Word: fleetly
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Background for War is assigned to various departments, depending on the accent of the report that week. Frequently this department ties in directly with stories we are reporting in TIME'S regular sections. Thus, in this issue, our cover story on Admiral Radford, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, naturally has a great deal to say about U.S. strategy and Formosa. At other times, Background for War may not be immediate news, but the information it contains, we hope, will help you understand today's news better...
...catch Mao's ear, Harry Truman chose to talk mostly about Formosa-instead of Korea. The Chinese Communists had protested belligerently to the United Nations about the "aggressive" U.S. Seventh Fleet lying in the Formosan straits. Said the President at his press conference last week: of course, the Seventh Fleet would be pulled out as soon as the Korean war was over. In English or in Mandarin this seemed to mean: stay out of Korea, fellows, and when the ruckus there is all over, Formosa will be left out in the open, where you can grab...
...each other. In 1644 the Dutch captured the Spanish stronghold of La Santissima Trinidad at Keelung, but their victory was short-lived. Formosa was being inundated with South Chinese fleeing before the Manchu invaders of China. In 1661 one refugee, the pirate Koxinga, turned up at Formosa with a fleet and an army of 25,000 men, overwhelmed Formosa's small Dutch garrison and proclaimed himself king of the island. Though he ruled for only a year before his death, Koxinga is still Formosans' greatest hero...
...small cabin off the flag bridge of an Essex-class carrier, known in the fleet as "the Showboat," Admiral Edward Coyle Ewen sat sipping orangeade, explaining the targets for the next day. Task Force 77 was barreling along Korea's west coast, intent on blasting strategic targets at Pyongyang, Seoul and Inchon. While Ewen was talking, fuel and ordnance men readied the Showboat's planes...
...said that Radford wears "three hats," which means that he has three commands. As CINCPAC, he commands the Pacific Fleet. As CINCPOA (Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Area), he is theater commander of an area which reaches from the North to the South Pole, from the continental shores of the Americas to the Bay of Bengal. Radford is also High Commissioner for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which means that he must look after the welfare of inhabitants of islands put in U.S. trust by the United Nations. This is the least important of the admiral...