The two most urgent challenges facing NAVFE in the summer of 1950 required that it both support the Eighth Army's battered forces on the Korean peninsula and neutralize the North Korean People's Navy. This international mix was quickly organized into four separate task forces (TF): TF 77, the carrier strike force TF 95, the blockade-and-escort force TF 96, Naval Forces, Japan, and, of particular importance to the special operations forces that would soon raid the North Korean coastline, TF 90, the Far East Amphibious Force. The following month all United Nations naval forces committed to resisting the North Korean aggression were also placed under the operational control of ComNavFE. Pacific Fleet, transferred operational control of the Seventh Fleet–essentially all of the navy's ships in the western Pacific–to ComNavFE. 3 This situation changed dramatically within forty-eight hours, however, as the commander in chief, U.S.

Mirroring the command's limited responsibilities at this time, NAVFE's fleet totaled only one cruiser, four destroyers, four amphibious ships, one submarine, ten minesweepers, and a frigate attached from the Australian navy. Turner Joy, was actually in Washington, D.C., the day the North Koreans attacked. Far East Command– numbered a minuscule twenty-nine officers, and ComNavFE (commander, NAVFE) himself, Vice Adm. Not surprisingly, the navy found itself, as did the air force and army, with few forces in Asia prepared to support this directive.Īt the outset of war, the Naval Forces, Far East (NAVFE) staff–the naval component to MacArthur's U.S. Ultimately, the navy 'revolt' failed, and amid considerable media and political criticism for the public manner in which the naval aviators had pursued their goals, the effort was judged by many at the time to have culminated in 'a serious defeat for the navy.' 2 Eight short months later President Truman stunned virtually everyone, especially the Department of Defense, with his directive to commit America's enfeebled military forces to combat in Korea.

Korean war veteran navy list