and Rajah Humabon,

operated in the Philippine Sea. American Seabees 

and Filipino military construction units built a 

technology and education center in Lapu Lapu City. 

Navy dentists carried out a medical civic action 

program (MEDCAP) in Cordova. Seventh Fleet, 

U.S. Coast Guard, and Philippine units practiced 

visit, board, search, and seizure measures in the 

Cebu Strait. 

In June, Seventh Fleet units teamed up with 

military forces from Malaysia and Singapore for 

CARAT exercises. As part of the effort, Rear 

Admiral Nora W. Tyson, Commander, Logistics 

Group Western Pacific, officiated at the opening 

of a primary school in Kuantan, Malaysia, built 

by American and Malaysian sailors. Seventh Fleet 

ships Harpers Ferry, Chafee, Chancellorsville (CG

7th Flt PA

American and Filipino sailors involved in a 2007 joint Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) program, load supplies destined 

for an orphanage in Zamboanga on the Philippine island of Mindanao.
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 137

62), and Chung-Hoon (DDG

93) joined Singapore Navy ships 

Stalwart, Interpid, and tank landing 

ship Endeavor for at-sea maneuvers. 

From the deck of Harpers Ferry, 

Rear Admiral Do Viet Cuong of the 

Vietnam People’s Navy observed 

the maneuvers in anticipation of his 

navy’s participation in forthcoming 

CARAT exercises.

In July the action moved to 

Indonesia and Thailand. Seabees of 

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 

40 laid a concrete foundation at a 

primary school in Bekasi, Indonesia, 

while at sea Sailors and Marines 

carried out visit, board, search, and 

seizure and small arms exercises 

with their Indonesian counterparts. U.S. and Thai 

sailors practiced air and surface operations in the 

Gulf of Thailand.

Similar exercises under the name Southeast Asia 

Cooperation against Terrorism (SEACAT) honed 

naval skills in boarding team tactics and techniques 

and small boat skills. For instance, naval units 

from the Seventh Fleet, Philippines, Thailand, and 

Singapore worked on maritime intercept operations 

during a week-long SEACAT in August 2009.

The Seventh Fleet also built on the longstanding 

Cobra Gold exercises with Thailand to include naval 

forces from Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia and 

to concentrate on peacekeeping and contingency 

responses. In February 2009 Essex and the other 

ships of the Expeditionary Strike Group (Task Force 

76), based at White Beach on Okinawa, joined 

naval forces from Thailand and Singapore for Cobra 

7th Flt PA

Rear Admiral Nora W. Tyson, Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific, left, and 

officers of the Royal Brunei Navy observe a joint training CARAT exercise, May 2010.

7th Flt PA

With a Filipina nursing student assisting, a Seventh Fleet dentist removes a patient’s 

tooth during a MEDCAP mission in the Philippines.

7th Flt PA

Warships of the United States and the Philippines 

conduct a CARAT exercise in May 2009.
138 READY SEAPOWER

7th Flt PA

Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40 and Indonesian marine engineers work together building a school during July 2009 in 

the CARAT Indonesia program.

Gold exercises in the Gulf of Thailand. That same 

month Sailors and Marines from Boxer (LHD 4) 

and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit visited the 

Republic of Maldives in the Indian Ocean to take 

part with local military forces in Exercise Coconut 

Grove, a series of humanitarian assistance projects.

To better prepare Sailors and Marines for 

antiterrorism measures at sea, the Seventh Fleet 

ramped up specialized training. In May 2009, 

for example, Seahawk aircrews from Helicopter 

Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 14, Marines from 

the Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Pacific 

(FASTPAC), and crewmembers from George 

Washington conducted small-arms live-fire and 

“fast-rope” drills on the carrier’s deck.

In the apt words of analyst John F. Bradford, 

by the end of the 21st century’s first decade “all 

extra-regional powers involved in Southeast Asian 

maritime affairs had aligned their interests toward 

maritime security cooperation, especially protecting 

navigation in strategic sea lanes from transnational 

threats.” Most important among these powers were 

the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, which 

had demonstrated commitment to maritime security 

cooperation in Southeast Asia.

Winning the Fight against Terrorists, Pirates, 

and Weapons Proliferators

By 2010 international, regional, and U.S. 

actions had significantly reduced pirate attacks, 

instances of suspected WMD transported by sea, 

and other illegal activities in Asia’s maritime 

domain. Multinational and bilateral patrols 

had dramatically increased the presence of 

maritime forces in dangerous waters. Ashore, the 

counterterrorism forces of Indonesia, Malaysia, 
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 139

Thailand, and Singapore had broken up one 

terrorist cell after another through the use of 

improved intelligence-gathering measures and 

the death or swift prosecution and imprisonment 

of terrorists. Reportedly, government forces in 

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore had arrested 

nearly 500 Jemaah Islamiyah members by late 2008.

Many people in these countries were horrified 

that the bombings carried out by al-Qaeda and 

Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists killed mostly fellow 

Muslims, debased the religion, and destroyed 

tourist industries on which so many people 

depended for their livelihood. At the same time 

the governments of these countries increased their 

efforts to win “hearts and minds” in affected regions 

through enhanced economic development and the 

negotiated settlement of grievances with inhabitants. 

Australia’s May 2009 white paper laying out the 

country’s future security policies and the buildup 

of its military forces echoed the general sentiment 

among regional nations that they and their American 

partners were successfully coping with the terrorist 

threat to Southeast Asia. Australian analysts Jack 

McCaffrie and Chris Rahman summarized the 

document’s thrust when they observed that while 

the terrorist threat would “remain extant, the spread 

of regional extremist networks will be constrained by 

ongoing counterterrorism efforts.”

The counterterrorism campaign mounted 

by the Philippines and the United States proved 

especially fruitful. Only weeks after the 9/11 

attacks on America, the two governments signed 

an agreement allowing U.S. forces to store military 

weapons and supplies in the Philippines, establish 

temporary counterterrorism camps there, and 

overfly the country. The United States provided the 

Philippines with a ten-fold increase in military aid 

to a total of $19 million in 2002. The funds bought 

counterterrorism training and C-130B Hercules 

transport aircraft, HU-1H “Huey” helicopters, M-16 

rifles, grenade launchers, mortars, sniper rifles, night 

vision goggles, and a 360-ton Cyclone-class coastal 

patrol boat.

In 2002 the government and armed forces of the 

Philippines initiated Operation Balikatan (Shoulder to 

Shoulder), employing the longstanding name of U.S.-

Philippine exercises, on the southern island of Basilan, 

an Abu Sayyaf stronghold. The U.S. Pacific Command 

deployed 4,000 troops to Luzon and an additional 

1,300 U.S. Special Forces, Seventh Fleet Seabees, and 

conventional troops to Basilan to support the Filipinos 

by providing military advice, counterinsurgency 

training, transportation, intelligence, and essential 

equipment. American service members, however, 

were authorized to fight only in self-defense. Labeled 

Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines, the U.S. 

effort also included medical support, road-building, 

well-digging, and school construction, with the aim 

of impressing on Philippine military leaders the 

importance of a “soft-power” approach in winning the 

support of the island people. 

Within months the operation produced positive 

results. Supported by U.S. military resources, in early 

June Philippine naval forces equipped with U.S.-

supplied intelligence information and night-vision 

7th Flt PA

Left: A U.S. Marine takes part in the annual U.S.-Thai Cobra 

Gold exercise during February 2010.
140 READY SEAPOWER

goggles, located, intercepted, and killed a top Abu 

Sayyaf leader moving by boat from Basilan to the 

large island of Mindanao. Other Abu Sayyaf guerrillas 

fled Basilan. 

The U.S-Philippine campaign measurably 

improved security and economic development on 

Basilan and earned praise and support from the 

population. The Philippine armed forces set up 

the National Development Support Command 

specifically to win “hearts and minds.” In the apt 

words of a Rand Corporation study, the Filipinos 

increasingly understood that “the best way to defeat 

a terrorist insurgency is to provide people with 

what the rebels cannot: roads, bridges, businesses, 

houses, schools, electricity, medical centers, and 

medicines—in short better governance.” The United 

States followed up this success by providing $4.6 

billion more in economic and military assistance. In 

2003, during the visit to Washington of Philippines 

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, President Bush 

designated the Philippines a “Major Non-NATO Ally.”

By the end of 2003 Filipino forces supported by 

U.S. military resources had killed or captured several 

hundred Abu Sayyaf members. But the snake still 

had fangs. In its most daring and bloody exploit, in 

February 2004 Abu Sayyaf saboteurs set off a crude 

improvised explosive device—16 sticks of dynamite 

stuffed into a hollowed out television set—on board 

the 10,000-ton Superferry 14, loaded with 900 

passengers. One hundred sixteen people died from 

the blast or from drowning.

During the next three years U.S. and Philippine 

forces carried out many more training, humanitarian 

assistance, and information-sharing missions 

throughout the islands. As Commander Joint Task 

Force 515, Commander Seventh Fleet provided 

maritime support to Operation Enduring Freedom–

Philippines. Seventh Fleet SEALs instructed Filipino 

7th Flt PA

Marines and Sailors operating from Seventh Fleet amphibious dock landing ship Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) pose in March 2006 with villagers 

on the Philippine island of Jolo. A team of over 500 American and Filipino military personnel provided local people with medical, dental, and 

construction assistance.
TERRORISTS, PIRATES, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATORS 141

units in jungle survival, marksmanship, maritime 

surveillance, boat handling, and special warfare. 

In the especially successful 2006 Operation Plan 

Ultimatum, a 7,000-man, ten-battalion Philippine 

task force, supported by 200 U.S. military personnel 

and intelligence, training, and funding, targeted the 

remaining 500 Abu Sayyaf guerrillas on the southern 

islands of Jolo and Tawi Tawi. During the ninemonth campaign, Filipino special forces killed Abu 

Sayyaf’s leader, Khaddafy Janjalani; his second-incommand, Abu Solaiman; and Jundam Jamalul, aka 

“Black Killer”; and killed or captured another 107 

guerrillas. The rest fled in “penny packets” deep into 

the hills or to other islands. By 2009 they counted no 

more than 100 hard-core fighters. As the guerrillas 

moved out, the army of the Philippines moved in to 

establish a permanent presence. And as the number 

of terrorist bombings and ambushes declined, 

businesses and markets sprang up in island towns, 

and the people ventured out at night once again.

In Exercise Balikatan 06, 2,800 Philippine 

and 5,500 U.S. military personnel took part. The 

American units accomplished seven medical civic 

action programs, four engineering civic action 

projects (ENCAPs), counterterrorism training, 

and humanitarian assistance on the islands of 

Luzon, Cebu, and Sulu. During the MEDCAPs, 

the Americans gave free medical care to 11,000 

Filipinos and veterinary care to many of their 

animals and built four new schools. The medical 

staff of the hospital ship Mercy (T-AH 19) brought 

care to the people on Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi Tawi. 

When a Southeast Asian storm caused a mudslide 

that destroyed the town of Guinsagon on Leyte 

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A Seventh Fleet utility landing craft puts Marines ashore in the Philippines to take part in the 2009 Balikitan “Shoulder to Shoulder” exercise.
142 READY SEAPOWER

Island, 2,500 American forces immediately deployed 

to the area to aid the survivors. Assistance from 

the U.S. Agency for International Development 

enabled 115 banks and rural cooperatives on the 

southern islands to loan money to farmers and 

reportedly helped turn thousands of guerrillas 

into corn, rice, and seaweed farmers. In September 

2007 the U.S. and Philippine governments signed 

an agreement that provided $190 million over a 

five-year period for the reintegration of guerrillas 

into civilian society, school construction, and civic 

action programs on Mindanao. In Balikatan 09, 

American and Filipino sailors and marines carried 

out amphibious exercises on Luzon. The combat 

vessels involved were Seventh Fleet warships Essex

and Tortuga (LSD 46).

While the United States extended much less 

counterterrorism support to Indonesia, it still made a 

difference. From 2001 to 2004 Washington provided 

Jakarta with $47.5 million to train Indonesian police 

in counterterrorism tactics. Recognizing newly 

elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s 

strong support for democratization of the political 

process, the United States resumed military 

assistance to Indonesia in 2005 and encouraged 

military-to-military contacts. Washington also 

enabled Indonesian officers to study at the National 

Defense University, the Naval War College, and 

other U.S. military institutions of higher learning. 

Some military aid improved the communications 

and coastal surveillance capability of Indonesia’s navy 

in the critical Strait of Malacca and in waters between 

Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines.

American leaders were especially keen on increasing 

maritime domain awareness in the latter region, 

the so-called southern back door to the Philippines. 

Washington expressed interest in an Australian 

proposal, “Coast Watch South,” to set up a number 

of Filipino-staffed stations on shore with both radar 

surveillance and interdiction capabilities. Jakarta 

created an especially effective counterterrorism unit—

Special Detachment 88—that killed or captured 450 

militants between 2005 and 2009. The Indonesian 

government’s dedicated and sustained effort to 

neutralize the threat of terrorism through public 

education and “de-radicalization” programs proved 

even more effective at reducing the terrorist threat. 

Fear and foreboding marked the first years 

of the 21st century in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Islamist terrorists traumatized citizens in the 

Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand with deadly 

suicide bombings and other violence. Pirates seized 

merchant ships in Southeast Asian waters with 

seeming impunity. And North Korea sold and 

transported missiles and other banned munitions 

to unsavory governments and terrorist groups 

worldwide. But by 2010 the United States and 

other members of the Asia-Pacific community had 

put in place concrete and coordinated programs to 

fight terrorism, piracy, and weapons proliferation. 

The number and severity of terrorist attacks 

had declined dramatically in the Philippines and 

Indonesia. Pirates rarely risked confrontation with 

the international naval and coastal forces guarding 

the sea lanes of Southeast Asia. And regional powers 

had cooperated to thwart North Korea’s attempts 

to smuggle missiles and other banned munitions 

to the Middle East. The Seventh Fleet, the most 

capable, flexible, and ubiquitous naval force in the 

Western Pacific, formed the core of this successful 

multinational effort to rid the region of terrorists 

and secure the maritime commons. ★★★
143

Chapter 10

Partners and Adversaries

As the Seventh Fleet took the lead in the effort to fight terrorists, pirates, 

and weapons proliferators, it honed its ability to deal with potential conventional 

threats from Asia-Pacific nation states. North Korean belligerence posed a special 

concern. Differences with the People’s Republic of China also demanded the fleet’s continued 

vigilance and readiness in the 21st century. 

In 2001 Admiral Dennis Blair, who headed 

the Pacific Command, suggested using the nation’s 

long-time and successful bilateral relationships with 

regional navies as a foundation on which to build a 

multilateral Asia-Pacific security structure. Admiral 

Gary Roughead—deputy commander of the Pacific 

Command in 2004, commander of the Pacific Fleet 

from July 2005 to April 2006, and Chief of Naval 

Operations at the end of the decade—detailed the 

reasons why he thought the 21st century would be 

the “Pacific Century.” The Pacific region, home to 40 

nations and 60 percent of the world’s population, 

covered more than half of the globe, was defended 

by the six largest military forces in the world, and 

boasted four of America’s top trading partners. The 

admiral presciently observed that stability in the 

Asia-Pacific region depended on access to the “free 

and unrestricted flow of trade and commerce” and 

central to that condition was U.S. seapower; that is 

powerful combat-ready U.S. naval forces forwarddeployed for quick, decisive action. Yet, he added, 

“[W]hile the Pacific Fleet’s most important role is 

to fight and win our nation’s wars, it is not all about 

combat power. Sea power, particularly in today’s 

security environment, is about access . . . that allows 

the United States to project its message of peace 

and freedom from the sea.”

He and other naval leaders from Asia-Pacific 

nations understood that the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s 

stabilizing influence in the region helped balance the 

other powers and kept potential belligerents in check. 

The fleet’s forward deployment in the Western Pacific 

enabled countries in the region to maintain lower 

defense budgets and to concentrate on political, 

economic, and social development. Put succinctly 

by a Naval War College analyst, “our presence is a 

moneymaker on two fronts: they [Asian nations] 

spend less on defense and more on development.”

The United States and its Seventh Fleet were the 

principal actors in the multinational effort to maintain 

economic prosperity and political stability in East Asia. 

Historic animosities dating to World War II and before 

prevented China, Japan, South Korea, or the nations 

of Southeast Asia from serving as the prime facilitator 

for coordinated security action. Only the United States 

had the economic, political, and military power—and 

the experience of a half-century of leadership in the 

Far East—to play that role. As former National Security 

Council official Evan S. Medeiros observed, the United 

States has long been “the security partner of choice.”

Maritime dominance depended on the readiness 

of and interoperability with the other U.S. armed 

services and with America’s naval allies. Admiral 

Roughead saw transnational criminal activities such 

as piracy, WMD proliferation, Islamist terrorism, and 

human and narco-trafficking as the most immediate 

threats to Asia-Pacific’s security and stability. His 

antidote to those ills was not only to strengthen the 

existing network of maritime nations—the United 

States, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, and 

South Korea—but to encourage inclusion of the 

naval forces of India, Indonesia, and especially the 

People’s Republic of China. The unifying thread 

would be mutual respect for national sovereignty, 

common interests, and increased maritime domain 

awareness through information sharing.
144 READY SEAPOWER

The Pacific Fleet led the way to increase 

maritime domain awareness, establishing a 

Cooperative Maritime Forces Pacific connection with 

more than a dozen regional navies. The object of this 

cooperative effort: share real-time information on 

security in the maritime sphere. Admiral Roughead 

concluded that an emphasis on search and rescue, 

humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief in their 

combined exercises would enhance interoperability 

and trust among naval forces. 

Indian Ocean Tsunami Relief 

One example showed the way. The Seventh Fleet 

and the navies of Australia, Japan, India, and other 

nations responded swiftly to the December 2004 

Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. Caused by a 9.1 to 9.3 

earthquake, the massive tsunami devastated coastal 

communities in 11 countries across the Indian Ocean 

and killed almost 200,000 people. 

At the direction of the Pacific Command, 

Marine Lieutenant General Robert R. Blackman Jr. 

established Joint Task Force 536 on 28 December 

to manage the U.S. response to the natural disaster. 

He chose as the site for his headquarters Utapao, 

Thailand, because U.S., Thai, and other naval forces 

had often operated from the base in the annual 

Cobra Gold exercises.

Commander Pacific Command Admiral Thomas 

Fargo and Commander Pacific Fleet Admiral Walter 

F. Doran, immediately recognizing the gravity of the 

crisis in the Indian Ocean, announced Operation 

Unified Assistance and ordered all available ships 

to head to the disaster zone. On 28 December the 

Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Greenert, 

ordered the Abraham Lincoln strike group, under 

Rear Admiral Douglas Crowder, to depart Hong 

Kong and head for Indonesia. Before the amphibious 

assault ship Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) and other 

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An MH-60S Knighthawk of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 11 assigned to carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) transfers supplies as 

part of the international effort to aid the survivors of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 145

ships of an expeditionary strike group sortied from 

Guam, supply personnel from Bonhomme Richard

used an authorized credit card to buy $50,000 

worth of timber, plastic sheeting, and other building 

materials from the local Ace Hardware store. 

Fort McHenry quickly deployed from Sasebo, 

Japan, and arrived in waters off Indonesia’s Aceh 

Province at the same time as Seabees from Naval 

Mobile Construction Battalion 40 arrived by air 

from their base in Okinawa. Soon afterward, Essex

steamed from her station in the Arabian Gulf to 

the disaster area. Operating from Utapao, the P-3 

Orions of Patrol Squadron 8 searched the Indian 

Ocean for survivors of the tsunami.

By 5 January, a mere ten days after the tsunami 

struck, more than 25 U.S. ships, 45 fixed-wing 

aircraft, and 58 helicopters were supporting 

Operation Unified Assistance and had already 

delivered to affected areas more than 600,000 

pounds of water, food, and other essential items. 

Every hour, Abraham Lincoln’s onboard distilling 

equipment filled nearly 800 five-gallon jugs of fresh 

water that were helicoptered to shore.

Chief of Naval Operations Vern Clark suggested 

to John Howe, the director of Project Hope, an 

international humanitarian organization, that the 

Navy and Project Hope join forces in the tsunami 

relief effort. Howe agreed and put out a call for 

volunteer doctors and nurses to supplement the 

medical staff of hospital ship Mercy, slated to head 

to Southeast Asia. More than 4,000 people applied 

for the 210 billets! When the hospital ship departed 

San Diego on 8 January, she had a full Project Hope 

and Navy complement on board.

