After several weeks of screening carrier operations off Okinawa, "Benner" received orders to proceed south to Taiwan on 25 August. Two days previously, Chinese Communist artillery on the mainland had opened fire on Chinese Nationalist forces on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. "Benner" joined what eventually became a six-carrier task force in the region and, over the next eight weeks, helped to protect supply convoys to the beleaguered Nationalist garrison on Quemoy until the crisis eased. After brief stops at Yokosuka and Midway, the destroyer returned to Long Beach on 21 November.