Squadron Signal 6161. USN Aircraft Carrier Air Units (Volume 2) 1957-1963

In the immediate post war years the United States Navy was dominated by problems of demobilization, an uneasy international situation, and a re-organization. Demobilization was rapid with the number of aircraft carriers in service reduced from 109 in 1945 to twenty-five a year later, and by the middle of 1950 to nine. The unsettled international situation in vastly separated areas of the world resulted in the formation of Carrier Task Groups to operate in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Western Pacific, providing tangible evidence of America's presence and support for their Allies and the Free World.
The first of the international crises was quick in coming as President Truman dispatched US Naval forces to Turkey in March of 1946, responding to a massive build-up of Soviet forces along the Turkish border. The next major US foreign policy test came when French, British, and American air forces provided a massive airlift into the city of Berlin, breaking the Soviet surface blockade of the former German capitol...