The cathartic euphoria generated by victory in World War II was, sadly, a fleeting thing, immediately overshadowed by the standoff between freedom and autocracy, between liberal democracy and totalitarianism—and over it all hung the grim new specter of nuclear Armageddon.
For Americans, 1949 in particular was the Annus horribilis. That was the year when President Harry Truman had to inform the public that the Soviet Union had successfully tested its first atomic bomb (much sooner than predicted, mystifyingly). Suddenly, the United States found itself deprived of the nuclear upper hand it so far had exclusively held.
As if that weren’t enough, 1949 brought other alarming news to the free West: After decades of internal conflict that had predated World War II and had continued in its wake, China fell to Mao Zedong’s Red Army. Just like that, more than a quarter of the world’s population was under Communist control.
But the Nationalist Chinese government led by Mao’s longtime foe Chiang Kai-Shek did not throw in the towel; he and his supporters fled mainland China to the offshore island of Taiwan and there kept the torch lit as the legitimate (albeit ousted) Republic of China. For Communist China, the continued existence of the Nationalists was a profound affront; this was not an issue that Mao and co. would let go.
And Communist China never has—as today’s tensions in the South China Sea so worryingly illustrate. With all eyes focused on the simmering situation in those troubled waters, the past indeed serves as prologue: Seventy years ago, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis that erupted in late 1954 came perilously close to a post–Korean War conflagration; the Eisenhower administration even considered launching a nuclear strike. The U.S. Seventh Fleet evacuated tens of thousands of Chinese citizens to Taiwan. And ever since then, the two Chinas have stared warily at each other across the strait.
In our cover story this issue, retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler offers a fascinating account of those events that served as the flashpoint for the decades-long standoff that looms as one of the salient geopolitical threats of our times. The crisis led to the growth and perpetuation of the U.S. Navy’s Taiwan Patrol Force, which, reflective of the ongoing nature of the friction, became “one of the longest naval operations in modern history.”
Also in this issue, Edward J. Marolda compares and contrasts the two Chiefs of Naval Operations who reshaped and course-corrected the Navy through the turbulent 1970s: Admirals Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. and James L. Holloway III. Martin J. Bollinger shines a light on the tragic sinking of the Allied troopship Rohna in November 1943—and analyzes how and why the story was suppressed for so many years. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Richard D. Camp serves up a stirring tribute to famed PT boat skipper Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley and the heroism of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three in the dark early days of the Pacific war. Leonard Heinz delves into the oft-overlooked role of sea power in the Spanish Civil War. And Frederick C. Leiner investigates an intriguing new angle on the naval War of 1812, courtesy of an enigmatic letter penned by the Emperor Napoleon . . . a letter that invites one down avenues of history yet unexplored.
Eric Mills
Editor-in-Chief
