United States Sixth Fleet
The Sixth Fleet is the United States Navy's operational fleet and staff of United States Naval Forces Europe. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in 2011 is that it 'conducts the full range of Maritime Operations and Theater Security Cooperation missions in concert with coalition, joint, interagency and other parties in order to advance security and stability in Europe and Africa.' The commander of the Sixth Fleet is Vice Admiral Frank Craig Pandolfe.
The Sixth Fleet was established in February 1950 by redesignation of the former Sixth Task Fleet. Since that time, it has been continually engaged in world affairs around the Mediterranean, and, on occasion, further afield. It was involved in numerous NATO maritime exercises, the U.S. Lebanese intervention of 1958, confrontation with the Soviets during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, clearance of the Suez Canal post 1973, several confrontations with Libya during the 1980s (including Operation El Dorado Canyon), and maintenance of task forces in the Adriatic during the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Most recently it launched airstrikes on Libya again during the Libyan civil war of 2011.
Since the establishment of NATO it has constituted the most powerful Allied maritime striking force in the NATO Southern Region, and has retained the title of Naval Striking and Support Force Southern Europe (STRIKFORSOUTH) in its NATO identity. However with the reorganization of NATO in the early twenty-first century the title became Striking Force NATO. Thomas A. Bryson's 'Tars, Turks, and Tankers: The Role of the United States Navy in the Middle East' covers the fleet's activities from 1950 to 1980.
Read more about United States Sixth Fleet: History, Structure, Past Command Ships, Sixth Fleet Commanders
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, sixth and/or fleet:
“... it is probable that in a fit of generosity the men of the United States would have enfranchised its women en masse; and the government now staggering under the ballots of ignorant, irresponsible men, must have gone down under the additional burden of the votes which would have been thrown upon it, by millions of ignorant, irresponsible women.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“... no young colored person in the United States today can truthfully offer as an excuse for lack of ambition or aspiration that members of his race have accomplished so little, he is discouraged from attempting anything himself. For there is scarcely a field of human endeavor which colored people have been allowed to enter in which there is not at least one worthy representative.”
—Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954)
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“They ... fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)