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The carriers hold the line - aircraft carriers, Korean War - Brief Article
Naval Aviation News, May, 2002 by John Reilly
The Seventh Fleet maintained its heavy attack schedules to the very end, because unrelenting pressure was the only language the Communists understood.
Adm. Joseph J. Clark, Commander Seventh Fleet
When the North Koreans rolled across the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, only one aircraft carrier, Valley Forge (CV 45), was operational with the Seventh Fleet. Postwar policy had called for two carriers to be assigned to the western Pacific, but tight budgeting had made even that "modest proposal" a dead letter. The Chief of Naval Operations had directed that in case of emergency the Seventh Fleet would come under the operational control of Commander Naval Forces, Far East (COMNAVFE), under the theater command of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. The Seventh Fleet reported to COMNAVEE two days after the North Korean invasion, and Valley Forge was assigned to the Striking Force, Seventh Fleet (Task Force 77).
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On 3-4 July 1950, TF 77 entered action when planes from Valley Forge and the British carrier HMS Triumph attacked military targets at Pyongyang, North Korea. By early October Valley Forge had been joined by Philippine Sea (CV 47), Boxer (CV 21) and Leyte (CV 32), and TF 77 had been renamed the Fast Carrier Force. Two smaller escort aircraft carriers of the late-WW II Commencement Bay class, Badoeng Strait (CVE 116) and Sicily (CVE 118), were formed into an escort carrier group and operated under COMNAVFE. Besides providing close air support, the 'jeep carriers" were to conduct antisubmarine hunter-killer missions as needed. In December 1950 the light carrier Bataan (CVL 29) arrived with a Marine fighting squadron embarked, supported the evacuation of Hungnam and operated with TF 77 and the escort carrier group as the situation required. During the first quarter of 1951, Bataan operated off Korea's west coast on blockade and troop support duty in rotation with the British small carriers Theseus and Glory. This became the basic pattern of carrier employment.
Throughout the war, the carriers were charged with close air support to front-line troops; interdiction of enemy movement and logistics by hitting supply routes, storage areas, railroads and other strategic targets; destruction of enemy ground forces; and spotting for naval gunfire. Carriers rotated in and out of the Korean theater. By the time the war ended in 1953, eleven carriers, one light carrier and five escort carriers had served there.
The fast carriers operated as a single tactical organization, though specific missions could vary from ship to ship according to need. The tasks assigned to TF 77 were generally tailored to the war on the ground. From the beginning the carriers hit targets in North Korea and provided close air support to South Korean and U.S. troops. The escort carriers were the basis of air support and antisubmarine patrol missions, though they could be diverted to other tasks as needed.
During and after WW II the services had embraced two different systems of handling close air support. In the amphibious campaigns in the Pacific the Navy and Marine Corps had evolved a scheme of air direction by front-line ground troops. In contrast, the Army Air Forces (now the Air Force) had concluded that tactical air power should be under a central airborne controller, with control of the air the primary mission and ground support a secondary one. The differences in approach between the services often made air support in Korea considerably less effective than it could have been, and remained a sticking point throughout the war.
When Gen. MacArthur sent the Marines ashore at Inchon, TF 77 and the escort carriers of Carrier Division 15 were on hand to maintain air supremacy over the assault area, to attack enemy reinforcement efforts, and to give air support to the landing force by direct attacks and spotting for naval gunfire. TF 77 commander Rear Admiral Edward C. Ewen reported that Navy/Marinestyle close air support "left little to be desired." The same scheme was placed in effect for the subsequent landing at Wonsan, though discovery of extensive North Korean mining of the inshore waters so delayed the landing that the port finally fell to South Korean troops advancing overland. Minefields presented such an obstacle that TF 77 was asked to try countermining by bomb strike. Planes from Leyte and Philippine Sea dropped 1,000pound bombs in two parallel five-mile rows. Due to control and navigational difficulties, the results were dubious at best and planners concluded that mine warfare ships provided the only meaningful approach to mine clearance.
During the evacuation from Hungnam in December 1950, TF 77's Philippine Sea, Leyte, Valley Forge and Princeton (CV 37) were joined by Bataan, Sicily and Badoeng Strait. With the battleship Missouri (BB 63), two heavy cruisers, seven destroyers and three rocketfiring close support ships, the fleet drew a massive pattern of aircraft and gunfire around the perimeter to permit the withdrawal to proceed without meaningful enemy interference. Two more massive Communist offensives which followed were driven back after initial losses with the powerful help of naval air strikes and gunfire. By summer 1951 the war had become a matter of smaller fluctuations in the front-line as seemingly endless truce talks ground on at Panmunjom. Carrier aircraft continued to hit the enemy, though growing numbers of antiaircraft guns made this task increasingly dangerous.
