USS Alstede (AF-48) was an Alstede-class stores ship acquired by the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II. Her task was to carry stores, refrigerated items, and equipment to ships in the fleet, and to remote stations and staging areas.

Ocean Chief was laid down on 30 September 1944 at Oakland, California, by the Moore Dry Dock Company. under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1206); launched on 28 November 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Anton Wille; and delivered to the War Shipping Administration on 4 May 1945. She was operated by the United Fruit Co. under a contract with the War Shipping Administration for almost exactly one year. Acquired by the Navy on 10 May 1946, she was renamed Alstede; designated store ship AF-48; and commissioned at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on 17 May 1946.

Alstede completed trials and moored at the Naval Supply Depot, Oakland, California, to take on supplies destined for American servicemen participating in the postwar occupation of the islands of the Central Pacific Ocean. For over four years, the store ship made the circuit from the West Coast through the Marshall Islands to the Mariana Islands and back home to the United States. During those voyages, she most frequently visited Kwajalein and Eniwetok in the Marshalls and Guam and Saipan in the Marianas. On the outbound and return legs of those voyages, the ship made calls at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and frequently stopped at lonely Wake Island. Points of departure and return in the United States included San Diego, Long Beach, Oakland, San Francisco, Bremerton, and Seattle.

Even the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in June 1950 did not at first interrupt her routine. While other American forces rushed to the aid of hard-pressed South Korea, Alstede played no role in the conflict until the end of the year. Initially, that participation consisted only of a single, round-trip voyage to Sasebo, Japan, to deliver stores to that forward base, and back to the U.S. West Coast.

The last month of 1950 and the first of 1951 brought another circuit through the Marshalls and the Marianas before Alstede began to concentrate more heavily on supporting the struggle of the United Nations to stem the tide of North Korean aggression and to counter Chinese intervention on the side of that aggression. During the second month of 1951, the store ship began round-trip voyages between the West Coast and ports in Japan—notably Yokosuka and Sasebo—to the exclusion of her former Central Pacific ports of call. She made three such voyages in the spring of 1951 before entering the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for regular overhaul on 27 July 1951. When the ship emerged from the extended repair period on 8 November, she conducted local operations for a short period and then loaded cargo at Oakland. On 8 December, Alstede put to sea bound once more for the western Pacific.

The advent of 1952 heralded an even closer involvement in the Korean War. Alstede arrived in Sasebo on 18 January 1952 and remained there about three weeks. On 11 February, the ship set sail for a replenishment rendezvous off Wonsan harbor with units of the U.S. 7th Fleet. During the ensuing seven months, the store ship shuttled back and forth between Japan and the American warships operating along the coast of Korea. On three occasions, Alstede entered port at Pusan, Korea, though each time she remained in the harbor but a few hours. The ship returned to Japan from her final replenishment mission of the year on 23 September and visited Sasebo until 2 October then moved to Yokosuka where she remained from 4 to 28 October. Returning to Sasebo on the last day of the month, she spent a week at that port before getting underway for home on 6 November. She arrived back in Oakland, California, on 21 November.

However, her stay in the United States lasted only a month. On 21 December, Alstede returned to sea for another round-trip voyage to Japan. She visited Yokosuka between 6 and 8 January 1953, stopped at Sasebo from the 10th to the 16th, and returned to Yokosuka for three days before heading back to the United States on the 21st. The ship arrived back at Oakland on 4 February and, for the next month, called at several ports on the California coast before standing out of Oakland on 14 March, bound once more for the Far East. She pulled into Sasebo on 1 April and remained there for almost three weeks.

On the 19th, the vessel put to sea to rendezvous with 7th Fleet warships operating off the Korean coast. After transferring stores at sea, she returned to Sasebo on 23 April. For the next three months, Alstede plied back and forth between Japanese ports and the combat zone off the Korean coast to replenish the men-of-war supporting United Nations' troops engaged in the struggle in Korea. At the end of July, she voyaged south from Japan to Taiwan and operated from 3 to 6 August with units of the Taiwan Strait Patrol. From there, the store ship returned north to the southeastern coast of Korea and spent five days—10 to 15 August—near Koje Do, the island where communist prisoners of war were confined. She arrived back in Sasebo on the 15th, visited there and at Yokosuka, and departed the latter port on 26 August. Alstede reached Oakland on 7 September and entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on the 11th for her regular overhaul.