Key logistics commands ensured that critical 

relief supplies continued to flow into the affected 

areas around the Indian Ocean. The Logistics Group 

Western Pacific and the Naval Regional Contracting 

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Indonesians and American Sailors and Marines of amphibious assault ship Essex (LHD 2) unload bags of rice to feed needy refugees in 

Indonesia’s hard-hit Aceh Province, January 2005.
146 READY SEAPOWER

Center, both located in Singapore, were responsible 

for the loading of Military Sealift Command vessels 

with bottled water, food, and medicine, which were 

delivered to ships off Indonesia for the transfer 

ashore via helicopter. The fleet and industrial supply 

centers located in Guam and Yokosuka supported 

the mammoth logistical effort.

Recognizing the multinational dimensions of 

the tsunami relief effort, the Pacific Command 

redesignated Joint Task Force 536 as Combined 

Support Force 536 on 3 January. The Seventh 

Fleet units worked especially well with the other 

naval forces deployed off Indonesia for relief work. 

The fact that Admiral Doran and Admiral Arun 

Prakash, Chief of Staff of the Indian Navy, had 

been classmates at the Indian Defense Services 

Staff College certainly facilitated their interaction. 

And Australian Army Lieutenant Colonel Michael 

Prictor remarked that “we arrived in Indonesia at 

about the same time as the Americans and we could 

work together almost immediately because we work 

together so often.” He added that “there were no 

cultural barriers, no misunderstandings . . . so we 

were able to get in there and start delivering that aid 

straight away.”

Support facilities in Japan provided considerable 

assistance. American and Japanese employees at the 

Yokosuka Fleet Industrial Supply Center facilitated 

the delivery to Aceh of 10,000 pounds of water, 

600,000 pounds of food, 23,000 pounds of medical 

supplies, and 39,000 tons of general supplies.

In late February–March 2005 Blue Ridge

deployed to Phuket, Thailand, a resort town badly 

damaged by the tsunami. Marines from the 2nd 

FAST and Blue Ridge Sailors pitched in to clear the 

rubble of a destroyed police station and distributed 

to displaced people in the area 6,000 pounds of 

clothing, bottled water, and—no less important—

baby diapers. Once off Indonesia, Fort McHenry

hosted the visit of former Presidents George H.W. 

Bush and Bill Clinton to the disaster area, and 

her helicopters ferried relief supplies ashore and 

patients out to the hospital ship.

Admiral Roughead observed that such disaster 

relief operations “demonstrated the noteworthy 

effectiveness of international action by military forces, 

not in waging war, but in relieving 

human suffering and helping 

fellow human beings in need.” 

Secretary of the Navy Donald C. 

Winter echoed those sentiments: 

“We have seen significantly 

positive impacts in Indonesia . . . 

as a direct result of our and other 

nations’ humanitarian assistance 

and disaster relief.”

The admiral also recognized 

that coordinated naval responses 

to natural disasters such as the 

2004 tsunami could enhance 

regional cooperation. He 

enthusiastically supported Mercy’s 

five-month tour throughout 

Southeast Asia, and in the 

Pacific Partnership program he 

encouraged Seventh Fleet 

and other units to work with 

national and nongovernmental 

7th Flt PA [May 2010]

Former President Bill Clinton thanks a Sailor and a Marine from dock landing ship Fort 

McHenry (LSD 43) for their humanitarian efforts during Operation Unified Assistance, the 

U.S. program to help Indonesia recover from the Indian Ocean tsunami.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 147

organizations to improve schools and medical facilities. 

In that regard, the Essex expeditionary strike group 

carried out civil-military projects in the Philippines 

while the Seabees did the same in Indonesia. 

Securing the Maritime Domain

During a major address at the Naval War 

College in the fall of 2005, Admiral Michael G. 

Mullen, Chief of Naval Operations (and future 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), called for 

a “thousand-ship navy” from the world’s maritime 

nations working together to ensure the freedom and 

security of the seas. While the U.S. Navy worked 

for that result with its global presence, he observed 

that combined action by all the maritime nations 

would be a force multiplier in thwarting threats at 

sea. Mullen broadened his initiative the following 

year at the Western Pacific Naval Symposium in 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, calling for a global maritime 

partnership that would facilitate multinational naval 

operations and information-sharing through the use 

of advanced technology.

In general, America’s partners reacted positively 

to Mullen’s proposal, although some were unsure 

they had the resources to support such an effort 

or wondered if the primary thrust of the concept 

was merely to secure U.S. interests. Japan and 

South Korea endorsed the global concept in 

7th Flt PA

Hospital ship Mercy (T-AH 19) departs San Diego in May 2010 for humanitarian missions in the Far East.

USN Photo Gallery

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Mullen championed 

international naval cooperation and efforts to ensure the security of 

the “maritime commons.”
148 READY SEAPOWER

principle. Admiral Eiji Yoshikawa, chief of staff of 

the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in 2007, 

commented that “no one nation should have to 

bear the burden of global security alone. Japan and 

other partners are ready to share this burden with 

their longtime friend, the United States.” That said, 

the Japanese naval leader reminded Washington 

that “there are lingering international Cold War 

disputes that have yet to be resolved” and added with 

the usual Japanese understatement that “a regionally 

focused [U.S.] strategy is not without merit.” He 

noted that bilateral security relationships—like the 

U.S.-Japan arrangement—had “proven quite successful, 

particularly at the regional level.”Admiral Song Young 

Moo, Chief of Naval Operations of the Republic of 

Korea Navy, also highlighted the need for a regional 

approach to a strategy that dealt with terrorism at sea, 

weapons proliferation, piracy, and natural disasters.

To support his worldview, in June 2006 Admiral 

Mullen called for a 21st century U.S. maritime 

strategy to replace the document that had guided 

naval leaders in the last years of the Cold War. 

On 21 November 2007 Admiral Roughead, who 

succeeded Mullen as CNO; General James T. 

Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps; and 

Admiral Thad Allen, Commandant of the U.S. 

Coast Guard, published A Cooperative Strategy for 

21st Century Seapower. In addition to homeland 

protection, the strategy called for working with 

partners worldwide to prevent war and to secure the 

maritime domain, host to 90 percent of the world’s 

trade and two-thirds of petroleum shipping. At 

any one time ships carrying 12 to 15 million cargo 

containers were at sea.

The authors stressed that “where tensions are high 

or where we wish to demonstrate to our friends and 

allies our commitment to security and stability, U.S. 

maritime forces will be characterized by regionally 

concentrated, forward-deployed task forces with 

the combat power to limit regional conflict, deter 

major power war, and should deterrence fail, win 

our Nation’s wars as part of a joint or combined 

campaign.” The two regions specified in the 

document—the Western Pacific and the Arabian 

Gulf/Indian Ocean—were both operational arenas 

for Seventh Fleet forces. The document also called 

for “expanded cooperative relationships with other 

nations [that would] contribute to the security and 

stability of the maritime domain for the benefit of all.”

In support of this approach, Admiral Roughead 

visited Indonesia during August 2009 to take part there 

in the International Maritime Seminar during which he 

met with naval leaders from India, Australia, Singapore, 

Malaysia, and New Zealand to discuss ways to “ensure 

the safety, the security and the prosperity of the world’s 

oceans.” Alongside the president of Indonesia, Susilo 

Bambang Yudhoyono, Admiral Roughead also observed 

Indonesia’s Presidential Sailing Pass in Review, with 

the Seventh Fleet carrier George Washington, guided 

USN Photo Gallery

As Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead redoubled 

efforts he made in his Pacific command billets to strengthen interaction 

with America’s Asian allies.
Seapower for the 

21st Century

On 25 September 2008 George Washington (CVN 73) 

made history as she pulled into Yokosuka, Japan, to begin 

a tour of duty as the first forward-based nuclear-powered 

carrier. A few hundred people who opposed the presence 

of any nuclear-powered warships in Japanese ports 

demonstrated in front of Yokosuka’s gate, but the event 

paled in comparison to similar protests during the late 

1960s. The U.S. Navy’s accident-free record in the years 

since then had persuaded most Japanese that the Seventh 

Fleet would continue to ensure the environmental safety of 

the ports from which its ships operated. 

The 97,000-ton warship, propelled by two 

Westinghouse nuclear reactors enabling speeds in excess 

of 30 knots, was well prepared to maintain the peace in 

Northeast Asia. Her air wing boasted 80 combat aircraft, 

including advanced F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike 

fighters. The combat veteran’s aircraft had taken part in 

operations Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi 

Freedom in the Arabian Gulf and North Arabian Sea. 

The carrier represented an impressive workplace. 

Every day 6,250 crewmembers launched and recovered 

aircraft, handled four aircraft elevators, prepared 18,000 

meals, distilled 400,000 gallons of water, and stood 

ready to operate the onboard defensive weapons that 

included Phalanx CIWS, Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile 

launchers, and RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launchers. 

George Washington wasted no time establishing a 

presence in the Western Pacific. Soon after her arrival in 

the Far East the carrier took part in an international fleet 

review off South Korea. In the summer of 2009 the ship 

and her escorts visited Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, 

and Indonesia. To demonstrate the U.S. commitment to 

the defense of the Republic of Korea after the March 2010 

sinking of the ROK Navy corvette Cheonan by North Korea, 

George Washington conducted exercises in the Sea of 

Japan/East Sea with South Korean air and naval forces. 

The pride of the Seventh Fleet capped off a memorable 

year in August with the first visit by a U.S. carrier since the 

Vietnam War to the port of Danang in the Socialist Republic 

of Vietnam. George Washington would continue to serve as a 

strong symbol of the U.S. commitment to peace and stability 

in the Seventh Fleet area of responsibility. 

7th Flt PA 

Nuclear-powered carrier George Washington (CVN 73) departs 

Yokosuka in June 2009 for operations in the Western Pacific.

7th Flt PA

Enthusiastic Japanese citizens tour George Washington, the Navy’s 

only forward-deployed carrier, in December 2009. Seventh Fleet 

commanders consider it vital that the people of Japan understand and 

appreciate the value to their security of the U.S. Navy’s presence in 

Japan and close cooperation with the country’s defense forces.

7th Flt PA

Ordnancemen handle a George Washington F/A-18 Hornet’s missiles. 

The carrier’s combat aircraft provide the fleet with real hitting power.
150 READY SEAPOWER

missile cruiser Cowpens (CG 63), and guided missile 

destroyers McCampbell (DDG 85), Fitzgerald (DDG

62), and Mustin (DDG 89) representing the U.S. Navy. 

America’s Ambassador in Far Eastern Waters

An important responsibility of Commander 

Seventh Fleet is to maintain frequent and positive 

contact with the civilian and military leaders of the 

nations in the operational area and to demonstrate 

America’s concern for the well-being of their people. In 

any given year Blue Ridge, with Commander Seventh 

Fleet embarked, visits ports all over the Western Pacific 

and Indian Ocean. In 2000, for instance, the flagship’s 

itinerary included Townsville and Darwin, Australia; 

Dili, East Timor; Singapore; Penang, Malasia; Phuket, 

Thailand; Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; Cebu, Philippines; 

Kure, Japan; Chinhae, South Korea; Sasebo, Japan; Hong 

Kong, China; and her homeport, Yokosuka, Japan. 

Commander Seventh Fleet and his subordinates 

not only met with their counterparts from the nations 

they visited, but took part in humanitarian projects. 

During a February 2004 visit to Kelang, Malaysia, 

40 American Sailors made repairs at the 

Salvation Joy Haven Home for the Elderly. 

The Seventh Fleet Band entertained a large 

crowd of local folks with American pop and 

jazz music, and respectfully took a break 

when the call for prayer went out from a 

nearby mosque. That gesture reinforced 

the positive expressions from the audience. 

As one local man observed, “[A]s you can 

see, most of the crowd is Muslim, but these 

people aren’t anti-American.”

During a three-day visit to Subic Bay 

in the Philippines in April, Vice Admiral 

Robert F. Willard hosted a reception for 

Philippine Navy Chief of Naval Operations 

Vice Admiral Ernesto De Leon on board 

Coronado (AGF 11). Thirty-five Seventh 

Fleet Sailors used the time in port to repaint

the Iram Elementary School in nearby 

Olongapo City. The guided missile cruiser 

Cowpens and dock landing ship Harpers 

Ferry made a port call on the Russian Far 

Eastern city of Vladivostok in July. The 

Russian Pacific Fleet hosted a Fourth of July 

event to honor America’s Independence 

Day at a downtown memorial to the 

Russian naval dead of World War II. 

Russians toured the U.S. ships, and Seventh 

Fleet Sailors and Marines did the same on 

board the Russian antisubmarine warfare 

ship Admiral Vinogradov.

Several years later Vice Admiral Bird 

highlighted the irony of Blue Ridge making 

a port call on the Russian Pacific Fleet’s 

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Russian sailors study a navigation chart during their tour of the Ticonderogaclass guided missile cruiser Cowpens (CG 83), which visited Vladivostok in 

May 2009.

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Vice Admiral John M. Bird, Commander Seventh Fleet, third from left, joins other 

American and Russian naval officers and civilian officials in a parade in Vladivostok 

during May 2010 to mark the World War II victory over Nazi Germany.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 151

main naval base: “When I entered the Navy 33 

years ago, I could never have imagined the 7th Fleet 

flagship moored alongside a Slava-class cruiser in 

the closed city of Vladivostok.”

In August 2009 Sailors from Nimitz volunteered 

to paint the hull of Mikasa, the flagship of Japanese 

Admiral Heihachiro Togo, the brilliant commander 

of Japan’s decisive 1905 naval victory over Imperial 

Russia in the Battle of Tsushima. There was also 

a historical connection between the U.S. carrier 

and Mikasa: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the 

Pacific Fleet commander in World War II, had been 

instrumental after the war in preserving Mikasa as a 

historic visit ship near the Yokosuka naval base. That 

same month George Washington visited Manila, the 

first time in more than a decade a carrier had put in 

at the capital of the Philippines. This visit indicated 

that the Philippines increasingly valued the security 

connection to the United States.

In the fall of 2009 the guided missile destroyer 

Lassen (DDG 82) pulled into Vietnam’s port of 

Danang. Historic irony accompanied the ship, named 

for Lieutenant Clyde E. Lassen, a Vietnam War 

Medal of Honor recipient. Lassen’s commanding 

officer, Commander Hung Ba Le, was born in 

Vietnam and his father, an officer in the South 

Vietnamese navy, once served at the Danang base, the 

U.S. Navy’s largest logistic facility during the war.

During the visit of Mustin and John S. McCain 

to Donghae, South Korea, in May 2010, Sailors 

entertained residents of a retirement home and 

made repairs at the facility. But the fact that the 

latter’s commanding officer, Commander Jeffrey 

Kim, was born in South Korea made headlines 

throughout the nation.

For 13 days during June 2010, several units 

reporting to Commander Seventh Fleet took part 

in Pacific Partnership 2010, a civic action program 

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Nimitz (CVN 68) Sailors pose for a photo with Japanese citizens in January 2010 as a remembrance of their joint efforts to preserve 

battleship Mikasa, flagship of Admiral Heihachiro Togo during his decisive defeat of the Russian fleet in the Russo-Japanese War.
152 READY SEAPOWER

in the environs of Qui Nhon hosted by the Socialist 

Republic of Vietnam’s Ministry of Health. Mercy’s 

professional staff worked with Vietnamese and 

Australian medical personnel to deliver care to more 

than 19,000 patients in the port and surrounding 

province of Binh Dinh, once a hotbed of Communist 

guerrilla activity during the Vietnam War. Naval 

Mobile Construction Battalion 11 and Amphibious 

Construction Battalion 1 helped Vietnamese 

volunteers repair and modernize a local medical 

facility—appropriately named the Hope Center.

Preparing for Action

Seventh Fleet ships take part in more than 

one hundred exercises each year, some Navyonly or U.S. armed services-only, but most with 

America’s Asia-Pacific allies. As one example, in 

the late spring of 2005, Seventh Fleet units joined 

Australian units in a Talisman Saber exercise, a 

biennial event that prepared the participants for 

combined contingency operations in the AsiaPacific region. According to Vice Admiral Greenert, 

7th Flt PA 

Commander Hung Ba Le, commanding officer of guided missile destroyer Lassen (DDG 82), speaks to the media during his ship’s historic 

November 2009 visit to Danang in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

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Seventh Fleet Sailors share kindnesses and friendship with the 

residents of a nursing home in Busan, Republic of Korea.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 153

the objectives of the exercise were 

to demonstrate each navy’s ability 

“to operate multi-dimensional joint 

and combined forces” and “deliver 

responsive short-term readiness.” 

The Seventh Fleet commander was 

looking at several levels of operability: 

“Can we surge quickly, integrate 

into a coalition, and win? If not, 

where are we falling short and how 

do we correct it?” The practice held 

in Shoalwater Bay in Queensland 

involved 11,000 U.S. and 6,000 

Australian military personnel from 

their ground, air, and naval forces. 

The combined forces carried out 

amphibious landings, parachute drops, 

infantry maneuvers, and maritime 

operations in the Coral Sea. 

Not only did the U.S.-Australian 

alliance prosper during the decade, 

but Australia strengthened its security 

relationships with Japan and South 

Korea. Australia’s May 2009 defense 

white paper laid out an ambitious 

plan to bolster its armed forces with 

12 new Collins-class conventional 

submarines and surface warships with 

advanced antiair and antisubmarine 

warfare systems. The buildup reflected 

Australia’s concern over China’s 

growing military capability and naval 

presence in the region.

Preparing for the most challenging 

assignment—a conflict in Northeast 

Asia—the Seventh Fleet maintained 

strong surface, air, and submarine units in the region 

and conducted frequent contingency exercises 

with other U.S. military forces and with South 

Korean naval forces. The most important combined 

exercises relating to the defense of South Korea 

were Ulchi Focus Lens, Foal Eagle, Ulchi Freedom 

Guardian, and Key Resolve. The annual exercises 

routinely involved tens of thousands of personnel 

from the United States and the Republic of Korea. 

No year passed during the decade without atsea exercises for the Seventh Fleet and its longtime 

partner, the JMSDF. In February 2009, for example, 

the John C. Stennis (CVN 74) carrier strike group 

carried out antisubmarine warfare exercises in the 

Pacific Ocean with the Japanese destroyers Amagiri

and Oonami. American naval leaders and Sailors 

frequently showed their appreciation for Japan’s 

half-century of welcoming the forward-deployed 

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Royal Australian Navy replenishment tanker Success proceeds on a parallel course 

with U.S. dock landing ship Tortuga (LSD 46) during the annual Talisman Saber 

exercise of 2009.

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U.S. and Australian amphibious forces exercise ashore in Shoalwater Bay, Australia, 

during the Talisman Saber exercise of July 2009.
154 READY SEAPOWER

warships of the Seventh Fleet. In May 2009, for 

instance, Vice Admiral Bird hosted the visit of two 

of Japan’s top naval officers to U.S. naval vessels 

forward deployed at Yokosuka. He led the tour 

of the fast attack submarine Seawolf (SSN 21) for 

Vice Admiral Tohru Izumi, commander in chief of 

the JMSDF Self-Defense Fleet, and Vice Admiral 

Mikio Nagata, commander of the Fleet Submarine 

Force. That same month, the Seventh Fleet Band 

performed at the 70th annual Shimoda Black Ships 

Festival, marking Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s 

1854 visit to Japan and the seminal trade agreement 

between the United States and Japan. 

The U.S.-Japan connection also prospered in 

the development of defensive weapon systems 

meant to discourage or defeat ballistic missiles 

launched from North Korea or China. The United 

States and Japan established a five-year program to 

develop a JMSDF antiballistic missile capability or 

“sea-based midcourse defense (SMD) system.” It 

bore fruit in December 2007 when Japanese Aegis 

destroyer Kongo shot down a dummy missile with a 

U.S. Standard Missile 3 at the Navy’s Pacific Missile 

Range Facility in Hawaii. After the successful test 

Tokyo, with Washington’s assistance, equipped over 

the next three years four of its destroyers with the 

proven antimissile system.

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Commander Republic of Korea Fleet Vice Admiral Jung-hwa Park 

and Commander U.S. Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral John M. Bird 

reach an agreement in March 2010 on the transition of wartime 

operational control of naval forces in Korean waters from the U.S. 

Navy to the ROK Navy.

