"When the Korean War began in June 1950, underway replenishment of combat ships was, though not a lost art, very hard to come by in the western Pacific. A severe local shortage of auxiliaries suitable for this demanding logistics task meant that warships had to retire to ports in Japan whenever they needed fresh supplies of ammunition and provisions. In an intense combat environment, that was every few days. The time spent in transit to and from port was time not available for combat operations, clearly a wasteful situation and one that was painfully troublesome in the difficult weeks of July and August 1950."
"Fortunately, the necessary auxiliary ships -- oilers, ammunition ships and reefers -- were soon on their way across the Pacific to the war zone. By Autumn, replenishment at sea was again the routine undertaking that it had been during the great Pacific war just a half-decade earlier. Coupled with the sufficiency in numbers of carriers and gun ships, that meant that ships could replenish every few days while staying near the Korean coast, and thus would still be available to apply their firepower on short notice."- US NAVY WEB SITE