Aircraft carrier Valley Forge (CV-45), the heavy cruiser Rochester (CA-124), and eight destroyers sortied from Subic Bay in the Philippines and made a show of force along the China coast.

Seventh Fleet based at Subic Bay in the Philippines to prevent the war from spreading to the waters and islands off China, where Chiang Kai-skek continued his fight against the Communist mainland government.

air, ground, and naval forces to help South Korean and other United Nations forces resist the Communist attack. President Truman moved decisively to defend American and allied interests in the Far East when Kim Il Sung's North Korean armed forces, equipped with Soviet tanks, artillery, and combat aircraft, invaded the Republic of (South) Korea on 25 June 1950. Sixth Fleet) and creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, it became clear to most observers that the United States meant to stand by its friends in the region. He wanted to make clear his determination that the United States would oppose aggressive Soviet actions. Soon after Stalin pressed Turkey and Iran for territorial and other concessions in 1946, Truman dispatched battleship Missouri (BB-63), an unmistakable symbol of American military power, to the Eastern Mediterranean. The United States Navy, its warships and aircraft-and above all its sailors- guarded the ramparts of the containment wall from the beginning of the so-called 'Cold War' to its victorious end. Finally, the Truman administration adopted a broad 'Containment Strategy,' in simplest terms a major effort to build a wall around the Communist world that would be defended by the armed might of the United States and its allies. government strengthened political ties with many like-minded anti-Communist governments around the globe. American taxpayers provided billions of dollars to restore the war-ravaged economies of Western Europe, under the Marshall Plan, and the similarly devastated Japanese economy. Truman, had already taken economic, political, and military steps to deal with the new threat posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. The United States, under the leadership of President Harry S. In 1949, Mao Tse-tung and his Chinese Communist armies pushed the forces of the Chiang Kai-shek government off the mainland of Asia and established the People's Republic of China. Kim Il Sung and his Korean Communist supporters engaged in a vicious struggle for political control of the Korean people with Syngman Rhee and his anti-Communist adherents. Ho Chi Minh led Vietnamese Communists and other nationalists against the French colonial government in Indochina. In the Far East, regional Communist movements took the lead, but received military assistance from Moscow in efforts to eliminate opposing movements and governments. In 1948, the Soviets sparked a confrontation with the United States and its European allies over control of Berlin, the occupied and divided capital of the defeated German nation. He put diplomatic and military pressure on Turkey and Iran in the Middle East and supplied war material to Communists fighting to overthrow the government of Greece. Working with local Communist leaders and movements in the years after the war, Stalin eliminated the political and economic independence of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other nations in Eastern Europe. The USSR, under a murderous dictator, Joseph Stalin, acted to solidify the wartime conquests of the Soviet Red Army and advance the cause worldwide of Marxism Leninism, an ideology that subverted the very ideals most Americans then held sacred. Soon after helping defeat Fascist tyranny in World War II, American sailors faced a new global threat to the United States and the values for which their nation had long been a standard bearer democracy, basic human rights, and freedom. Posted with permission of the Naval Historical Foundation. The Navy. Washington: Naval Historical Foundation, 2000. (Based on the chapter, 'Cold War to Violent Peace,' in W.J.

Havoc battle group boston