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Carrier John C. Stennis (CVN 74), attack submarine Seawolf (SSN 21), and Japanese destroyer Oonami during a 2009 undersea warfare 

exercise in the Pacific Ocean. 
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 155

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Japanese and American sailors take part in a January 2010 ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty.
156 READY SEAPOWER

In a larger sense the 

connection between the Seventh 

Fleet and the JMSDF was, in 

the words of Vice Admiral 

Bird, “arguably the most critical 

Navy-to-Navy partnership in the 

world.” On the occasion of the 

50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan 

Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and 

Security in January 2010, Bird

noted that “not a day goes by that 

our two fleets are not somehow 

working together—whether 

training or participating in an 

exercise, sharing information, 

coordinating operations, or 

planning for contingencies.” 

Looking back on the U.S.-

Japan alliance, Bird observed that “working 

together, we kept the forces of darkness in 

check, and allowed Japan and the nations of this 

region to grow strong economies and vibrant 

democracies. . . . We have promoted democracy, 

respect for human rights, and free markets.”

The U.S.–PRC Connection 

One big question for U.S. naval leaders of 

the 21st century was the role China would play. 

Only the People’s Republic of China possessed 

the military forces and resources to challenge 

America’s presence in Asia and its interaction 

with regional nations and their navies. 

In the first years of the decade, China did not 

mount an outright challenge to that presence. 

Beijing hoped its top priority—the rapid and 

sustained growth of China’s domestic economy—

would foster national unity and the continued 

political control of the Chinese Communist 

Party. The PRC government also recognized that 

this economic growth helped limit dissent from 

disaffected members of the majority Han Chinese 

population and from Tibetans, Muslim Uighurs, 

and Falun Gong religious adherents. In 2004 

alone, there were thousands of mass protests in 

China involving almost four million people. 7th Flt PA

The Seventh Fleet band marches through the streets of Shimoda in the 2009 Black Ships 

Festival commemorating Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s 1854 visit that established 

economic and political ties between the United States and Japan.

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Guided missile destroyer Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54) fires an SM-2 air 

defense missile during readiness training in September 2009.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 157

Beijing’s leaders were also intent on convincing 

the Chinese residents of Taiwan and the former 

British colony of Hong Kong that their economic 

prosperity would not be jeopardized by an 

aggressive PRC foreign policy. Strong sentiment 

existed among China’s political class that the 

country should look to domestic concerns and retain 

its continental, defensive focus. 

The health of China’s economy depended on 

two major factors—exports and access to foreign 

sources of energy. By 2009 more than 90 percent of 

China’s foreign trade moved by sea, and seaborne 

oil imports constituted more than 80 percent of oil 

imports. China, the third largest shipbuilding nation 

in the world, managed a fleet of 300,000 oceangoing 

merchantmen, coastal vessels, and smaller craft. China 

was already the world’s fifth largest investor in seabed 

development in 2004, and by 2006 the maritime 

industry accounted for nearly 10 percent of China’s 

gross national product. One of Beijing’s major trading 

partners, the United States consumed 21 percent of 

China’s global exports in 2007 and kept millions of 

Chinese employed. By July 2010 China had surpassed 

Japan to become the world’s second most powerful 

economy after that of the United States.

China depended on oil that arrived via the 

South China Sea and Indian Ocean from the 

Arabian Gulf and Africa. By 2010 China was 

the second greatest consumer of oil in the world 

after the United States. Many pragmatic Chinese 

analysts concluded that “cooperation with other 

oil-consuming great powers, including the United 

States, [was vital] in order to secure stability of 

the oil and gas supply.” Analysts Andrew Ericson 

and Lyle Goldstein have contended that “without 

adequate oil supplies, China’s economy would 

grind to a halt as fuel shortages shut down trucks, 

ships, aircraft, and much of the rail system.” Naval 

War College scholars Toshi Yoshihara and James R. 

Holmes aptly concluded that “assuring safe passage 

for merchantmen bearing energy supplies from the 

Indian Ocean has come to obsess Beijing.”

In one of China’s most prestigious military 

journals, PLAN Senior Captain Xu Qi wrote that 

China’s “long period of prosperity [as well as] the 

Chinese nation’s existence, development, and great 

resurgence [all] increasingly rely on the sea. . . . Sea 

lines of communication [are becoming] lifelines of 

national existence [and] development.” Moreover, 

given China’s contiguous borders with Pakistan and 

Burma, access by sea to the ports and naval bases of 

these Beijing-friendly nations became increasingly 

important in the 21st century. 

A Chinese confrontation with India, Japan, 

South Korea, or the nations of Southeast Asia—

many having military alliances with the United 

States—over control of the oil routes would be 

fraught with risk for Beijing. The navies of Japan, 

Taiwan, the ASEAN nations, and India would pose 

considerable problems for the PLAN. Chinese 

leaders understood that the PRC’s aggressive 

behavior over Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 had sparked 

a military confrontation with the United States and 

sent negative shock waves throughout Asia. 

Beijing also recognized that China could 

not match the post–Cold War power of the U.S. 

armed forces in general and the Seventh Fleet 

in particular. As a U.S. Defense Department 

document concluded, China “is neither capable of 

using military power to secure its foreign energy 

investments nor of defending critical sea lanes 

against disruption.” Indeed, according to Ericson 

and Gabriel B. Collins, “a wide variety of influential 

Chinese experts, including scholars, policy analysts, 

and members of the military, believe that the [U.S. 

Navy] can sever China’s seaborne energy supplies at 

will and in a crisis might well choose to do so.” This 

action would clearly torpedo China’s continued 

economic progress.

Cooperation with the United States and the 

maritime nations of Asia stood the best chance of 

ensuring the security of oceangoing commerce and 

China’s access to overseas energy resources. U.S. 

foreign policy encouraged China’s evolution as a 

proponent of the global economic system and a 

trusted member of the international community.

With respect to China, in 2006 Admiral 

Roughead, as commander of the Pacific Fleet, 

alluded to discussions underway as part of the 

Military Maritime Consultative Agreement to 
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“increase transparency and decrease uncertainty 

and risk of miscalculation between the navies of 

the United States and China.” He believed such 

interaction would encourage China’s “peaceful rise 

in the region and will show it to be a responsible 

stakeholder in the maritime domain.” Another 

prescient American, Senator John McCain, 

recognized that despite significant differences with 

the PRC over its domestic governance and human 

rights, “the U.S. shares common interests with China 

that can form the basis of a strong partnership on 

issues of global concern, including climate change, 

trade, and proliferation” of nuclear weapons. In 

2009 President Barak Obama noted that the United 

States and China “can work together constructively 

bilaterally and with others to reduce tensions” 

if China “agrees to play by the rules and act as a 

positive force for balanced world growth.”

If the United States tried to ostracize China, it 

simply would not work. As Australian analyst Paul 

Dibb noted, U.S. policy should not “demonize China 

as the next ‘evil empire.’ Neither Japan, South 

Korea, nor Australia would be willing parties to such 

an ill considered approach.” Evan Medeiros echoed 

the statement: “[N]one of these nations want to 

choose between the United States and China, and 

all reject having to make such a choice.” He added, 

“none want China to dominate the region. . . [but] 

all want China to play a major role in managing 

regional challenges.” Green suggested that India 

too would be unlikely to join a “contain China” 

coalition. Pursuing a strategy to contain China as 

during the Cold War, as viewers made clear, would 

be a nonstarter; the “danger in pushing too hard 

for an American-led [anti-China] bloc is that the 

United States may end up being the only member.”

There were indications that the PRC would act 

as a force for stability. Beijing’s 1997 incorporation 

of Hong Kong into the PRC had not been heavyhanded, and the island city’s residents were 

7th Flt PA

Senator John McCain visits the guided missile destroyer John S. McCain (DDG 56), named for his father and grandfather, both 

distinguished U.S. Navy flag officers, April 2009.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 159

accorded some freedoms unavailable to Chinese on 

the mainland. And there were other examples of 

Chinese accommodations. In late 2000 China and 

Vietnam signed an agreement establishing maritime 

boundaries and fishing areas in the Gulf of Tonkin. 

In 2003 China and India signed a declaration of 

friendship and cooperation, and the navies of the 

two countries held joint exercises for the first time. 

That same year China expressed its intention to 

avoid conflict with other claimants to the Spratly 

Islands in the South China Sea and formally joined 

ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 

Southeast Asia. China’s pivotal role in the Six-Party 

Talks (involving the PRC, U.S., Russia, Japan, South 

Korea, and North Korea) with North Korea’s Kim 

Jong-il over his nation’s development of a nuclear 

arsenal highlighted how important China could be 

in assuring regional peace and stability.

In December 2004 Chinese Premier Hu Jintao’s 

government published a document relating to 

the PLA that charged the military with playing 

“an important role in maintaining world peace 

and promoting common development.” Bejing’s 

reaction to Japanese testing of a U.S. antiballistic 

missile system in December 2007 seemed relatively 

mild. The prevailing view in Beijing, according to 

Ericson and Goldstein, was that “as long as China’s 

navy continuously engages with the outside world, 

developing opportunities to partner with other 

countries, the world will come to accept, and even 

welcome, a strong Chinese navy.” 

The PRC endeavored to work with the U.S. in 

the maritime domain, as shown in its membership, 

along with the United States, Canada, Japan, 

South Korea, and Russia, in the North Pacific 

Heads of Coast Guards Association, which dealt 

with maritime security issues. Chinese and U.S. 

Coast Guard units also conducted annual search 

and rescue exercises. From 2002 to 2007 the 

U.S. Coast Guard worked successfully with many 

Chinese government agencies on maritime safety 

and other issues. In May 2006 USCGC Sequoia

(WLB 215) made the first visit by a Coast Guard 

vessel to China when she tied up at Shanghai. A

month later USCGC Rush (WHEC 723) visited 

Qingdao. Chinese fisheries patrol boats annually 

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U.S. Coast Guard high endurance cutter Rush (WHEC 723) works with Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy ships during maritime 

safety exercises in July 2010.
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joined with coast guard vessels and patrol aircraft 

from the United States, Japan, and Russia to take 

action against illegal fishing in the North Pacific. 

In the spring of 2007 the PLAN chief of staff, 

Admiral Wu Shengli, visited the United States. In 

December 2008 Beijing deployed two destroyers 

and an auxiliary to the Gulf of Aden to take part in 

international antipiracy patrols. 

The United States made other moves to further 

U.S.-China maritime cooperation. In November 

2002 the Seventh Fleet destroyer Paul F. Foster

(DD 964) visited Qingdao, and the next month 

U.S. naval representatives attended a meeting there 

on maritime and air safety. In September 2004 

for the first time Seventh Fleet warships visited 

Zhanjiang, homeport of the PLAN’s South Sea 

Fleet, when the guided missile cruiser Cowpens and 

guided missile frigate Vandegrift (FFG 48) made a 

port call. In October the PLAN destroyer Shenzhen

and supply ship Qinghai visited Guam. In 2004 

Blue Ridge made a port call on Shanghai, China, 

where the Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral 

Willard, met with Vice Mayor Feng Guoqing and 

Vice Admiral Zhao Guojun, commander of the 

East Sea Fleet, one of China’s three main combat 

formations. While in port Seventh 

Fleet Sailors and Marines toured 

the PLAN guided missile frigate 

Lian Yun Gang. 

In November 2006 Admiral 

Roughead, then Pacific Fleet 

commander, visited Beijing, 

Shanghai, and Zhanjiang to 

oversee a bilateral search and 

rescue exercise involving the 

guided missile destroyer Fitzgerald, 

amphibious transport dock Juneau

(LPD 10), and PLAN units. 

U.S. naval vessels regularly 

visited Hong Kong, a favorite 

Seventh Fleet liberty port.

To commemorate the 60th 

anniversary of the founding of the 

People’s Republic of China, in April 

2009 Fitzgerald took part in an 

International Fleet Review in the port of Qingdao. 

On hand for the occasion were Admiral Roughead, 

then-Chief of Naval Operations, and Vice Admiral 

Bird, Commander Seventh Fleet. As an indication of 

how far U.S.-Chinese relations had come, probably 

few Chinese or Americans present understood the 

irony of the Seventh Fleet Rock Band entertaining 

citizens of the port city that was the fleet’s homeport 

during the early years of the red-hot Cold War.

Deterrence of and Readiness for War

While the fleet worked to enhance collective 

security and multinational cooperation in the 

maritime domain of the Western Pacific, deterrence 

of war and readiness for war remained core 

responsibilities. Indeed, Vice Admiral Bird put 

special emphasis on warfighting readiness during his 

tenure as Commander Seventh Fleet. The events of 

9/11 compelled naval leaders to counter terrorism 

but, in the words of retired Rear Admiral Michael 

McDevitt, “the ‘old’ concerns remain—Korea, 

China’s stance toward Taiwan, China’s across the 

board military modernization.”

Moreover, the erratic, confrontational, and nucleararmed regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il USN Photo Gallery

Commander U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Gary Roughead converses with the commander 

of China’s South Sea Fleet Vice Admiral Gu Wengen in November 2006 when a Seventh 

Fleet contingent visited Zhanjiang.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 161

frequently threatened the United 

States, South Korea, and Japan with 

war and defied UN resolutions and 

Six-Party diplomatic efforts with 

regard to its nuclear capability. In June 

2002, apparently to retaliate for its 

defeat in the sea Battle of 

Yeonpyeoung of June 1999, the 

North Korean navy attacked and sank 

an ROKN patrol boat, killing eight 

South Korean sailors. In February 

2003 Pyongyang sent a MiG-19 over 

the Northern Limit Line and fired an 

antiship missile into the Sea of Japan/

East Sea. The following month four 

North Korean MiGs closed on a U.S. 

Air Force RC-135S intelligencegathering plane over the same waters, 

one jet coming within 50 feet of the 

American plane. Soon afterward, 

Kim’s regime launched another 

antiship missile into the sea. Then, 

North Korean guards on the DMZ 

fired on and damaged a South Korean 

guard post. On 5 July 2006 (4 July, 

Independence Day in the U.S.) North 

Korea launched multiple Scud, No 

Dong, and Taepodong II missiles into 

the Sea of Japan/East Sea. 

Pyongyang’s above-ground nuclear 

tests in October erased all doubt 

about the existence of a nuclear 

weapon capability in North Korea. 

In April 2009 North Korea again 

successfully launched an advanced 

Taepodong II ballistic missile.

In the face of aggressive acts by 

Kim’s government and continued 

intransigence in the Six-Party 

Talks over North Korea’s development of nuclearweapons, the United States and the Republic of 

Korea reaffirmed the importance of their defensive 

alliance. In March 2009 Vice Admiral Bird met with 

Vice Admiral Jung-hwa Park, Commander in Chief, 

Republic of Korea Fleet, in Busan, South Korea. 

The two men signed an operational plan, largely 

developed through the hard work during previous 

years of Rear Admiral James P. “Phil” Wisecup, then 

Commander, Naval Forces Korea. The plan saw the 

ROKN taking the operational lead during wartime 

and the Seventh Fleet taking a supporting role. 

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Minehunter Avenger (MCM 1) at the pier in Sasebo and decked out in honor of the 

50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, January 2010.
162 READY SEAPOWER

Park observed that “our signatures [on the plan] 

here serve as a reminder to all that the U.S. and 

the Republic of Korea stand side by side to defend 

this free nation.” They anticipated the turnover of 

operational control in 2015.

Several months later Secretary of the Navy 

Ray Mabus met with top officials in Busan to 

highlight once more the strength of the U.S.-ROK 

alliance. Bird worked closely with his South Korean 

counterpart to improve interoperability and 

information sharing between the Seventh Fleet and 

the ROKN. U.S. and South Korean naval leaders also 

worked to strengthen their mine countermeasures 

capability. In 2010 mine clearance vessels Avenger

(MCM 1) and Defender (MCM 2) began operating 

from the naval base at Sasebo, Japan, and MH-53 

Sea Dragon mine-hunting helicopters moved 

forward to Pohang, South Korea.

In September Bird, his task force commanders, 

and their South Korean counterparts gathered in 

Busan and Seoul to streamline Seventh Fleet–ROKN

command-and-control procedures. To reinforce the 

importance of the U.S. commitment to South Korea, 

the admiral and his task force commanders used the 

occasion to travel to the armistice site at Panmunjom, 

where they stood on South Korea’s forward defense 

line, only a few feet from North Korea. 

In October 2009 Seventh Fleet and ROKN

units conducted a bilateral exercise to highlight the 

importance of security and stability in Northeast 

Asia. For the first time in 12 years, the U.S. Navy’s 

forward-deployed carrier George Washington

steamed into the Yellow Sea/West Sea. The nuclearpowered Nimitz-class warship, part of Rear Admiral 

Kevin M. Donegan’s Battle Force Seventh Fleet 

(TF 70), operated in company with the guided 

missile cruisers Cowpens and Shiloh (CG 67) and 

guided missile destroyer Fitzgerald. A pair of ROKN

ships—guided missile destroyer Sejong the Great

and destroyer Kan Jan Chan—exercised with the 

American carrier task force.

In March 2010 a North Korean submarine 

torpedoed the ROKN corvette Cheonan, sinking 

the ship and killing 46 South Korean sailors. In 

addressing new ensigns of the JMSDF in May 

2010, Vice Admiral Bird emphasized that “we are 

concerned about North Korea, a dangerous and 

unpredictable regime . . . with its provocations, 

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ROKN guided missile destroyer Sejong the Great and Seventh Fleet carrier George Washington underway in 2009.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 163

proliferation concerns and efforts to further 

develop weapons of mass destruction.” In July 

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton remarked that 

“an isolated and belligerent North Korea has 

embarked on a campaign of provocative, dangerous 

behavior.” During the summer of 2010 Seventh 

Fleet and ROKN units carried out antisubmarine 

exercises in the Sea of Japan/East Sea to highlight 

allied solidarity. This exercise occurred despite 

Pyongyang’s threat to “counter [the exercise] with 

their powerful nuclear deterrent.” In July all five 

members of the UN Security Council, including 

China, passed a resolution condemning the 

torpedoing of Cheonan but, at Beijing’s 

insistence, made no reference to North 

Korea as the culprit.

China: A Regional Partner or a 

Regional Threat? 

During the first decade of the 21st 

century China usually acted responsibly 

on the international stage and refrained 

from provocative actions. But there 

were exceptions. In November 2004 a 

JMSDF P-3C patrol plane discovered an 

unidentified undersea vessel in Japan’s 

territorial waters near Sakishima. Tokyo 

concluded that the intruder, which 

eventually withdrew to international 

waters, was a Chinese nuclear-powered 

submarine. The Ministry of Defense issued 

National Defense Program Guidelines that 

reaffirmed Japan’s intention to prevent 

future violations of its surrounding seas. In 

the fall a flotilla of PLAN Russian-made 

Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers 

operated menacingly around islands in the 

East China Sea claimed by Beijing and 

Tokyo. The Chinese reportedly trained 

antiaircraft weapons on a Japanese P-3C 

that flew near the PLAN ships.

In January 2007 the Chinese destroyed 

one of their old weather satellites orbiting 

537 miles above the earth with an 

antisatellite missile. With this capability, 

the PRC had the potential to neutralize America’s 

fleet of navigation, communication, intelligence, and 

targeting satellites.

In November 2007 the PRC took actions that 

introduced a chill to U.S.-Chinese relations. First, 

Beijing refused to allow Seventh Fleet minesweepers 

Patriot (MCM 7) and Guardian (MCM 5), low on 

fuel and facing an approaching storm, to refuel in 

Hong Kong. Then the PRC denied the Kitty Hawk

battle group a long-planned visit to the former British 

colony. Washington ordered the carrier group north 

to Japan—via the Taiwan Strait. Soon afterward, 

Admiral Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. 7th Flt PA

Military Sealift Command salvage ship Salvor (T-ARS 52) supports the ROK 

Navy’s recovery of Cheonan sunk by a North Korean submarine in March 2010.

7th Flt PA

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral John M. Bird speaks to new ensigns of 

the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force during his May 2010 visit to the training 

ship Kashima in Yokosuka.
164 READY SEAPOWER

Pacific Command, told Chinese leaders in Beijing 

that their permission was not required for U.S. naval 

vessels to transit the international waters of the strait. 

By 2008 China had positioned over 1,000 

ballistic and cruise missiles in the region opposite 

Taiwan, increasing that number by 100 every year. 

To dissuade the PRC from applying any military 

pressure on Taiwan during the March 2008 

national elections, Washington deployed the Kitty 

Hawk and John C. Stennis strike groups just to the 

east of the island.

