A History of the US Seventh Fleet

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Edward J Marolda, Ready Seapower; A history of the US Seventh Fleet. Naval History & Heritage Command, Department of the Navy, 2012/
www.history.navy.mil/content/dam ... F/ReadySeapower.pdf

Quote:

The Philippines won independence on July 4, 1946 (with the signing of Treaty of Manila).  In "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 [army] General MacArthur’s direct control. As a result, most fleet units moved to the Philippines where the Navy retained greater autonomy."  page 19

"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. * * * In light of the Communist advances, the Truman administration finally ordered the Seventh Fleet to evacuate Qingdao. Vice Admiral [Oscar C] Badger[, II]  suggested relocating the fleet’s facilities and the Chinese Naval Training Center to Taiwan, but Secretary of State Acheson rejected the proposal."  p 20

In 1950 prior to North Korea's invasion on June 25, 1950: "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." p 22

"On 25 June North Korean armed forces, equipped with Soviet tanks, artillery, and combat aircraft, attacked the Republic of (South) Korea. * * * The Seventh Fleet sortied from its base at Subic Bay in the Philippines on the 27th, steamed to Korea via Taiwan and Okinawa"  p 23

"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."


A sidebar at page 21: "US Naval Base, Qingdao, China[:] During the first four years [1946-1949] 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.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.