Expeditionary· Civil Aid and Humanitarian Operations
Taiwan Strait Crisis
A supporting role in a Cold War confrontation between the United States, Nationalist China, and the People's Republic.
After Communist forces seized the Yijiangshan Islands in early 1955 and threatened the exposed Nationalist-held Tachen Islands, the U.S. Seventh Fleet mounted a large evacuation. A shore-party battalion of the 3rd Marine Division, based in Japan, assisted Navy crews in the operation, which lifted some 26,000 Nationalist troops and civilians off the Tachens and carried them to Formosa under the protection of a powerful fleet. The evacuation was completed without casualties. In the renewed crisis of 1958 Marines again played a supporting part, transferring heavy artillery to the Nationalist army and deploying air-control and ground elements to Taiwan during the bombardment of the offshore islands. Throughout, the Marine role was to support Navy and Nationalist operations rather than to act independently, and no Marines were lost.
Record no. 81