In March 2009, in a coordinated action, five 

Chinese ships harassed Impeccable (T-AGOS

23), an unarmed Military Sealift Command 

surveillance ship operating in waters 75 miles 

south of China’s Hainan Island. Two of the 

Chinese ships approached perilously close to the 

U.S. vessel, forced her to come to an all-stop to 

avoid a collision, and attempted to snag her towed 

acoustic array with a grappling hook. U.S. leaders 

considered the Chinese actions a dangerous breach 

of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and 

universally accepted maritime safety procedures.

In following months Chinese naval officers 

used provocative language in communications with 

Seventh Fleet commanders, and PLAN vessels 

interfered with the safe passage of U.S. ships to 

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A crewman of a Chinese vessel attempts to snag the towed array cable of Impeccable in the South China Sea 75 miles south of Hainan 

Island in March 2009.

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The Military Sealift Command’s ocean surveillance ship Impeccable

(T-AGOS 23) supports the Navy by using both passive and active 

sonar arrays to detect and track undersea threats.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 165

signal Beijing’s widely disputed contention that the 

South China Sea belonged to China.

During 2010 Beijing repeatedly called the 

South China Sea a “core interest’’ and implied the 

use of force to back up that claim. At ASEAN’s 

Asian Regional Forum meeting in the summer, 

the United States, Vietnam, and ten other nations 

with interests in the region called for a multilateral 

approach to the issue. Secretary of State Clinton 

observed that the United States opposed “the use 

or threat of force by any claimant” to the South 

China Sea.

U.S. leaders grew increasingly concerned about 

Beijing’s long-term intentions. Chinese displeasure 

over the January 2010 announcement that the 

United States would provide Taiwan with $6.4 

billion in defensive arms prompted Beijing to 

suspend military-to-military contacts. In May, Vice 

Admiral Bird gave voice to his views: “We . . . are 

concerned about China. Let me say right up front 

that we don’t consider China an enemy. But we 

are troubled by their lack of transparency as they 

build up their military in such a rapid fashion.” He 

added, “just consider what happened last month, 

when ten ships and submarines of the PLA Navy’s 

East Sea Fleet crossed the Ryuku island chain, 

conducted exercises around [a Japanese island] and 

flew helicopters very close to Japanese ships. The 

government and the people of Japan were troubled 

by this, justifiably so.” 

The increasing dedication of resources to the 

PLAN by the end of the decade brought on line 

advanced warships, amphibious vessels, aircraft, 

cruise missiles, and submarines. One of Beijing’s 

primary goals, frequently voiced by government 

spokesmen, continued to be incorporation of Taiwan 

and its citizens into the People’s Republic of China. 

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7th Flt PA

People’s Liberation Army Navy marines stand at attention during the visit of Seventh Fleet units to 

Zhanjiang, People’s Republic of China, in November 2006.

A Marine AH-1W Super Cobra operates from 

amphibious assault ship Peleliu (LHA 5) in 

June 2010.

7th Flt PA

Guided missile cruiser Lake Erie (CG 70), foreground, steams 

alongside Chinese guided missile destroyer Shijiazhuang and tanker 

Hongzehu in a January 2010 chance encounter in the Pacific 

Ocean east of the Philippines.
166 READY SEAPOWER

One of Washington’s top foreign policy 

responsibilities was to prevent that transition if 

it negated the wishes of the people on Taiwan or 

involved the use of military force. The Seventh 

Fleet, the primary instrument of U.S. policy in the 

Western Pacific, conducted numerous joint and 

combined exercises designed to discourage Chinese 

plans to establish sea control around Taiwan, deny 

those waters to U.S. naval units, or launch an 

amphibious/airborne invasion of the island. 

Preparing for Future Threats

To deal with regional contingencies, especially a 

major theater conflict, the Pacific Fleet had established 

Joint Task Force 519 in 1999. The intent then was to 

re-energize the Pacific Fleet as a warfighter rather than 

a mere force-provider. Commander Seventh Fleet 

was and is the Maritime Component Commander of 

7th Flt PA 

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuel) 2nd Class Ranulfo C. Gonzalez 

handles a JP-5 fuel hose on board amphibious assault ship Essex.

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An amphibious assault vehicle enters the sea from the well deck of dock landing ship Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) in a 2010 exercise off 

Okinawa’s White Beach.
The Venerable One

No U.S. naval vessel has seen, and indeed made, as 

much modern history as the Seventh Fleet command 

ship Blue Ridge (LCC 19). Commissioned in November 

1970, Blue Ridge made her Western Pacific debut in 

January 1972 when she became the flagship of the 

Seventh Fleet’s amphibious force at Subic Bay. That 

same year the ship took part in amphibious landings 

on the northern coast of South Vietnam and dodged 

fire from North Vietnamese shore batteries near the 

Demilitarized Zone. Blue Ridge assisted in Operation 

End Sweep, the clearance of mines from Haiphong 

harbor during 1973 and returned to waters off Vietnam 

in April 1975 for the last act in the long Vietnam drama. 

Along with a large flotilla of other Seventh Fleet ships, she helped 

evacuate tens of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans in 

Operation Frequent Wind. 

In October 1979 the Navy made Blue Ridge the flagship of 

Commander Seventh Fleet forward-based at Yokosuka, Japan. 

From that point on, she took part in missions that would be her 

forte—visiting ports throughout the Western Pacific, hosting 

shipboard tours by foreign dignitaries, and serving as the 

command post for naval exercises with the Japan Maritime SelfDefense Force, the Royal Australian Navy, and other allied navies.

Blue Ridge and other Seventh Fleet units operated in the 

waters of Northeast Asia on the eastern fringes of the USSR at the 

height of the Cold War. On one occasion, Soviet warships challenged 

the passage of the flagship between the Soviet occupied Kurile 

Islands and Japan’s Hokkaido Island. A Soviet guided missile cruiser communicated to Blue Ridge that 

the U.S. ship had violated Soviet territorial waters. Blue Ridge replied that she was “exercising [the] right 

to transit the strait connecting two international waters” and continued steaming through without further 

interference. 

Blue Ridge went to war again in the fall of 1990 when she put in at Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf to 

serve as the flagship of Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr. (and later Vice Admiral Stanley R. Arthur), dualhatted as Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet/Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. At sea in 

the Northern Arabian Gulf, Blue Ridge steamed alongside the warships of Battle Force Zulu when allied 

forces liberated Kuwait and defeated Saddam Hussein’s forces in Operation Desert Storm. 

After the Gulf War, Blue Ridge continued to represent the United States during port calls and other official 

functions. The flagship made frequent visits to Vladivostok, Shanghai, and other naval bases of former Cold 

War adversaries. In March 2005, for instance, Blue Ridge made a port call at Zhanjiang, China, home of the 

People’s Liberation Army Navy’s South Sea Fleet. For the remainder of the decade Blue Ridge continued to 

serve as a floating headquarters for Commander Seventh Fleet, made port visits for officers and enlisted 

personnel to meet with Asian counterparts, and participated in humanitarian works throughout the 

Seventh Fleet’s area of responsibility.

7th Flt PA

Command ship Blue Ridge (LCC 19) at Yokosuka in September 2009.

7th Flt PA

Captain J. Stephen Maynard, commanding officer of Blue 

Ridge, thanks Captain Wen Rulang of the Chinese People’s 

Liberation Army Navy for a scrapbook of the command ship’s 

two-day visit to the South Sea Fleet port of Zhanjiang in 

March 2005.
168 READY SEAPOWER

JTF 519. In a crisis, as many as 400 naval personnel 

would deploy from their duty stations worldwide to 

Japan and embark in Blue Ridge to strengthen the joint 

task force staff. Since the flagship could steam to any 

location in the Seventh Fleet’s area of responsibility, 

the joint force commander had the ability to direct 

operations in proximity to a crisis and not have to 

worry about acquiring a headquarters ashore. As 

observed by Admiral Doran, commander of the Pacific 

Fleet in 2003, JTF 519 “has the distinct advantage of 

operational independence in theaters where access is 

problematic either politically or because of significant 

force protection requirements.” The first exercises 

to test this use of the flagship, named Terminal Fury, 

occurred in October and December 2002 and affirmed 

the utility of the floating task force headquarters. 

The Navy took other steps strengthening its 

ability to manage potential conflicts in the Far East. 

The Bush-era Defense Department’s Quadrennial 

Defense Review established that 60 percent of the 

Navy’s warships would be deployed to the Pacific, 

a move endorsed by the Obama administration.

Task Force 74, the submarine arm, constitutes 

one of the fleet’s most powerful warfighting 

components. As a submariner, Bird certainly had 

a warm spot in his heart for the undersea vessels, but 

the Seventh Fleet commander hit the mark when 

he noted that “in the Pacific you rely on submarines 

more than anything else; they are the killer arrow 

in our warfighting quiver giving me options and 

capabilities that don’t exist anywhere else.”

In 2010 the nuclear-powered attack submarines 

Buffalo (SSN 715), City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705), 

and Houston (SSN 713), supported by submarine 

tender Frank Cable (AS 40), presented a formidable 

threat to all would-be aggressors in the operational 

area. The forward deployment of two of the Navy’s 

four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, 

7th Flt PA

Landing craft tied up in the well deck of Essex during the 2010 Cobra Gold exercise off Thailand.
PARTNERS AND ADVERSARIES 169 7th Flt PA

Attack submarine Tucson (SSN 770) during a Seventh Fleet-ROK Navy exercise in July 2010. 
170 READY SEAPOWER

Ohio (SSGN 726) and Michigan (SSGN 727), 

between 2007 and 2010 significantly strengthened 

the Guam-based task force. In addition, Florida

(SSGN 728) operated from Diego Garcia. The 

converted ships are capable of launching a combined 

total of 462 Tomahawk cruise missiles. 

The combat power of these submarines 

enabled Commander Seventh Fleet to present a 

real conventional deterrent to potential aggressors. 

The stealth, speed, and flexibility of these warships 

also helped the fleet commander gather intelligence 

on the open-sea and littoral activities of potential 

adversaries and provide advance warning of any 

pending attacks. If deterrence failed, the submarines 

could launch strike operations with Tomahawk 

cruise missiles and initiate special operations with 

unmanned aerial and undersea vehicles and Navy 

SEALs. To publicize the combat power of the 

Seventh Fleet, on 28 June 2010 Michigan visited 

Busan, South Korea; Ohio put in at Subic Bay in the 

Philippines, and Florida made port at Diego Garcia 

in the Indian Ocean—simultaneously.

In the first years of the momentous 21st century, 

the U.S. Navy in general and the Seventh Fleet in 

particular redoubled efforts to foster partnerships 

with the naval forces of the Asia-Pacific region to 

secure the maritime domain for the benefit of all. 

Recognizing that “smart power” could be a powerful 

tool for the United States, the Seventh Fleet devoted 

considerable attention to winning friends afloat 

and ashore. At the same time, in keeping with its 

vital readiness and warfighting responsibilities, the 

Seventh Fleet operated to discourage aggressive 

behavior by North Korea, China, and other potential 

belligerents and honed the professional skills of 

its commanders and Sailors. The Seventh Fleet 

continued to provide the United States and its allies 

with “Ready Power for Peace.” ★★★
171

Appendix 

Commanders, U.S. Seventh Fleet

 Vice Admiral Arthur S. Carpender 19 Feb 1943–26 Nov 1943

 Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid 26 Nov 1943–19 Nov 1945

 Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey 19 Nov 1945–08 Jan 1946

 Admiral Charles M. Cooke Jr.* 08 Jan 1946–24 Feb 1948

 Vice Admiral Oscar C. Badger** 24 Feb 1948–28 Aug 1949

 Vice Admiral Russell S. Berkey** 28 Aug 1949–04 Apr 1950

 Rear Admiral Walter F. Boone, Acting 04 Apr 1950–19 May 1950

 Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble 19 May 1950–28 Mar 1951

 Vice Admiral Harold M. Martin 28 Mar 1951–03 Mar 1952

 Vice Admiral Robert P. Briscoe 03 Mar 1952–20 May 1952

 Vice Admiral Joseph J. Clark 20 May 1952–01 Dec 1953

 Vice Admiral Alfred M. Pride 01 Dec 1953–19 Dec 1955

 Vice Admiral Stuart H. Ingersoll 19 Dec 1955–28 Jan 1957

 Vice Admiral Wallace M. Beakley 28 Jan 1957–30 Sep 1958

 Vice Admiral Frederick N. Kivette 30 Sep 1958–07 Mar 1960

 Vice Admiral Charles D. Griffin 07 Mar 1960–28 Oct 1961

 Vice Admiral William A. Schoech 28 Oct 1961–13 Oct 1962

 Vice Admiral Thomas H. Moorer 13 Oct 1962–11 Jun 1964

 Vice Admiral Roy L. Johnson 11 Jun 1964–01 Mar 1965

 Vice Admiral Paul P. Blackburn Jr. 01 Mar 1965–07 Oct 1965

 Rear Admiral Joseph W. Williams, Acting 07 Oct 1965–13 Dec 1965

 Vice Admiral John J. Hyland 13 Dec 1965–06 Nov 1967

 Vice Admiral William F. Bringle 06 Nov 1967–10 Mar 1970

 Vice Admiral Maurice F. Weisner 10 Mar 1970–18 Jun 1971

 Vice Admiral William P. Mack 18 Jun 1971–23 May 1972

 Vice Admiral James L. Holloway III 23 May 1972–28 Jul 1973

 Vice Admiral George P. Steele 28 Jul 1973–14 Jun 1975

 Vice Admiral Thomas B. Hayward 14 Jun 1975–24 Jul 1976

 Vice Admiral Robert B. Baldwin 24 Jul 1976–31 May 1978

 Vice Admiral Sylvester R. Foley Jr. 31 May 1978–14 Feb 1980

 Vice Admiral Carlisle A.H. Trost 14 Feb 1980–16 Sep 1981

 Vice Admiral M. Straser Holcomb 16 Sep 1981–09 May 1983

 Vice Admiral James R. Hogg 09 May 1983–04 Mar 1985

 Vice Admiral Paul F. McCarthy Jr. 04 Mar 1985–09 Dec 1986

 Vice Admiral Paul D. Miller 09 Dec 1986–21 Oct 1988

 Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr. 21 Oct 1988–01 Dec 1990

 Vice Admiral Stanley R. Arthur 01 Dec 1990–03 Jul 1992

 Vice Admiral Timothy W. Wright 03 Jul 1992–28 Jul 1994

 Vice Admiral Archie R. Clemins 28 Jul 1994–13 Sep 1996

 Vice Admiral Robert J. Natter 13 Sep 1996–12 Aug 1998

19 Feb 1943–26 Nov 1943

26 Nov 1943–19 Nov 1945

19 Nov 1945–08 Jan 1946

08 Jan 1946–24 Feb 1948

24 Feb 1948–28 Aug 1949

28 Aug 1949–04 Apr 1950

04 Apr 1950–19 May 1950

19 May 1950–28 Mar 1951

28 Mar 1951–03 Mar 1952

03 Mar 1952–20 May 1952

20 May 1952–01 Dec 1953

01 Dec 1953–19 Dec 1955

19 Dec 1955–28 Jan 1957

28 Jan 1957–30 Sep 1958

30 Sep 1958–07 Mar 1960

07 Mar 1960–28 Oct 1961

28 Oct 1961–13 Oct 1962

13 Oct 1962–11 Jun 1964

11 Jun 1964–01 Mar 1965

01 Mar 1965–07 Oct 1965

07 Oct 1965–13 Dec 1965

13 Dec 1965–06 Nov 1967

06 Nov 1967–10 Mar 1970

10 Mar 1970–18 Jun 1971

18 Jun 1971–23 May 1972

23 May 1972–28 Jul 1973

28 Jul 1973–14 Jun 1975

14 Jun 1975–24 Jul 1976

24 Jul 1976–31 May 1978

31 May 1978–14 Feb 1980

14 Feb 1980–16 Sep 1981

16 Sep 1981–09 May 1983

09 May 1983–04 Mar 1985

04 Mar 1985–09 Dec 1986

09 Dec 1986–21 Oct 1988

21 Oct 1988–01 Dec 1990

01 Dec 1990–03 Jul 1992

03 Jul 1992–28 Jul 1994

28 Jul 1994–13 Sep 1996

13 Sep 1996–12 Aug 1998
172 APPENDIX

 Vice Admiral Walter F. Doran 12 Aug 1998–12 Jul 2000

 Vice Admiral James W. Metzger 12 Jul 2000–18 Jul 2002

 Vice Admiral Robert F. Willard 18 Jul 2002–06 Aug 2004

 Vice Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert 06 Aug 2004–12 Sep 2006

 Vice Admiral Douglas Crowder 12 Sep 2006–12 Jul 2008 

 Vice Admiral John M. Bird 12 Jul 2008–10 Sep 2010

 Vice Admiral Scott R. Van Buskirk 10 Sep 2010–07 Sep 2011

 Vice Admiral Scott H. Swift 07 Sep 2010–

* Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet changed to Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific, 

 1 January 1947.

** Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific, with additional duty as Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet 

 from 1 August 1949 to 11 February 1950 when the entity became solely U.S. Seventh Fleet.

U.S. Navy photo

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral Jonathan Greenert, on board the amphibious assault ship Essex (LHD 2) in Sasebo, Japan, praises 

the work of the ship’s Sailors and Marines during Exercise Balikatan in the Philippines, April 2006. 

12 Aug 1998–12 Jul 2000

12 Jul 2000–18 Jul 2002

18 Jul 2002–06 Aug 2004

06 Aug 2004–12 Sep 2006

12 Sep 2006–12 Jul 2008 

12 Jul 2008–10 Sep 2010

10 Sep 2010–07 Sep 2011

07 Sep 2011–
173

Abbreviations

AAWC Antiair Warfare Commander

AD Destroyer Tender

AE Ammunition Ship

AF Stores Ship

AFS Combat Stores Ship

AGC Amphibious Force Flagship

AGER Environmental Research Ship

AGF Auxiliary Command Ship

AGI Auxiliary, General, 

Intelligence

AH Hospital Ship

ANZUS Australia, New Zealand, 

United States

AO Oiler

APA Attack Transport

APEC Asia Pacific Economic 

Cooperation 

ARS Repair Ship

AS Submarine Tender

ASEAN Association of Southeast 

Asian Nations

ASW Antisubmarine Warfare

ATS Salvage Ship

AV Seaplane Tender

BB Battleship

CA Heavy Cruiser

CARAT Cooperation Afloat Readiness 

and Training

CG Guided Missile Cruiser

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CIC Combat Information Center

CINCPAC Commander in Chief, U.S. 

Pacific Command

CIWS Close-in Weapon System

CJTF Commander Joint Task Force

CLG Guided Missile Light Cruiser

CNO Chief of Naval Operations

COMUSNAVCENT Commander, U.S. Naval 

Forces Central Command

CGN Guided Missile Cruiser 

(nuclear-powered)

CTF Commander Task Force

CV Aircraft Carrier

CVA Attack Aircraft Carrier 

CVAN Attack Aircraft Carrier 

(nuclear-powered)

CVE Escort Aircraft Carrier

CVN Aircraft Carrier (nuclearpowered)

CVS Antisubmarine Warfare 

Aircraft Carrier

DAO Defense Attaché Office

DD Destroyer

DDG Guided Missile Destroyer

DE Destroyer Escort

DMS Destroyer Minesweeper

DMZ Demilitarized Zone

EMCON Emissions Control

ENCAP Engineering Civic Action 

Project

FAST Fleet Antiterrorism Security 

Team

FF Frigate

FFG Guided Missile Frigate

FON Freedom of Navigation

HARM High-Speed Anti-Radiation 

Missile
174 ABBREVIATIONS

HMH Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter 

Squadron

HMM Marine Medium Helicopter 

Squadron 

IFF Identification Friend or Foe

INTERFET International Forces in 

East Timor

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JMSDF Japan Maritime Self-Defense 

Force

JTF Joint Task Force

LAMPS Light Airborne Multipurpose 

System

LCAC Landing Craft Air Cushion 

LCC Amphibious Command Ship

LED Law Enforcement 

Detachment

LHA Amphibious Assault Ship 

(general purpose)

LHD Amphibious Assault Ship 

(multipurpose)

LKA Amphibious Cargo Ship

LPD Amphibious Transport Dock

LSD Dock Landing Ship

LSM Medium Landing Ship

LST Tank Landing Ship

LVT Tracked Landing Vehicle

MC Medical Corps

MCM Mine Countermeasures Ship

MEB Marine Expeditionary Brigade

MEDCAP Medical Civic Action 

Program

MiG Soviet-made Fighter Aircraft

MMCA Military Maritime 

Consultative Agreement

MSC Military Sealift Command

NATO North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization

NLL Northern Limit Line

NMCB Naval Mobile Construction 

Battalion

OKEAN Soviet Maritime Exercise

PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam

PLA People’s Liberation Army

PLAN People’s Liberation Army Navy

POW Prisoner of War

PRC People’s Republic of China

PSI Proliferation Security 

Initiative

PT Torpedo Boat

PTF Fast Patrol Craft

RHIB Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat

RIMPAC Rim of the Pacific (naval 

exercise)

RMSI Regional Maritime Security 

Initiative 

ROC Republic of China (Taiwan)

ROK Republic of Korea

ROKN Republic of Korea Navy

RRF Ready Reserve Force 

SAM Surface-to-Air Missile

SEACAT Southeast Asia Cooperation 

Against Terrorism

SEAL Sea Air Land (naval special 

forces)

SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty 

Organization

SS Steamship

SS Submarine

SSGN Guided Missile Submarine

SSN Attack Submarine (nuclearpowered)

T-AO Fleet Replenishment Oiler

T-AGOS Ocean Surveillance Ship

TF Task Force
ABBREVIATIONS 175

TG Task Group

TLAM Tomahawk Land Attack 

Missile

UN United Nations

USCENTCOM U.S. Central Command

USNAVCENT U.S. Naval Forces Central 

Command

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics

VA Attack Squadron

VBSS Visit, Board, Search, Seizure

VF Fighter Squadron

VFA Strike Fighter Squadron 

VP Patrol Squadron

VQ Fleet Air Reconnaissance 

Squadron

WHEC High Endurance Cutter

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction

George Washington test-fires one of its Phalanx close-in weapon systems (CIWS) in May 2009 during a readiness drill.

