USS Wiltsie (DD-716) - 1946-1950

1946-1950

Following a shakedown cruise which took the ship to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wiltsie transited the Panama Canal on 8 July 1946 and proceeded to San Diego, California. She spent the fall and winter of 1946 engaged in training exercises before departing the west coast on 6 January 1947, bound for the Far East. She subsequently operated out of Tsingtao, China, on exercises and maneuvers while standing by the American community in that port during rising local tensions between the communist and Nationalist Chinese. Wiltsie remained at Tsingtao until June 1947, when she shifted to Sasebo, Japan, for occupation duty. Departing Sasebo on 8 March 1948, the destroyer proceeded to Bremerton, Washington, for an overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

After training off the west coast, Wiltsie sailed once more for the Far East, departing San Diego on 1 October. Late that autumn, she again operated out of Tsingtao during the evacuation of Americans from that port to Yokohama because of the Chinese civil war then raging. During this period, Wiltsie briefly visited Hong Kong and Okinawa before returning to Tsingtao.

Chinese communist forces rolled southward, and Nanking fell in April 1949. Wiltsie arrived at Shanghai on 22 April, to stand by during the evacuation of all foreign nationals from the city. Over the ensuing days, Wiltsie watched a veritable parade of merchant vessels of many nationalities—Chinese, Dutch, Norwegian, French, Danish, British, and American—as well as American, British, and Chinese naval vessels. On Thursday, 5 May 1949, 20 days before the fall of the city to the communists, Wiltsie departed Chinese waters for the last time, bound for Buckner Bay, Okinawa.

From there, Wiltsie soon headed homeward and made port at San Diego, California on 4 June 1949. She later moved up the coast; embarked NROTC midshipmen at Treasure Island, near San Francisco, California on 1 August; and departed the following day for a training cruise to Balboa, Panama, and the Galápagos Islands. Returning to San Diego on 31 August, the destroyer soon sailed for Hawaii, where she participated in Operation "Miki", a mock invasion of the Hawaiian Islands in which Army, Navy, and Air Force units all took part. Returning to the west coast soon afterwards, Wiltsie spent the period from December 1949 to April 1950 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California, undergoing an overhaul.