7th Flt PA
176 APPENDIX

Guided missile destroyer Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54) bucks heavy seas, a not uncommon occurrence for Seventh Fleet warships.

7th Flt PA [Aug 2010]
177

Acknowledgments

This illustrated history would not have been 

possible without the unstinting support 

and encouragement of Seventh Fleet 

commanders Vice Admirals John M. Bird, Scott 

R. Van Buskirk, and Scott H. Swift and Director 

of Naval History Rear Admiral Jay DeLoach. 

These leaders recognized the value of enlightening 

today’s Sailors about the momentous history of 

this forward-deployed naval force and its vital 

contribution to American responsibilities in the Far 

East. Vice Admiral Bird and his equally supportive 

public affairs officer, Commander Jeff Davis, 

hosted my visit to Japan and that of Commander 

James Reid of the NHHC’s Naval Reserve Combat 

Documentation Detachment 206. We learned firsthand from conversations and recorded interviews 

with Commander Seventh Fleet, his principal task 

force commanders, staff officers, and naval personnel 

of all ranks about the fleet’s current mission and 

responsibilities.

I would be remiss if I did not express my sincere 

thanks to past and current colleagues of mine at the 

Naval History and Heritage Command, including 

former Director of Naval History Rear Admiral 

Paul E. Tobin, USN (Ret.), Chief of the Histories 

and Archives Division Greg Martin, and Senior 

Historian Dr. Michael Crawford. I am also indebted 

to the staff members of the Operational Archives, 

Navy Department Library, and Curator Branch who 

did much to facilitate my research and writing. Pam 

Overmann of the Art Branch was especially helpful 

in the selection of appropriate visuals as was the 

Photo Section’s Robert Hanshew and Ed Finney. 

Tim Frank, my colleague on the Cold War Gallery 

project, provided me with a wealth of illustrative 

material. My fellow historians Dr. John Sherwood, 

Dr. Jeffrey Barlow, Dr. David Winkler, Dr. Timothy 

Francis, and especially Dr. Robert J. Schneller 

encouraged my work and shared their considerable 

insight on the Navy’s modern operational history. 

Indeed, Dr. Schneller’s Anchor of Resolve: A History 

of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet in 

many ways served as a model for this history of the 

Seventh Fleet. 

I am truly grateful to Sandy Doyle and Wendy 

Sauvageot of the Publications Branch for professionally 

converting my draft narrative and rough illustrative 

materials into a worthy finished publication. 

Jan Herman and André Sobchinski of the 

Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s historical office 

provided me with several striking visuals. Captain 

Todd Creekman, executive director of the Naval 

Historical Foundation as always encouraged and 

facilitated my historical endeavors.

I would especially like to thank the following 

individuals, distinguished scholars of the U.S. Navy’s 

modern involvement in Asian affairs, each of whom 

read all or parts of my draft manuscript and offered 

their sage advice: Captain Peter Swartz, Center for 

Naval Analyses; Captain Bernard D. “Bud” Cole, 

USN (Ret.), National Defense University; Dr. 

Roger Dingman, Professor Emeritus, University of 

Southern California; widely published naval analyst 

Norman Polmar; David F. Winkler, Naval Historical 

Foundation; Bruce A. Elleman, Naval War College; 

and respected authorities on Asia Paul Giarra and 

James Auer.

As always, I am indebted to my wife, Beverly, 

and sons Jeffrey, Brian, and Michael for their 

unwavering support and patient understanding of 

my obsession with our Navy’s consequential history. 

Lastly, I dedicate this work to the men and 

women who have served and are serving in the U.S. 

Seventh Fleet, America’s guardian in Asia.
178 APPENDIX 7th Flt PA

Amphibious assault ship Essex (LHD 2) launches a RIM-7P Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile during a 

live-fire session in joint exercise Valiant Shield in September 2010.
179

Suggested Reading

Given the broad span of time covered and 

the momentous events involving the 

Seventh Fleet, there are literally thousands 

of good books that discuss some aspect of its defense 

of U.S. security interests in the Western Pacific, 

Indian Ocean, and Asia. One of the primary reasons 

for the illustrated work presented here, however, is 

to provide a one-volume treatment of the Seventh 

Fleet’s history that relates to its current mission. The 

purpose of this bibliographical essay is to identify a 

few of the most comprehensive, balanced, readable, 

and useful works on the most important chapters 

within the overall Seventh Fleet story. 

Any investigation of the Navy’s role in World 

War II must start with the 15-volume series History 

of United States Naval Operations in World War 

II (Boston, MA: Little Brown) produced by the 

dean of naval historians, Samuel Eliot Morison. 

The books that deal with individual Seventh Fleet 

campaigns and battles are Breaking the Bismarcks 

Barrier, New Guinea and the Marianas, Leyte, and 

Liberation of the Philippines. His shorter summary 

history, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of 

the United States Navy in the Second World War 

(New York: Galahad Books, 1963), covers the 

fleet’s operations under MacArthur from the 

Solomons through the Philippines. How the Navy 

interacted with MacArthur and his Army and Army 

Air Forces generals during the hard slog on the 

road to Tokyo can be found in Gerald Wheeler’s 

well-done treatment Kinkaid of the Seventh Fleet: 

A Biography of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, U.S. 

Navy (Washington: Naval Historical Center/Naval 

Institute Press, 1996). The biography entitled 

MacArthur’s Amphibious Navy: Seventh Amphibious 

Force Operations, 1943–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval 

Institute Press, 1969) by Kinkaid’s most prominent 

amphibious commander, Vice Admiral Daniel E. 

Barbey, provides a wealth of operational detail. Eagle 

Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New 

York: Vintage Books, 1985) by Ronald H. Spector, a 

former Director of Naval History, provides a good 

analysis of how the Seventh Fleet fit into the overall 

Allied scheme in the South and Southwest Pacific. 

Other good works that cover the campaigns in New 

Guinea and the Philippines are William M. Leary’s 

We Shall Return! MacArthur’s Commanders and the 

Defeat of Japan, 1942–1945 (Lexington: University 

Press of Kentucky, 1988) and Stanley L. Falk’s 

Liberation of the Philippines (New York: Ballantine 

Books, 1971). The pivotal battle of Leyte Gulf is 

well treated by Thomas Cutler in his The Battle of 

Leyte Gulf, 23–26 October, 1944 (New York: Harper 

Collins, 1994). There is no more riveting account of 

the battle and the role in it of Commander Ernest 

Evans and “Taffy 3” than James D. Hornfischer’s 

award-winning The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: 

The Extraordinary World War II Story of the US 

Navy’s Finest Hour (New York: Bantam Dell, 2005).

The activities of the Navy and Marine Corps 

in the postwar occupation of southern Korea and 

northern China are featured in Spector’s In the 

Ruin’s of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the 

Battle for Postwar Asia (New York: Random House, 

2007). The Seventh Fleet’s movement of Chiang 

Kai-shek’s armies is detailed in Edwin B. Hooper, 

Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald’s The 

Setting of the Stage to 1959, Volume I in the series 

The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict

(Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1976).

There are numerous books on the experiences 

in the Korean War of Seventh Fleet warships, 

aircraft squadrons, and Sailors, but the three most 

comprehensive are United States Naval Operations: 

Korea (Washington: Naval History Division, 1962) 

by James A. Field; The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957) by Malcolm W. 

Cagle and Frank A. Manson; and The U.S. Navy in 

the Korean War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute 

Press, 2007) by Edward J. Marolda, ed. A good 

overview of military operations in the war, including 

those of the Navy and Marine Corps is provided by 

Allan Millett in his The War for Korea, 1950–1951: 

They Came from the North (Lawrence: University 
180 SUGGESTED READING

of Kansas Press, 2010). Amphibious operations are 

covered in Robert D. Heinl’s classic Victory at High 

Tide: The Inchon-Seoul Campaign (Philadelphia: J.B. 

Lippincott, 1968) and Merrill L. Bartlett’s Assault 

from the Sea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 

1983). Richard P. Hallion’s The Naval Air War 

in Korea (Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation 

Publishing Co. of America, 1986) presents detailed 

information on the role of carrier and shore-based 

aviation units. The role of naval leaders in the 

war can be found in C. Turner Joy’s classic How 

Communists Negotiate (New York: Macmillan, 1955) 

and Clark Reynolds’ colorful biography of one-time 

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral Joseph 

Clark entitled On the Warpath in the Pacific: Admiral 

Jocko Clark and the Fast Carriers (Annapolis, MD: 

Naval Institute Press, 2005). 

The Seventh Fleet’s involvement in the Taiwan 

Strait crises of the 1950s, the French Indochina 

War, and the early years of the Vietnam conflict are 

discussed in broad terms in From Pearl Harbor to 

Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford

(Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1980) 

by Radford and Stephen Jurika; The Approaching 

Storm: Conflict in Asia, 1945–1965 (Washington: 

Naval History & Heritage Command) by Marolda; 

and High Seas Buffer: The Taiwan Patrol Force, 

1950–1979 (Newport, RI: Naval War College 

Press, 2012) by Bruce A. Elleman. Hooper’s The 

Setting of the Stage to 1959 and Marolda and Oscar 

P. Fitzgerald’s From Military Assistance to Combat, 

Volume II in the series The United States Navy and 

the Vietnam Conflict (Washington: Naval Historical 

Center, 1986), cover the same subjects in more 

detail. The best treatment of the 1958 Taiwan Strait 

Crisis is included in Joseph F. Bouchard’s Command 

in Crisis: Four Case Studies (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1991). The Seventh Fleet’s close 

relationship with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense 

Force is insightfully chronicled in James E. Auer’s 

The Postwar Rearmament of Japanese Maritime 

Forces, 1945–1971 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 

1973). The entries on the Yokosuka and Sasebo 

bases, especially those by Roger Dingman, and on 

the Philippines bases in Paolo E. Colletta’s United 

States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, Overseas

(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), are 

especially useful. 

Many good works provide overall context 

and operational detail on the fleet’s role in the 

long Vietnam War. Richard L. Shreadley in From 

the Rivers to the Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992) and 

Marolda in By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated 

History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast 

Asia (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1994) 

provide overviews of the major naval operations in 

North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 

Edwin E. Moise’s Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of 

the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 1996) is an authoritative source on 

that pivotal episode. Task Force 77’s contribution 

is comprehensively covered in On Yankee Station: 

The Naval Air War over Vietnam (Annapolis, MD: 

Naval Institute Press, 1987) by John B. Nichols and 

Barrett Tillman; Aircraft Carriers at War: A Personal 

Retrospective of Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet 

Confrontation (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 

2007) by James L. Holloway III; The Naval Air War 

in Vietnam, 1965–1975 (Annapolis, MD: Nautical 

and Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1981) 

by Peter Mersky and Norman Polmar; Launch the 

Intruders: A Naval Attack Squadron in the Vietnam 

War, 1972 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 

2005), by Carol Reardon; and Afterburner: Naval 

Aviators and the Vietnam War (New York: New 

York University Press, 2004), and Nixon’s Trident: 

Naval Air Power in Southeast Asia, 1968–1972

(Washington: Naval History & Heritage Command, 

2009) by John Darrell Sherwood. 

Operations involving naval amphibious forces 

are featured in Sea Soldiers in the Cold War: 

Amphibious Warfare, 1945–1991 (Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995) by Joseph H. 

Alexander and the Marine Corps’ eight-volume 

U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington: History and 

Museums Division, HQ USMC, 1977–1997). The 

role of Seventh Fleet and U.S. Coast Guard coastal 

patrol forces is well covered in Alex Larzelere’s 

The Coast Guard at War: Vietnam 1965–1975 
SUGGESTED READING 181

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute 

Press, 1997). Jeffrey Grey’s Up 

Top: The Royal Australian Navy 

and Southeast Asian Conflicts, 

1955–1972 (St. Leonards, 

Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1998) 

discusses the interaction of 

Australian and Seventh Fleet 

units conducting bombardment 

operations off the coast of 

Vietnam. 

The ordeal of America’s 

prisoners of war is comprehensively 

treated in Stuart Rochester’s The 

Battle Behind Bars: Navy and 

Marine Corps POWs in the Vietnam 

War (Washington: Naval History 

Heritage Command, 2010) and 

(with Frederick Kiley) Honor 

Bound: American Prisoners of War 

in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute 

Press, 2007). An authoritative 

source on the Mayaguez action is 

John Guilmartin’s A Very Short 

War: The Mayaguez and the Battle 

of Koh Tang (College Station: Texas 

A&M University Press, 1995). 

The Seventh Fleet’s response 

to the Vietnam era’s Soviet and 

North Korean provocations is 

well covered in David F. Winkler’s 

Cold War at Sea: High-Seas 

Confrontation between the United 

States and the Soviet Union 

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 

2000), Richard A. Mobley’s Flash Point North 

Korea: The Pueblo and EC-121 Crises (Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003), Mitchell B. 

Lerner’s The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the 

Failure of American Foreign Policy (Lawrence: 

University of Kansas Press, 2002), and Narushige 

Michishita’s North Korea’s Military-Diplomatic 

Campaigns, 1966–2008 (London and New York: 

Routledge, 2010). 

The confrontation between the Seventh Fleet 

and the Soviet Pacific Fleet, development of the 

Maritime Strategy, and buildup of the 600-ship Navy 

are described in general terms in John F. Lehman’s 

Command of the Seas (New York: Scribner’s, 1988);

Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.’s On Watch: A Memoir (New 

York: Quadrangle/NY Times Book Co., 1977); 

John Hattendorf’s The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s 

Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986 (Newport, RI: Naval 

7th Flt PA

Crewmen of Greeneville (SSN 772) stand by during the attack submarine’s approach to the 

ROK Navy base at Chinhae in September 2010.
182 SUGGESTED READING

War College Press, 2004); and Peter M. Swartz’s U.S. 

Navy Forward Deployment, 1801–2001 (Alexandria, 

VA: Center For Naval Analyses, 2001). 

The Seventh Fleet’s central role in operations 

Desert Shield and Desert Storm is comprehensively 

covered in Marolda and Robert J. Schneller’s Shield 

and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian 

Gulf War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 

2001) and Marvin Pokrant’s two volumes: Desert 

Shield at Sea: What the Navy Really Did, and Desert 

Storm at Sea: What the Navy Really Did (Westport, 

CT: Greenwood, 1999). 

The best one-volume treatment of the 

Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995–1996 is John Garver’s 

Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan’s 

Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington 

Press, 1997), while Bernard D. Cole’s The Great 

Wall at Sea: China’s Navy Enters the Twenty-First 

Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010) 

provides great detail and analysis on the actions of 

the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the Seventh 

Fleet from the mid-1990s to the present. 

No single book covers the Seventh Fleet’s 

operations to counter the actions of confrontational 

nations, terrorists, and pirates in the first decade 

of the 21st century. Indeed, the best coverage is 

provided in the comprehensive articles published in 

the Naval War College Review and to a lesser extent 

the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. That being said, 

a number of books do provide valuable relevant 

information, including Sea Lanes and Pipelines: 

Energy Security in Asia (New York: Praeger Security 

International, 2008) by Bernard D. Cole; Small 

Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: Piracy & Maritime 

Terrorism in the Modern World (London: Hearst 

and Co., 2010) by Martin N. Murphy; and Red 

Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge 

to U.S. Maritime Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval 

Institute Press, 2010) by Toshi Yoshihara and James 

R. Holmes. Bruce A. Elleman’s Waves of Hope: The 

U.S. Navy’s Response to the Tsunami in Northern 

Indonesia (Newport, RI: Naval War College 

Press, 2007) provides great detail on the fleet’s 

involvement in the 2004 disaster. 
183

Index

Unless otherwise noted in parentheses, ships and units are United States forces. Page numbers in italics at the end of an entry 

refer to photo captions.

A-1 Skyraider, 59 

A-4 Skyhawk, vi, 59–60 

A-6 Intruder, 59–61, 92,106; 61

A-7 Corsair II, 59, 65, 72; 65, 72 

Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), 110–11, 120, 144–45; 144

Abu Sayyaf, 128, 139, 140–41 

Aceh Province, Indonesia, 130, 145–46; 145

Acheson, Dean, viii, 18, 20 

AD Skyraider, 29, 41 

Adelaide (Australian), 103

Aden, Gulf of, 130, 160 

Admiralty Islands, vii, 2 

Admiral Vinogradov (Russian), 150 

Aegis battle management system, 95, 107, 113, 121–22, 

132, 154 

Afghanistan, xi, xii, 83, 125, 127–30, 133–34 

Agency for International Development, 142 

AGI (auxiliary general intelligence ship [Soviet]), 75, 77 

Agreed Framework, xii, 120 

Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities in Indochina, 39 

AH-1W Super Cobra (Marine), 165, 166; 165

Air Cathay passenger plane, attack on, 40 

Ajax (AR 6), 47

Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (Soviet), 89 

Alaska, Gulf of, Soviet Pacific Fleet in, 79 

Aleutian Islands, 3, 96, 98 

Allen, Thad, 148 

Allied Naval Forces Southwest Pacific Area, commander of, 1 

Alondra Rainbow (Japanese), 131 

Alpha strikes, 59–60 

Amagiri (Japanese), 153 

Amchitka Island, Alaska, 96 

American Corsair (merchantman), 64

“America’s Gibraltar of the Pacific,” 48 

Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, 152 

Amphibious Evacuation Force, 42 

Amphibious Force Seventh Fleet, 1, 2, 10, 13, 45, 48, 167 

Amphibious Force Western Pacific, commander of, 39

Amphibious Ready Group Alpha, 66–67 

Amphibious Ready Group/Special Landing Force, 63 

Anderson (DD 786), 20 

Anemometr (Soviet AGI), 75 

Antietam (CV 36), 18, 21 

ANZUS Security Treaty, viii, 84

Aquino, Corazon, 100, 111 

Arabian Gulf, operations in, 115, 130, 145, 148, 157; 

during Desert Storm 101–7, 111–12, 167; after Gulf 

War, 129, 149. See also Northern Arabian Gulf

Arabian Peninsula, 104, 108 

Arab-Israeli conflict, 108 

Arizona (BB 39), 2

Arkansas (CGN 41), 110 

Arthur, Stanley R., 104–8, 167, 171; 104

ASEAN Asian Regional Forum, 165 

ASEAN Convention on Terrorism, 131 

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, 131 

Asia-Pacific region, U.S. Navy and stability in, 96–100, 

118, 126, 132, 142–43, 152, 170 

Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 131 

Atlanta (CL 104), 19 

Atsugi airfield, Japan, 47 

Attack Carrier Striking Force, 42, 59 

Attack Squadron 94; 65

Attack Squadron 153, 60 

Attack Squadron 155, 60 

Australia, xiv, 100, 118, 139, 142–44, 146, 148–50, 152–

53, 158; in East Timor, 123; in Gulf War, 102–3, 105; 

and maritime exercises, 121–23, 133–34, 135; in Korean 

War, 24; and SEATO, ix, 44–45, 52; and terrorist 

bombing in Bali, 130; in Vietnam War, 58, 62; in World 

War II, 1, 4, 9–10

Australian 7th Infantry Division, 10 

Australian White Paper of 2009, 139, 153 

Avenger (MCM 1), 162; 161

Axe Murder incident, xi, 77 

B-52 bombers, 78 

Bach Long Vi (Nightingale Island), 60 

Backfire bombers (Soviet), 87, 92 

Badger, Oscar, 20–21, 171 

Bahrain, 102, 108, 167

Bali Accord II, 131 

Bali, Indonesia, 121, 130

Balikpapan, Borneo, 10 

Bandung Conference, 42 

Bangkok, Thailand, 40, 44–45, 128, 130 

Bangladesh, xii, 80–81, 101, 112, 121, 131–32, 135 

Banner (AGER 1), 75 

Barbey, Daniel E., 1, 9–10, 14, 16–17, 21, 171 

Barbour County (LST 1195), 68 

Barnett, J. T., 8 

Barrett, Mark, 77 

Basilan Island, Philippines, 128, 139–41 

Bataan Peninsula, 10 

Batson, Jack E., 60 

Battle Force Seventh Fleet, 162 

Battle Force Sixth Fleet, 102 

Battle Force Zulu, 85, 104–6, 167 

battles: Leyte Gulf, vii, 3–8, 10; 3, 5, 7; Midway, vii; Surigao 

Strait, 4–6; 6; Tsushima, 151; Yeonpyeong, xii, 121 
184 INDEX

Battleaxe (British), 103 

Bay of Bengal, U.S. Navy in, 81, 133, 134; 132

Beakley, Wallace M., 49–50, 171 

Beaufort (ATS 2), 107–8 

“Bedcheck Charlies,” 29 

Begor (APD 127), 29

Bekasi, Indonesia, 137 

Belgrade, Serbia, xiv, 119 

Belleau Wood (LHA 3), 112, 115, 123, 125; 112, 125

Benner (DD 807), 21 

Bennion (DD 662), 4, 6; 5

Berbera, Serbia, Soviet base at, 83

Bering Sea, 96, 98 

Berkey, Russell S., viii, 20, 171 

Besslednyy (Soviet), 75 

Biak Island, 4 

Bien Hoa airfield, South Vietnam, 58 

Bienvenido Salting (Philippines), 136 

Bin Laden, Osama, 127–28 

Bird, John M., 132, 150–51, 154–56, 160–65, 168, 172; vi, 

150, 154

Black Killer, 141 

Black Swan (British), 23 

Blackman, Robert R., 144

Black Ships Festival (Shimoda, Japan), 154; 156 

Blair, Dennis, 131, 143; 128

Blake, Terry, 132 

Blakley, John H., 8 

Blue (DD 744), 102 

Blue House Raid, 76 

Blue Ridge (LCC 19), 85, 121, 133, 146, 150, 160, 167–

68; vi, 86, 167, back cover; and China, 115, 118–19; in 

Gulf War, 85, 102, 107; 107; in Vietnam War, 68; 65

Boise (CL 47), 4 

Bombay, India. See Mumbai

Bon Homme Richard (CVA 31), 73

Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), 144–45 

Boniface, Arthur, 77 

Bordelon, Guy P., 29 

Boxer (CV 21), 18, 20, 35, 38 

Boxer (LHD 4), 138 

Bradford, John F., 138 

Bremerton (SSN 698), 116, 118 

Brewton (FF 1086), 87 

Brisbane (Australian), 62, 122 

Briscoe, Robert P., 36, 171 

British Commonwealth, 54 

Brooklyn (CL 40), 3 

Brown, Eldon W., 24 

Bucher, Lloyd, 76 

Buffalo (SSN 715), 168 

Bull, Lyle F., 60 

Bunker Hill (CG 52), 102, 105, 113, 115 

Burke, Arleigh, 49–50; 43, 49 

Burma, 135, 157 

Burnham, Gracia, 128 

Burnham, Martin, 128

Burns, John J., 70

Busan, South Korea, 26, 160–62, 170; 152

Bush, George H.W., xi, 146 

Bush, George W., xiii, 125–26, 134, 140, 168 

C-130B Hercules, 139 

Cabezon (SS 334), 20 

California (BB 44), 4, 9 

Callaghan (DD 994), 116

Cam Ranh Bay, 59, 71, 84 

Cambodia, xiii, 39, 44, 64–67, 70–72, 98, 135; 70

Cape Cod (AD 43), 110 

Carl Vinson (CVN 70), 96 

Carlson, Harold G., 29 

Carney, Robert B., 38 

Carpender, Arthur S., 1, 171 

Carrier Air Group 5, 41

Carrier Air Wing 2, 85

Carrier Air Wing 5, 129 

carrier battle groups, xiv, 89, 96, 102, 113–17, 127 

carrier task forces, 33, 38, 45, 53, 77–78, 96, 162 

carrier task groups, 46, 50, 75 

Carter, Jimmy, 89, 91 

Catamount (LSD 17), 51; 51

Catfish (SS 339), 20, 33 

cease-fires, ix, 51, 100; in French Indochina War, xi; in 

Gulf War, 108; in Indo-Pakistan War, 80–81; in Korean 

War, x, 55; after Laos crisis, 53; in Vietnam War, 66

Cebu Island, Philippines, xii, 110–11, 141

CH-46 Sea Knight, 122–23 

CH-53 Sea Stallion, 123 

Chafee (DDG 90), 136–37 

Chancellorsville (CG 62), 137 

Chandler, Theodore E., vi, 9 

Changi Naval Base, Singapore, 112 

Cheonan (South Korean), xv, 149, 162–63 

Chiang Kai-shek, ix, 12, 15, 18, 20–21, 33, 49, 114; 49; in 

Taiwan Strait crises, 40, 42, 44, 48–51; 41; in World War 

II, 16–17 

Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 15

Chiang Ching-kuo, 114 

Chicago (CG 11), 62 

Chief of Naval Operations (U.S.), xiii; Burke, Arleigh, 43, 

49; Carney, Robert B., 38; Clark, Vern, 145; Fechteler, 

William M., 2, 35; Hayward, Thomas B., 91; Holloway, 

James L., III, 77; King, Ernest J., 1; Mullen, Michael 

G., 147–49; 147; Roughead, Gary, 143, 148, 150, 160; 

148; Sherman, Forrest P., 19; Watkins, James B., 99; 92; 

Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr.,13, 81, 89; 81. See also individual 

names

Chilean Navy, 3

China Aid Act, 20 

China Theater. See Wedemeyer, Albert C.

Chinese Communist Party, 12, 84, 114, 117, 156 

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 118 

Chinese Nationalist 52nd Army, 18 

Chinese Nationalist navy, 99 
INDEX 185

Chinese Naval Training Center, Qingdao, 20–21 

Christie, Ralph W., 4

Christopher, Warren, 116 

Chung-Hoon (DDG 93), 137 

City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705), 168 

civic action, 136, 141–42, 151 

Clark, Eugene F., 26–27 

Clark, Joseph J., 171; 36

Clark, Mark, 36

Clark, Vern, 145 

Clark Air Base, 71, 100, 109–10 

Clemins, Archie R., 115, 121, 171 

Clinton, Bill, 114–20, 128, 146; 146

Clinton, Hilary, 163, 165 

Coast Watch South, 142 

Cockade (British), 24 

Cohen, William H., 118–19; 119

Cole, Bernard D., 131

Cole (DDG 67), xii, 134; 134 

Collins, Gabriel B., 157 

Collins-class submarines (Australian), xvi, 153 

Columbia (CL 56), 9 

Columbus (SSN 762), 116 

Combined Naval Component Command, commander of, 120

Combined Support Force 536, 146 

command and control, 71, 115, 122, 126, 162 

Constellation (CVA 64), 58, 60–61, 65, 98; 61

Conway, James T., 148 

Cooke, Charles M., 17–19, 21, 171; 17

Coontz (DLG 8), 61 

Cooper, Joshua, 5; 5

Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training, 135–36; 136

Cooperative Maritime Forces Pacific, 144 

Cooperative Mechanism, 131

A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, 148 

Coral Sea (CVA 43), vi, x, 59–60, 68, 96; 60, 65

Cornell University, 114 

Coronado (AGF 11), 150 

counterterrorism, 130–31, 139, 141–42 

Cowpens (CG 63), 150, 160, 162; 150

“crab wars,” 121 

Crawford, Ernie L., 30 

Crowder, Douglas, 144, 172 

Crowe, William J., 98 

Cunningham, Randy, 61–62

Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54), 156, 176

Curts (FFG 38), 106, 110; 106

Cyclone-class coastal patrol boats, 139 

Dachen Islands, ix, 41–42, 52 

“Dambusters,” 29 

Damman, Saudi Arabia, 103 

Dare, James A., 31 

Das, P. S., 132 

Dean, John Gunter, 67 

Defense Logistics Agency, 83 

De Leon, Ernesto, 150 

Deliver (ARS 23), 21; 21

Demilitarized Zone, Korea, xi, 85, 120–21 

Demilitarized Zone, Vietnam, 62, 167 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 22

Department of Defense, 22, 120, 126, 157, 168

Deng Xiaoping, 84 

Desoto Patrol, 56 

Destroyer Division 111, 34 

Destroyer Division 30, 37 

Destroyer Squadron 1, commander of, 136

Destroyer Squadron 15, 83 

Destroyer Squadron 56, 4 

deterrence, 52, 71–74, 79, 92, 126, 148, 160, 170 

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 103 

Dhowan, Robin K., 132

Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii, 79 

Dibb, Paul, 158 

Diego Garcia Island, 82–83, 102, 170; 82

Dien Bien Phu, x, 38–39 

Dingman, Roger, 73

diplomacy, naval, 18, 121–22 

disaster relief, 101, 113, 144, 146 

Dixie Station, 59 

Donegan, Kevin M., 162 

Donnelly, William N., 60 

Doran, Walter F., 144, 146, 168, 172 

Doremus, Robert B., 60 

Dos Palmas resort, terrorist attack at,128 

Douglas H. Fox (DD 779), 31–32 

Doulous (merchant ship, Philippines), 128

Doyle, James H., 25

Driscoll, Willie, 61–62 

drug and alcohol abuse, Vietnam era, 71 

drug smuggling, 131, 143

dry docks (U.S. Navy), 46, 71, 83 

Duan Muang Airport, Thailand, 45 

Dubuque (LPD 8), 102 

Dulles, John Foster, 44, 51 

Duncan, G. C., 41 

Durbrow, Eldridge, 55

E-2 Hawkeye, 59, 93, 100 

EA-6B Prowler, 92

earthquakes, responses to, 110, 144

East Indies, 1, 3–4, 12, 19 

East Pakistan. See Bangladesh 

East Sea Fleet, PLAN, 126, 160, 165 

East Timor, xiv, 113, 122–26, 150; map of, 122. See also

Operations, Stabilize

Easter Offensive, x, 63, 85 

EC-121 Warning Star, x, 77 

Edson (DD 946), 66

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 37–39, 41, 43–44, 50 

Endeavor (Singapore), 137 

“Enhancing Maritime Anti-Piracy and Counter Terrorism 

Cooperation in the ASEAN Region,” 132 

Enterprise (CVAN 65), x, 59, 68, 73–75, 80–81, 96, 100
186 INDEX

EP-3E Aries II, xii, 123–24, 126 

Ericson, Andrew, 157, 159 

Essex (CV 9), 35, 38, 41, 49; Essex-class aircraft carrier, 59 

Essex (LHD 2), 121, 137, 142, 145–47, 166–68; 125, 145,

168, 172, 178

Estes (AGC 12), 19, 21 

Evans, Ernest E., 7

Exercises, combined (multinational), 83, 100, 131, 144, 

166; Astra, 45; Balikatan, 141–42; 141, 172; Cobra Gold, 

98, 137–39, 144; 139, 168; Coconut Grove, 138; Deep 

Sabre, 135; Firm Link, 45; Foal Eagle, 153; Freedom 

Banner, 120; Imminent Thunder, 104; Kernal Potlatch, 

96; Key Resolve, 153; Malabar, 132–34; 132, 133; 

Northern Wedding, 98; Ocean Link, 45; Phiblink, 45; 

Pony Express, 45; Sea Link, 45; Talisman Saber, 152–53; 

153; Tandem Thrust, 121–22; Team Spirit, 96; Teamwork, 

45; Terminal Fury, 168; Ulchi Focus Lens, 120, 153; Ulchi 

Freedom Guardian, 153; Valiant Shield, 178 

Expeditionary Strike Group 3, 125 

F-1 Mirage, 106

F2H Banshee, 29

F-4 Phantom II, 59–60, 100

F4U Corsair, 29 

F-8 Crusader, 59

F9F Panther, 23–24, 29 

F-86F Sabre, 51

F/A-18 Hornet, 92

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, 148; 149

Falun Gong, 156 

Far East Command, 18, 20, 34, 38, 48 

Fargo, Thomas, 144; 124

Fast Carrier Force, Seventh Fleet, 13

Faylaka Island, Kuwait, 108 

Fechteler, William M., 2, 10, 35 

Felt, Harry D., 41 

Feng Guoqing, 160 

Fife (DD 991), 102 

5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 104 

5th Marine Regiment, 27

Fighter Squadron 21, 60 

Fighter Squadron 154, 60 

First Indochina War, xi 

1st Marine Division, 2, 13, 26–28 

1st Viet Cong Regiment, 63 

fishing, 31, 76, 86, 121, 159–60 

Fitzgerald (DDG 62), 150, 160, 162 

Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 1, 124

Fleet Air Western Pacific, commander of, 47

Fleet Air Wing 1, 33 

Fleet Aircraft Squadron 11, 47 

Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Pacific, 138, 146 

Fleet Industrial Supply Center, Yokosuka, 146 

FleetEx 83, 96 

Fletcher-class destroyer, 4, 7 

Florida (SSGN 728), 170 

Foley, Sylvester R., 96, 171

Ford, Gerald R., 77, 84

Ford (FFG 54), 116 

foreign policy, U.S.: post–World War II, 11, 16–17, 20; 

toward China, 52, 74, 117, 133, 157, 166; toward Japan 

83; toward Soviets 79; in 21st century, 123 

Formosa, 8, 14, 33 

Formosa Patrol Force. See Taiwan Patrol Force

Formosa Resolution, ix, 41 

Forrestal, James, 14 

Forrestal (CVA 59), xii, 61, 71 

Forrestal-class aircraft carriers, 59 

Fort McHenry (LSD 43), 136, 145–46 

4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 104

Fox, Mark I., 105 

Fox (CG 33), 87 

France, ix, 4, 22, 25, 37–40, 44, 132 

Francis Hammond (FF 1067), 96 

Frank Cable (AS 40), 168 

free market enterprise, 120, 133 

“freedom of navigation” cruises, 95, 96 

French Foreign Legion, 38 

French Indochina War, 38

French paratroopers, 38 

Fujian Province, China, 52, 115 

Fuso (Japanese), 4 

Gary (FFG 51), 110 

General Order Number 1, ix, 13 

General W. M. Black (APB 5), 37 

Geneva Agreements, ix, 39, 44, 53 

George Washington (CVN 73), 129, 132, 138, 148–51, 

162; front cover, 149, 162, 175

Gimpo airfield, South Korea, 27 

Glenn, W. Lewis Jr., 97 

Global War on Terrorism, 125 

Glory (British), 24 

Goldsborough (DDG 20), 103 

Goldstein, Lyle, 157, 159 

Gonzalez, Ranulfo C., 166 

Gorshkov, Sergei, 79; 79

Great Britain, ix, 20, 44, 74, 118, 130 

Great Leap Forward, 48 

Green, Michael J., 134 

Greenert, Jonathan W., 133, 144, 152; 172

Greeneville (SSN 772), 181

Griffin, Charles D., 55, 171; 55

Guadalcanal Island, Solomons, 1 

Guam, 20, 70, 89–90, 94, 107–8, 111, 145–46, 160

Guardian (MCM 5), 163 

Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, 118

Guinsagon, Philippines, destruction of, 141 

Gulf War, 1990–1991, 101, 107, 167; air operations in, 104–7

Hainan incident, xii, 123, 124, 126 

Hainan Island, China, 20, 35, 41, 83, 113 

Haiphong, during the Vietnam War, x, 16, 64–65, 167 

Halsey (DDG 23), 73 
INDEX 187

Halsey, William F., 1–3, 6, 8 

Halsey-Doolittle Raid, 3 

Han Chinese, 156 

Han-class attack nuclear-powered attack submarine 

(Chinese), 113 

Hancock (CVA 19), 49, 59–60, 66, 68 

Hanoi, North Vietnam, x, 53, 56, 58–62, 83 

HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile), 92 

Harold E. Holt (DE 1074), 70; 70

Harpers Ferry (LSD 49), 136–37, 140, 150; 166

Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles, 92, 94–95; 94

Harrier vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft, 102 

Harris, Jack, 60 

Harry W. Hill (DD 986), 96 

Hartman, Charles C., 34 

Hashimoto, Ryutaro, 117

Hassayampa (AO 145), 71 

Haven (AH 12), 40; 40

Hawaii. See Pearl Harbor 

Hawkins (DD 873), 21 

Hayward, Thomas B., 90–92, 171 

Heermann (DD 532), 7 

Helena (CA 75), 34, 50 

Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 14, 138 

Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 11, 144 

Henry B. Wilson (DDG 7), 66, 70–71 

Herrick, John J., 56–57; 57

Hewitt (DD 966), 115 

Higbee (DD 806), 62 

Higgins, John M., 25

“highway of death,” 108 

Hiroshima, Japan, 72 

Hobart (Australian), 62 

Ho Chi Minh, 20, 22, 37, 37, 39–40, 53, 56; 20

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 56, 63 

Hodge, John R., vii, 13–14; 14

Hodges, Duane, 76 

Hoel (DD 533), 7 

Hokkaido Island, Japan, 96, 98, 167 

Hollandia, New Guinea, vii, 2, 4 

Holloway, James L. III, 4–6, 65, 75, 77, 171; 5, 65, 77

Holmes, James R., 157 

Honasan, Gregorio, 100 

Hong Kong, Crown Colony of, 73, 121, 144, 150, 157; 

during Cold War, 74–75; relations with PRC, xii, 118–

19, 158, 160, 163; and Korean War, 35; and Taiwan, 40; 

post–World War II, 19; during World War II, 8; 73, 74

Hongzehu (Chinese), 165

Honshu Island, Japan, 98, 121 

Hontz, Edward B., 108 

Hope Center, Binh Dinh, Vietnam, 152 

Hopewell (DD 681), 8, 50; 50

Horner, Charles A., 105 

Hornet (CV 8), 3

Hornet (CVS 12), 75 

“hot line” to China,119 

Houston (SSN 713), 168 

Howard, Michael, 89 

Howe, John, 145 

HU-1H helicopter, 139 

HU-16 amphibian aircraft, 60 

Huaqing Liu, 84 

Hu Yaobang, 84 

human rights, 118, 127, 156, 158 

human trafficking, 143 

humanitarian assistance, xii, 78, 112, 138, 140–41, 144, 

146 

Hung Ba Le, 151; 152

Hungnam, North Korea, x, 28–29, 55; 20 

Hunter, Charles B., 60 

hunter-killer groups, 42, 45 

Hurley, Patrick J., 15 

Hussein, Saddam, xiii, 85, 101, 106, 117, 129, 167

Hwachon Reservoir dam, 29 

Impeccable (T-AGOS 23), xiii, 164; 164

Imperial Japanese Navy, vii, 4, 6–7, 10, 46–47 

improvised explosive devices, 140 

Incheon, South Korea, viii, 13–14, 25–27; 26, 27

Incidents at Sea Treaty, 75, 118 

Independence (CV 62), xii, 85 102, 104, 115–21, 129; vi, 

102, 117

Independence Day, 150, 161 

Indian Defense Services Staff College, 146 

Indian Navy, 131–34, 146; 132, 133

Indian Ocean: tsunami in, xiii, 144–47; U.S. operations in, 

89–90, 98, 101, 111–12, 125, 129, 138, 148, 150 

Indonesian Archipelago, 54, 122 

Indo-Pakistan War, x, 80 

Information Sharing Center, Singapore, 131 

intelligence, 161, 163, 170; during Cold War, 37, 74–77; 

in Gulf War, 103; during Hainan incident, 123–24; in 

Korean War, 26–27, 33; on Soviets, 92; on terrorists, 

pirates, proliferators, 128, 134–35, 139, 141; in Vietnam 

War, 56–58, 71; in World War II, 4 

international fleet reviews, 149, 160 

International Forces in East Timor, 122 

International Labor Day, 32 

International Maritime Seminar, Indonesia, 148 

Iowa (BB 61), 30 

Iowa-class battleships, 92 

Iram Elementary School, Olongapo City, Philippines, 150 

Iran, 79, 82, 85, 105, 106, 108 

Iraq, xi, xiii, 79, 85, 101–8, 117, 125, 129, 149, 167 

Iron Hand, 59 

Ishikawa, Toru, 132 

Islamist terrorists, 127, 130, 142

Ivan Rogov (Soviet), 84, 87 

Izumi, Tohru, iv, 154 

J-8II Finback, 124 

Jakarta, Indonesia, 139, 142 

Jakarta Statement, 132 

Jamaica (British), 23 
188 INDEX

Jamalul, Jundam, 141 

Janjalani, Abdurajak, 128 

Janjalani, Kadaffy, 128 

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, 46, 83, 89–91, 131–

32, 148, 163 

Jemaah Islamiyah, 128, 130, 139 

Jeremiah, David, 89 

Jiang Zemin, 115, 117 

Jinmen Island, China, ix, 41–42, 48–51 

John A. Bole (DD 755), 102 

John C. Stennis (CVN 74), 153–54, 164; 154

John F. Kennedy (CV 67), ix, 102, 129 

John Paul Jones, 7

John S. McCain (DDG 56), 119, 136, 151; 158 

Johnson, Lyndon B., ix, x, 56–58, 64–65, 76; 80

Johnston (DD 557), 7–8; 7

John Young (DD 973), 96 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 14, 25, 34, 48, 89, 101; chairman of, 

14, 39, 77, 98, 126, 147; 38, 64, 77, 126 

joint exercises, 121, 129. See also individual joint task forces

Joint Security Area, DMZ of Korea, 77–78, 121 

Joint Task Force Fiery Vigil, 109 

Joint Task Force 519, 166 

Joint Task Force 536, 144, 146

Joint Task Force Philippines, commander of, 100

Joint War Committee of Lloyd’s Market Association, 130 

Jolo Island, Philippines, 141; 140 

Joy, C. Turner, 3, 33

Jubail, Saudi Arabia, 103 

Juneau (CL 119), 23, 34; 34

Juneau (LPD 10), 160 

Kabul, Afghanistan, 127 

Kadena Naval Air Station, Okinawa, 48, 124 

Kalifornia (Indonesia), 130 

kamikaze attacks, vii, 3, 8–9; 9

Kang Nam (North Korean), 135 

Kan Jan Chan (South Korean), 162 

Kashima (Japanese), 163

Katz, Douglas, 108 

Kearsarge (CVA 33), 41 

Keating, Timothy J., 163 

Keelung, Taiwan, 19, 34 

Kelang, Malaysia, 150 

Kennedy, John F., ix, 53–54, 56; 53

Kenney, George C., 2 

Khmer Rouge, xi, 66, 70 

Khrushchev, Nikita, 79 

Kidd-class guided missile destroyers, 126 

Kiev (Soviet antisubmarine carrier), 89; 87 

Kilauea (T-AE 26), 122, 123; 123

Kim Il-sung, 22, 75, 77–78 

Kim Jong-il, 118, 120, 159, 160 

King, Ernest J., 1 

Kinkaid, Thomas C., vi, vii, 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13–16, 48, 171; 

xvi, 10, 14

Kirk (DE 1087), 66, 78, 96 

Kirov (Soviet), 89 

Kiska Island, Alaska, 3 

Kissinger, Henry, 80 

Kitty Hawk (CV 63), 65, 71, 113, 120, 127,132, 163; 129

Klintworth, Gary, 100 

Klusmann, Charles F., 129 

Knox (DE 1052), 66 

Koh Tang Island, Cambodia, 70–71 

Kojo, North Korea, 31 

Kompong Som, Cambodia, 66 

Kongo (Japanese), 154 

Korean Air Lines 747 shootdown, xi, 87 

Korean People’s Army, 22, 27 

Korean War, 6, 23, 29–37, 40, 45–48, 52, 84, 111, 113 

Krupnyy-class destroyer (Soviet), 75 

Kumano (Japanese), 7 

Kurama (Japanese), 134 

Kurile Islands, 87, 122, 167

Kurita, Takeo, 4, 7; 8

Kuwait, xiii, 85, 101, 103–8, 167 

Kyushu Island, Japan, 47, 83 

LA-7 fighter aircraft (Chinese), 41 

Lake Champlain (CG 57), 110; 135

Lake Erie (CG 70), 165

Laos, ix, 38–39, 44, 52–56, 59, 85, 129 

LaPlante, John B., 104 

Lapu Lapu City, Philippines, 136 

Larson, Charles R., 109

LaSalle (AGF 3), 102, 107 

Lassen, Clyde E., 151 

Lassen (DDG 82), 151; 152 

Leahy, William D., 14 

Lebanon crisis of 1958, 48 

Lee Kwan Yew, 118 

Lee Tung-hui, 114, 118 

Lehman, John, 84, 92, 95 

Lend-Lease vessels, 46 

Leon, Strauss S., 16 

Lexington (CVA 16), 49 

Leyte (CV 32), 28 

Leyte Island, Philippines, vii, 4, 8–9 

Lian Yun Gang (Chinese), 160 

Liberty Ships, 16 

Libya. See Operations, El Dorado 

Light Photographic Squadron 63, 129 

light water reactor nuclear power plants, 120 

Limburg (French), 130 

limited war, 31–32, 36 

Linebacker bombing, x, 59, 62, 66, 85 

Lingayen Gulf, 8–9 

Lingayen, Philippines, vii, 9 

Link-16 communications suite, 122 

Liu Huaqing, 99

Liu Zhenwu, 118 

Lockwood (FF 1064), 78, 96 

logistic support, 36, 39, 72, 91, 108, 112, 122 
INDEX 189

Logistics Group Western Pacific/Task Force 73, 39, 135–

36, 145–46; commander of, 135–37. See also Tyson, 

Nora W.

Long, Robert L.J., 98 

Long (DMS 12), 9 

Long Beach (CGN 9), 97, 110 

Lon Nol, 66 

Los Angeles (SSN 688), 94; Los Angeles-class attack 

submarine, 95. See also Columbus (SSN 762)

Los Negros Island, Admiralty Islands, 2 

Louisville (CA 28), 9 

LST 472, 8 

LST 738, 8; 9

Luzon Attack Force, commander of, 9

Luzon Island, Philippines, vii, 8–10, 25, 109, 139–42; 108

Lynde McCormick (DDG 8), 86 

Lynx helicopters, 103 

Lyons, James A., 86, 89, 92, 98–99; 99

Mabus, Ray, 162 

Macapagal-Arroyo, Gloria, 140 

MacArthur, Douglas, vii, 13, 18–19, 48, 100; in Korean 

War, 20, 22, 25, 22, 26–28, 48; in World War II, 1–3, 4, 

6, 10; xvi, 3, 26

McCaffrie, Jack, 139 

McCain, John S. III, 158; 158

McCampbell (DDG 85), 150 

McClusky (FFG 41), 115, 118 

McDermut (DD 677), 45 

McDevitt, Michael, 160 

McGinty (DE 365), 50 

McNamara, Robert S., 56; 80

Maddox (DD 731), ix, 56–57; 56, 57

Maeda, Tetsuo, 89 

Malacca, Strait of, 80–81, 86, 111, 121, 130–34, 142 

Malaysia, 100,128–31, 134–40

Manchuria, 14, 16, 20, 84 

Manila, Philippines, 19, 48, 128, 151; Honasan coup in, 

xi, 100; Independence Day, vii, 18; and SEATO, ix, 44; 

during World War II, 10

Manila Bay (CVE 61), 9 

Manila International Airport, 110 

Manila Pact, 44 

Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), 37, 74, 84, 117; and 

establishment of PRC, viii; and Nixon visit, x; and civil 

war, 12, 16, 20–23; Taiwan Strait, policy toward, 40, 48, 

53; 23

March, Daniel, 105

Marfiak, Thomas, 105 

Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter Squadron 463, 66 

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265, 123 

Marine security detachments, 68 

Maritime Component Commander, Joint Task Force 519, 166 

maritime domain awareness, 142–44 

maritime interception (interdiction) operations, 103, 

134–35. See also Operations, Market Time 

maritime prepositioning ships, 102–3 

Maritime Prepositioning Squadron 2, 83 

Maritime Strategy, 90–92, 95–96, 98, 100, 148 

Mark, Chi-kwan, 74 

Martin, Graham, 68 

Martin, Harold M., 171 

Maryland (BB 46), 4 

Mason (DD 852), 19 

Mauz, Henry H. Jr., 100–104, 167, 171; 101

Mayaguez (merchantman), xi, 66, 70; 70

Maynard, J. Stephen, 167

Mazu Island, China, xi, 42, 49 

Medeiros, Evan S., 143, 159 

medical civic action program, 136, 141; 137 

Medina, Joseph V., 125 

Medina Republican Guard armored division, 129 

Mekong Delta, 64, 69 

Melbourne (Australian), 122 

Mercy (T-AH 19), 141, 145–46, 152; 147

Merrill (DD 976), 110 

Metzger, James W., 126, 172 

MH-53 Sea Dragon, 162 

MH-60S Knighthawk, 144

Michigan (SSGN 727), 170 

Middle East, 101–2, 108, 111–12 

MiG fighters, 76; MiG-17s, 51, 62, 85; MiG-21s, 60, 77, 105

Mikasa (Japanese), 151; 151

Miles, Milton M., 14 

military aid and assistance, 17, 20, 37–38, 54, 66, 139, 142 

Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, xiv, 118, 157–58 

Military Sealift Command, 64–66, 96, 103, 122–23, 134, 

146, 163 

Military Sea Transportation Service, 26, 39 

military-to-military exchanges, xii, 113, 119, 126, 142, 165 

Miller, Henry L., 58

Mindoro Island, Philippines, vii, 8, 25 

Mine Countermeasures Force, xi 

Mine Squadron 106, 16 

Ministry of Defense, Japan, 163 

Ministry of Health, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 152 

Minsk (Soviet), 80, 84, 87 

Mispillion (T-AO 105), 78, 96 

Mississippi (BB 41), 4 

Missouri (BB 63), vii, 12, 28, 30, 55, 108; 12

Mitcher, Marc, 2 

Moale (DD 693), 8; 9 

Mobile Bay (CG 53), 121–23 

Mongillo, Nick, 105 

Montgomery, Glenn H., 106 

Moo, Song Young, 148 

Moore, Charles W. Jr., 119 

Moorer, Thomas H., 57–58, 129,171; 64, 80 

Moscow (Soviet government reference), 13–14, 22, 34, 

53, 65, 80, 83, 87, 91 

Mountbatten, Louis, 9 

Mount Pinatubo, xii, 108–12, 125; 108 

Mount Vernon (LSD 39), 68 

Mullen, Michael G., 147–48; 147
190 INDEX

Mumbai, India, xiii, 133 

Muraviev, Alexey, 79, 84, 89 

Musashi (Japanese), 4 

Mustin (DDG 89), 150–51 

mutual defense treaties, viii, ix, 41–42, 49 

Nagasaki, Japan, 72 

Nagata, Mikio, 154 

Nakasone, Yasuhiro, 84 

Nashville (CL 43), 3, 4, 6; 3

National Command Authority, 120 

National Defense Program Guidelines, Japan, 163 

National Defense University, 142 

National Development Support Command, Philippines, 140 

National Security Council, 22, 143; NSC-68, 22 

Natter, Robert J., 118–19, 171 

naval air stations, 111, 112; Cubi Point, Philippines, 48, 

71, 110–12; 72; Miramar, California, 61–62 

Naval Force Presence Policy, 90 

Naval Forces Far East, 20, 28, 32–33; commander of, 36, 46

Naval Forces Korea, commander of, 161

Naval Forces Vietnam, commander of, 64

Naval Group China, commander of. See Miles, Milton M.

naval infantry (Soviet), 83, 84, 87; 88

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3, 48

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5, 48 

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11, 152 

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40, 137, 145; 138

Naval Regional Contracting Center, Singapore, 146 

naval supply depots, 71–72 

Naval War College, 92, 142–43

Netherlands, vii, 1; and Netherlands East Indies, 1–4, 12, 19 

New Britain, Solomon Islands, 1, 

New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship, 

xiii, 133 

New Guinea, vii, 1–4 

New Jersey (BB 62), 30, 62, 97–98; 31

New Mexico (BB 40), 9 

New Orleans (LPH 11), 121 

New Zealand, viii, ix, 1, 24, 44–45, 52, 118, 121, 135, 148

Ngo Dinh Diem, ix, 53–56, 55

Niagara Falls (AFS 3), 108, 118 

Nicholas (FFG 47), 106 

night vision devices, 87, 139

Nimitz, Chester W., 1–2, 151 

Nimitz (CVN 68), xii, 98, 115–16, 134, 151 

Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, 112, 162

9th Marine Amphibious Brigade, 68

Nishimura, Shoji, 4

Nitze, Paul, 22 

Nixon, Richard M., x, 64–65, 80, 84, 89, 117 

No Dong missiles, xiii, 162 

Nootka (Canadian), 24

North Arabian Sea, U.S. Navy operations in, 82, 85, 112, 

125, 127, 129, 149 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 44, 90, 98, 119, 140 

North China, 13–14, 16–18, 21 

North China Force, Seventh Fleet, 13 

North Korean navy, 76, 161 

North Pacific, U.S. operations in, 96–98, 129, 159–60 

North Pacific Heads of Coast Guards Association, 159–60 

Northeast Asia, 11, 77; during Korean War, 22, 38; during 

post–Cold War, 121, 126, 140, 153, 162, 167; and 

USSR, 74, 79, 89, 91–92, 95–100; during Vietnam War, 

47–48, 53, 71–72 

Northern Alliance, 127 

Northern Arabian Gulf, 105, 107 166. See also Arabian Gulf 

Northern Limit Line, 77, 121, 161 

Northern Territories. See Kurile Islands 

Northwest Pacific, 92 

Novorossiysk (Soviet ship), 88 

Nowell, Larry, 62

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, xii, 120 

Obama, Barak, 158, 168 

O’Brien (DD 725), 8, 115, 118 

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 102 

Ogier, Herbert L., 57

Ohio (SSGN 726), xiv, 170 

OKEAN 75 (Soviet exercise), 79 

Okinawa, 47–48, 89, 121, 145; exercises in, 96, 137; 166; 

and China coast patrols, 23, 33–35, 124; relation to 

SEATO, 45; during World War II, 13

Okinawa (LPH 3), 66–67 

Oklahoma City (CLG 5), 54, 68; 54

Oldendorf, Jesse, 4–5, 9–10 

Oldendorf (DD 972), 99, 102, 116 

Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate, 106 

Ommaney Bay (CVE 79), 9 

Oonami (Japanese), 153; 154

Operations: Balikatan, 139; Chromite, 25; Decoy, 31; 

Desert Shield, xi, 101–2, 104; Desert Storm, 85, 104–5, 

117, 167; 105 (map); Eagle Pull, xiii, 66; El Dorado 

Canyon, 102; End Sweep, 167; Enduring Freedom, xiv, 

127, 129, 132–33; Enduring Freedom–Philippines, 139–

40; Fiery Vigil, 109, 111; Frequent Wind, xiii, 68, 85, 

167; Iraqi Freedom, xii, 125, 129; Lightning, 50; Magic 

Carpet, 3, 15; Malsindo, 131; Market Time, xii, 63–64, 

71; Passage to Freedom, ix, 39, 52; 39; Paul Bunyan, 

77–78; Rolling Thunder, x, 59, 62, 85; Sea Angel, xiv; 

Sea Dragon, 62; Shooting Star, 98; Southern Watch, 

125, 129, 149; Stabilize, xii, 122–23; Starlite, 63; 34A, 

56; Unified Assistance, xiii, 144–46 

Operation Plan Bojinka, 128 

Operation Plan 13-45, 13 

Operation Plan Ultimatum, 141 

Oriskany (CVA 34), x, 61, 71, 74 

Oryoku Maru (Japanese), 14; 14

Osborn, Shane, 124; 124

Ouellet (FF 1077), 87 

Ozawa, Jisaburo, 6 

P2V Neptune, 34–35, 40, 71 

P-3 Orion, 71, 82, 126, 145, 163 
INDEX 191

P-4 motor torpedo boat (North Vietnamese), 57, 61 

P4M Mercator, 37 

P4Y Privateer, 33–34 

Pacific Century, 143 

Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaii, 154 

Pacific Partnership programs, 146, 151 

Page, Louis C., 160 

Paracel Islands, 83, 124 

Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace 

in Vietnam, x, 66 

Park, Chung Hee, 76 

Park, Jung-hwa, 154

Passumpic (T-AO 107), 110 

Pathet Lao, 53 

Patriot (MCM 7), 163 

Patriot missile, 120, 126 

Patrol Squadron 8, 145 

Patrol Squadron 28, 33 

Patrol Squadron 46, 33 

Paul F. Foster (DD 964), 160 

Paul Hamilton (DDG 60), 136 

PBM-5 Mariner, 34; 40

PCE 851, 8 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, vi, 147; attack, vii, 1–2, 4–5, 25; 2

Peleliu (LHA 5), 110, 123

Pennsylvania (BB 38), 4 

Pentagon, attack on, xii, 127 

People’s Army of Vietnam, 56 

People’s Liberation Army, PRC, viii, xi, 20, 28, 40, 75, 113 

People’s Liberation Army Navy, PRC, 41, 99, 159, 163–65, 

167; chief of staff of. See Liu Huaqing; Liu Zhenwu 

People’s Republic of China, xi, xii, 13–15, 37, 111, 

119, 122; establishment of, x, 20; Hainan incident, 

124; in Korean War, viii, 22, 28, 33–36; Taiwan Strait 

crises, reaction to, ix, xii, 41–42, 50–51, 114–18, 

120; as “responsible stakeholder,” 120, 158; in 21st 

century, xii, xiii, 143, 156–60, 163–64, 165; U.S.-PRC 

rapprochement, xi, xii, 79–80, 83–84, 99–100, 113; U.S. 

visits to, 99, 160; in Vietnam War, 53–54, 58–59, 65, 74 

Permit (SSN 594), 72

Perry, William J., 108, 114–15 

Perry, Matthew C., 154 

Perth (Australian), 62, 122 

Petropavlovsk, Russia, 91–92, 96, 98 

Phalanx close-in weapons system, 95, 105, 149; 94, 175

Philippine Independence Day, ix; celebration of, 18

Philippine Navy, 45, 136, 150 

Philippine Sea, U.S. Navy operations in, 100, 136 

Philippine Sea (CV 47), 28, 38, 41; 35 

Phillips, William K., 38 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, evacuation of, xi, 66–67 

Phoenix (CL 46), xvi, 2, 4 

Phuket, Thailand, 146, 150 

Pickerel (SS 524), 33; 33

pirates, 127, 130–31, 135, 138, 142

PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone), 62 

Plog, Leonard H., 24 

Plunger (SSN 595), 72 

port calls, 19, 54, 79, 167. See also ship visits

Port Royal (CG 73), 116 

Prakash, Arun, 146 

Presidential Sailing Pass in Review, Indonesia, 148 

Prictor, Michael, 146 

Pride, Alfred M., 41, 171; 41

Princeton (CG 59), 107–8 

Princeton (CV 37), 28–29, 45, 49 

prisoners of war, 14, 66 

Project Hope, 145 

Proliferation Security Initiative, xiii, 134–35 

Providence (CLG 6), 44

Prueher, Joseph W., 118–19, 124; 119

Pueblo (AGER 2), x, 76–77; 76

Pyongyang, North Korea, viii, 24, 77–78; government 

actions of, 135, 161, 163 

al-Qaeda, xiv, 127–30, 133–34, 139 

Qaruh Island, Kuwait, 106 

Qingdao, China, vii, xi, 14–21, 34, 99, 113, 119, 159 

Qinghai (Chinese), 160

Qinhuangdao, China, 16 

Quadrennial Defense Review, 168 

Queensland, Australia, 122, 153 

Qui Nhon, Vietnam, 58, 66, 152 

Quinn, Kevin M., 136 

RA-3B Skywarrior, 59 

RA-5C Vigilante, 59 

Rabaul, Solomon Islands, 1 

Radford, Arthur W., 35, 39, 48; 38

Rahman, Chris, 139 

Rajah Humabon (Philippines), 136 

Rand Corporation, 140 

Ranger (CV 61), 96–98, 105; 58, 97

Ranvir (Indian), 134 

RC-135S (U.S. Air Force), 161

Ready Reserve Force, 103 

Reagan, Ronald, 84 

Reasoner (FF 1063), 103 

Red Crown, 62; ship, 62

Red Sea, 83, 104 

Reeves (CG 24), 99 

Refugee Assistance Task Group, 66 

Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy 

and Armed Robbery against Ships, 131 

Regional Maritime Security Initiative, 134 

Rentz (FFG 46), 99 

Renville (APA 227), vii, 19; 19

Renville Agreement, vii, 19 

Repose (AH 16), 21 

Republic of China (Taiwan), ix, 12, 15, 20, 41–44, 49, 52, 113 

Republic of Korea, viii, xiii, 120–21, 152, 161–62; chief of 

naval operations, 148; exercises, 121, 149, 153; during 

Cold War, 76, 78, 98; Fleet, commander in chief of, 162; 

and Korean War, 22, 29, 32 
192 INDEX

Republic of Korea Navy, xiii, 76, 120, 129, 154 

Republic of Maldives, 138 

Republican Guard of Iraq, 104, 129 

RF-8A Crusader, 59, 129 

Rhee, Syngman, 22 

Richard S. Edwards (DDG 950), 96 

Rim of the Pacific naval exercises, 119 

RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, 149 

River Squadron 5, 102 

Rochester (CA 124), 28, 30, 33 

Rockey, Keller E., 15–16; 16

Rocky Mount (AGC 3), 14–15; 15

Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60), 110, 136; 110 

Rogers (DD 876), 61 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1, 4 

Roughead, Gary, 143–46, 148, 157–60; 148, 160

Royal Australian Navy, 24, 62–63, 122, 153, 167 

Royal Brunei Navy, 137 

Royal Marines, 103 

Royal Navy, viii, 15, 24, 82, 106 

Royal Singapore Navy, 121 

rule of law, 127, 133 

Rupertus (DD 851), 19 

Rush (WHEC 723), 159; 159

Ryuku Islands, 165 

S-3 Viking, 95 

SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile, 61; 61

Sabin, Lorenzo S., 39 

Safeguard (ARS 50), 136 

Safwan, Iraq, 108 

Saigon, South Vietnam, 20, 37–40, 54–55, 58, 64, 66, 

68–69, 85 

St. Lo (CVE 63), vii, 8 

Saint Paul (CA 73), 21, 28, 54–55; 55

Sakhalin Island, Russia, xi, 87, 97 

Salisbury Sound (AV 13), 45 

Salt Lake City (SSN 716), 122 

Salvation Joy Haven Home for the Elderly, 150 

Salvor (T-ARS 52), 163

Samar Island, 7–8 

Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413), 7 

San Bernardino Strait, 4, 6–7 

San Diego, California, 96, 125, 145; 97, 147

Sangley Point, 19, 48, 71–72, 111 

San Jose (T-AFS 7), 123 

Santa Fe (SSN 763), 134; 133

Saratoga (CV 60), 102, 105 

Sargo (SSN 583), 72 

Sasebo, Japan, 111, 150; during Cold War, 47, 72–73, 83; 

during Korean War, 24, 47; ships based at, 102, 123, 

125, 145, 162; 161, 172

Saudi Arabia, 101, 103–4, 107 

Schoech, William A., 52, 129, 173 

Schwarzkopf, Norman, 102, 105 

Scud ballistic missiles, xiii, 134, 161 

sea lines of communication, 65, 83, 130–32,157 

Sea of Japan/East Sea, xiii, 120, 122, 161; exercises in, 96, 

149, 163; Korean War, operations in, 27, 34, 55; U.S. and 

Soviets in, 75–78, 87–89, 98

Sea of Okhotsk, 96–98 

Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile, 149; 178 

“sea-based midcourse defense (SMD) system,” 154 

Seabees, 9, 46–48, 72, 82, 110, 136–39, 145, 147; 138

Seadragon (SSN 584), 72, 72

SEALs, 106, 108, 140, 170 

seapower, xiii, 35–36, 51–53, 56, 74, 143, 148

search and rescue, 129, 134, 144, 159 

Seawolf (SSN 21), 154; 154

2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 66, 68 

Secretary of State, 18, 20, 44, 51, 80, 116, 163, 165 

Segundo (SS 398), 20 

Sejong the Great (South Korean), 162; 162 

Senkaku/Diaoyutai Island, 122 

Seoul, South Korea, vii, 14, 27, 76, 98, 118, 120, 162 

Sequoia (WLB 215), 159 

Serbia, xii, 119 

17th parallel of Vietnam, 39

Seventh Fleet Band, 150, 154; 156

SH-3 Sea King, 59 

SH-60H Seahawk, 95, 136, 138 

Shanghai, China, 13–15, 55, 126, 160, 167 

Shantou, China, 33, 35 

Sharp, Ulysses S.G., 57 

Shenzhen (Chinese), 160 

Sherman, Forrest P., 19 

Shijiazhuang (Chinese), 165 

Shiloh (CG 67), 162 

Shima, Kiyohide, 4 

ship repair facilities, 45–46, 71–72, 109–11 

ship visits, 72, 113, 119. See also port calls 

Shoalwater Bay Training Area, Australia, 122; 153

Short, Edwin T., 18 

show of force, xi, 33–34, 81, 85 

Shropshire (Australian), 4

Siam, Gulf of, 53, 63, 66–67. See also Thailand, Gulf of

Sidewinder missiles, 51, 59, 105 

Sidorov, Vladimir, 98 

Sihanoukville, Cambodia, 64, 66 

Singapore, 111, 148; and exercises, 132, 134–37; during 

Cold War, 100, 118; post–World War II, 19; and SEATO, 

45; ship visits at, 121, 130, 149–50; and terrorists, 131, 

139, 143; and tsunami, 146

Sino-Soviet 30-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and 

Mutual Assistance, viii, 20 

Six Degree Channel, 133 

“600-ship navy,” 92, 95 

Six-Party Talks, 159, 161

6th Marine Division, 13, 15, 21 

Slava-class guided missile cruiser (Soviet), 151 

“smart power,” 170 

Smith, John C., 60 

Smith, Oliver P. 26 

Smoot, Roland N., 4, 50 
INDEX 193

Snook (SSN 592), 72 

Sobero, Guillermo, 128 

Socialist Republic of Vietnam, xi, 83, 84, 86, 115, 149, 152 

Socotra Island, Yemen, 83 

Solaiman, Abu, 141 

Solomon Islands, 1, 3 

Somalia, 79, 83, 125, 129 

Soo, Mary, 75 

So San (North Korean), 134 

South China Force (Seventh Fleet), 13 

South China Sea, operations in,101, 122, 130, 135, 159; 

PRC, 99, 133, 157, 165; and Chinese civil war, 20; 

during First Indochina War, 38; during Korean War, 35, 

41; during Vietnam War, 53–54, 59, 68, 71, 85; Soviets 

in, 79, 83–86; U.S. Navy in, 111, 121, 124 

South Pacific Forces and South Pacific Area, commander 

of. See Halsey, William F.

South Sea Fleet, PLAN, 160, 167

Southeast Asia Cooperation against Terrorism, 137 

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, ix, 44–45, 52, 80 

Southwest Pacific, vi, 1, 10, 13 

Soviet Far East, 75, 87, 89, 92, 96, 100 

Soviet navy, 79, 84, 89, 91, 98, 118 

Soviet Pacific Fleet, 74, 79, 80, 83–84, 87, 89, 98, 129 

Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer (Soviet), 89; 88

Spanish-American War, 48 

Sparrow air-to-air missile, 59–60, 105 

Special Detachment 88, 142 

special forces, 76, 115, 120, 127–29, 139–41. See also 

SEALs 

special operations, 31, 108, 121, 134, 170 

Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, 100 

Sprague, Clifton A., 7, 10 

Spratly Islands, 113, 122, 159 

Spruance-class destroyer, 95 

Sri Lanka, 79, 131 

Stalin, Joseph, viii, 11, 14, 22, 33, 37; 11

Stalwart (Singapore), 137 

Standard Missile 3, 154 

Steele, George P., 66–67, 171; 66 

Sterett (CG 31), 62, 86, 89, 96 

Stickell (DD 888), 20 

Stillwell, Richard, 77–78 

Strike Fighter Squadron 81, 105 

Struble, Arthur D., 8, 25–26, 33–34, 171; 25, 26

Stump, Felix, 38, 48, 78 

SU-15 Flagon (Soviet fighter), 87 

Subic Bay, Philippines, 14, 19, 22, 48 

Suisun (AVP 53), 34 

Superferry 14 (Philippines), 140 

Supreme Commander Southeast Asia Command, 9 

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe, 102 

Surface Action Force, 42 

Suzuki, Zenko, 90

“swing strategy,” 89 

Sydney (Australian), 122 

Taepo Dong missiles, xii–xiii, 121 

”Taffy 3,” 7 

Tai Ho (Chinese Nationalist), 41 

Taipei, Taiwan, 33–34, 113 

Tai Ping (Chinese Nationalist), 41 

Taiwan, viii, 46–49, 89, 99–100, 113, 126, 157, 160, 163–

66; government on, ix, 20, 22, 100; in World War II, 14, 

during post–World War II, 17; ship visits to, 19; during 

Korean War, 23, 25, 33–36, 46; and Taiwan Strait crises, 

xii, 40–42, 48–53, 85, 114–18 

Taiwan Defense Command, 50 

Taiwan Patrol Force, x, 34, 42, 50, 52, 113 

Taiwan Relations Act, 113 

Taiwan Strait, ix, 33, 35, 40, 48, 50, 55, 115–16 

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–1955, 40–43 

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958, 48–52 

Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995–1996, 113–18 

Takeshima/Dok-do Island, 122 

Taliban, xii, 127 

Tanaka, Kakuei, 83 

Tang Jiaxuan, 124 

Task Forces (TFs). TF 7, commander of, 25–26; TF 72, 

viii, 13, 34, 50; TF 73, 3, 13, 135–36; commander of, 

137; TF 74, 13, 168; TF 76, 1, 68–69, 137; TF 77, x, 25, 

28–29, 55, 57–62, 74; commander of, 58; TF 78, xi, 9, 

13; TF 79, 9; TF 95, 29 

Task Groups (TGs). TG 70.7, 19; TG 74, commander of, 

81; TG 74.4, 16; TG 76.4, 66; TG 76.8, 66; TG 77.4, 7; 

TG 79.1, 68; TG 79.4, 66 

Tatham, Roy M., 41 

Tawi Tawi Island, Philippines, 141 

Tennessee (BB 43), 4; 5

territorial waters, 50, 96, 131, 163, 167 

terrorism, 125–39, 143–44, 150, 162 

Tet Offensive, x, 63, 71, 76 

Thailand, 100, 115, 144, 146, 150; and SEATO, ix, 44; in 

1962 crisis, ix, 53; in Mayaguez crisis, 70; in exercises, 121, 

135, 137–38, 168; and terrorists, 130–31, 139, 142–43

Thailand, Gulf of, naval operations in, 137–38. See also

Siam, Gulf of 

Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, 60 

Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), 105, 106, 108 

Theseus (British), 24 

Thieu, Nguyen Van, 68; 65, 90

3d Marine Aircraft Wing, 48

III Marine Amphibious Corps, 13, 15–16, 18 

3d Marine Division, 45, 48 

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 138

38th parallel, Korea, 13, 22, 31, 120 

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, 66, 123

Thomaston (LSD 28), 66 

thousand-ship navy, xiii, 147 

Tiananmen Square, xi, 20, 113 

Tianjin, China, 13–15 

Tibet, 44, 156 

Ticonderoga (CG 47), 57–58 

Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, 95, 105
194 INDEX

Tingey (DD 539), 45 

Tobin, Paul E., 109 

Togo, Heihachiro, 151 

Tokyo, Japan, 3, 20, 33, 38, 46–47, 83, 131, 154, 163 

Tomahawk land attack missiles, 92, 93, 104, 170

Tongling (Chinese), 119 

Tonkin, Gulf of, U.S. Navy operations in, 56–62, 64, 75. 

See also Yankee Station

Tonkin Gulf Resolution, ix, 58 

Tonkin region, 16, 39 

Top Gun school. See naval air stations, Miramar, California

Topeka (CL 67), 18 

Torrens (Australian), 121 

Tortuga (LSD 46), 142, 153 

Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, xi, 156 

Tripoli (LPH 10), 81, 107–8 

Triumph (British), viii, 24 

Truman, Harry S., viii, 11, 14, 17–25, 32–34, 37; 11

tsunami, xiii, 144–46 

Tucker (DD 875), 21 

Tucson (SSN 770), 169 

Turner Joy (DD 951), 57, 86 

Tuscaloosa (LST 1187), 68 

typhoons, xiv, 47, 110 

Tyson, Nora W., 136–37; 137

Udaloy-class guided missile destroyer (Soviet), 89 

UH-2 Sea Sprite, 59 

UH-60 Black Hawk, 84

Uighurs, 156 

Ultra intelligence, 4 

United Kingdom, xii, 45, 82, 135 

United Nations, 23–24, 77, 102, 121, 122, 129, 131; 

coalitions of, xi, 24–25, 103–4, 108; Convention on 

the Law of the Sea, 131, 164; International Maritime 

Organization, 131; peacekeeping, 125; Security Council 

Resolutions, 103 (UNSCR 661); 103 (UNSCR 665); 

108 (UNSCR 687); 122 (UNSCR 1264); 135 (UNSCR

1874) 

U.S. Air Force, x, 59, 76, 85, 161; Fifth Air Force, 2; 13th 

Air Force, 100

U.S. Army, xi, 1, 4, 7, 10, 27, 77, 85, 96, 106–8; Army 

Air Forces, 2, 9; 2nd Infantry Division, 38; 6th Infantry 

Division, 9; 7th Infantry Division, 27, 96; 37th Infantry 

Division, 9; 40th Infantry Division, 9; 43rd Infantry 

Division, 9; VII Corps, 104, 108; X Army Corps, 27–28; 

XIV Army Corps, 9; XVIII Airborne Corps, 108; XXIV

Army Corps, 13–14

U.S. Bicentennial (1976), 83 

U.S. Central Command, 101–2, 104, 108, 167; theater 

map, 101

U.S. Coast Guard, 35, 136, 159,160; 159; anti-infiltration 

patrols, x, 63-64; in 21st century maritime strategy, 

xiii, 148; Gulf War embargo patrol, 103; terrorists and 

pirates, operations against,127, 134–35 

U.S. Congress, 58, 87 

U.S. Defense Attaché Office Saigon, 68 

U.S. embassies: Bangkok, 128; Beijing, 119; Manila, 128; 

Saigon, 58 

U.S. Fifth Fleet, 108 

U.S. First Fleet, 38

U.S. Fleet, commander in chief of, 1. See also King, Ernest J. 

U.S. House of Representatives, 114 

U.S.-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Alliance for the 

21st Century, 118

U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, 155, 161 

U.S. Joint Task Force, Timor Sea Operations, 122 

U.S. Marine Corps, xiii. See also individual divisions and 

units

U.S. Naval Academy, 7, 25, 101

U.S. Naval Advisory Group Philippines, 18 

U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, Philippines, xii, 48, 69, 71,109, 

111–12, 121; 109,112

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, commander of, 101, 

104, 108, 167. See also Mauz, Henry H., Jr.; Arthur, 

Stanley R.

U.S. Naval Forces Western Pacific, vii–viii, 17–19, 21; 

commander of, 101,172. See also Cooke, Charles M., Jr.

U.S. Naval Hospital Subic Bay, Philippines, 48, 110 

U.S. Naval Support Facility, Diego Garcia, 82

U.S. Pacific Command, 54, 81, 100, 102, 139; commander 

in chief/commander of, 48, 57, 78, 109, 143–44. See 

also Blair, Dennis; Fargo, Thomas; Sharp, Ulysses S. 

Grant; Keating Timothy J.; Larson, Charles R.; Prueher, 

Joseph, W.

U.S. Pacific Fleet, vii, 1, 38, 86, 99, 124, 143–44, 157–60; 

commander in chief/commander of, 48,143–44, 157. 

See also Doran, Walter F.; Foley, Sylvester R.; Hayward, 

Thomas B.; Lyons, James A.; Moorer, Thomas H.; 

Nimitz, Chester W.; Roughead, Gary; Stump, Felix B. 

U.S. Third Fleet, vii, 2, 6, 8, 98 

U.S. West Coast, 45, 50, 83 

U.S.-Philippines Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and 

Cooperation, 111 

U.S.-Republic of China Mutual Defense Treaty, 41 

Ussuri River, 84 

Utapao, Thailand, 144–45 

Valley Forge (CV 45), 20–23, 28, 33; 23

Van Buskirk, Scott R., 171 

Vancouver (LPD 2), 66 

Vandegrift (FFG 48), 160 

Vendetta (Australian), 62 

Victor I-class attack submarine (Soviet), 129 

Viet Cong, 56, 63, 85, 129 

Viet Minh, viii, 37–40 

Vietnam Navy, x, 56, 63–64, 69–70 

Vietnam People’s Navy, 137 

Vietnam War, 6, 52, 66, 74, 85–86, 99, 149, 152; 

confrontations of, 53, 79–80, 89; fleet bases in, 71, 111, 

151; operations in, 55, 59, 62 

Vietnamese Communists, 37, 53, 56, 58 

Vincennes (CG 49), 97–98 

Viraat (Indian), 132, 134 
INDEX 195

visit, board, search, and seizure operations, 134–36; 135

V-J Day, 13 

Vladivostok, Russia, 33, 80, 87, 91, 96, 121, 150–51, 167; 88 

Wadell (DDG 24), 96 

Walker (DD 517), 75 

Waller (Australian), xiv 

Wang Wei, 124 

Warramunga (Australian), 24

Al Wasitti (Iraqi), 103 

Wasp (CVA 18), 38, 41 93 

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, 93 

Watkins, James B., 92, 93, 99 

weapons of mass destruction, xiii, 120, 134, 163 

Wedemeyer, Albert C., 15 

Weinberger, Caspar, 98 

Weiss, Kenneth, 84 

Wengen Gu, 160 

Wen Rulang, 167 

West Pakistan, 80 

West Virginia (BB 48), 4 

Western Pacific Naval Symposium, 147 

whaleboats, 31–32 

Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship, 93 

White Beach, Okinawa, 8, 48, 137; 166 

Whitmire, Donald, 68 

Wilkinson, Theodore S., 9 

Willard, Robert F., 150, 160, 172 

William H. Standley (CG 32), 96 

Winter, Donald C., 146 

Wisconsin (BB 64), 30, 102, 107–8 

Wisecup, James P., 161 

Wolmi Do, South Korea, 27 

Wonsan, North Korea, 24, 27–28, 31–32, 76; 24

World Trade Center, attack on, xii, 127; 127 

Wu Shengli, 160

Xiamen, China, 33, 35, 41 

Xining (Chinese), 119 

Yalu River, 28–29 

Yamashiro (Japanese), 6

Yamashita, Tomoyuki, 10 

Yamato (Japanese), 4 

Yangtze Patrol Force, 3, 13 

Yangtze River, 13 

Yankee Station, 59–61, 85 

Yantai, China, 16 

Yellow Sea/West Sea, 26, 33–34, 77, 162 

Yeongheung Island, South Korea, 27 

Yijiangshan Island, China, ix, 41 

YMS 49, 14 

YMS 516 (South Korean), 28

Yokosuka, Japan, 19, 39, 46–47, 55, 108, 111, 146, 150–51, 

163; during Korean War, 33, 46; post-Vietnam, 78, 83; 

ships forward-based at, 85, 102, 104–6, 117, 127, 129, 

154, 167; during Vietnam War, 72–73, 83; 46, 149, 167

Yorktown (CVA 10), 41 

Yoshihara, Toshi, 157 

Yoshikawa, Eiji, 148 

Yousef, Ramzi, 128 

Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 143, 148 

Zamboanga, Philippines, 128, 136 

Zanoobia (Iraqi), 103

Zhang Aiping, 84

Zhanjiang, China, 160, 167 

Zhao Guojun, 126, 160 

Zheng He (Chinese), 99 

Zhu De, 115 

Zumwalt, Elmo R. Jr., 13, 81, 89; 13, 81

Vice Admiral Scott R. Van Buskirk, who assumed command on 10 September 2010, stresses the importance of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to peace and 

stability in the sometimes volatile Western Pacific.

7th Flt PA