page_title: USS Barataria (AVP-33)
section_title: Vietnam War service 1967-1968
hierarchical_section_title: USS Barataria (AVP-33) / United States Coast Guard service / Vietnam War service 1967-1968
caption_attribution_description: English: United States Coast Guard Cutter USCGC Barataria (WHEC-381), ex-WAVP-381, entering San Francisco Bay in January 1968 as she returns from Vietnam after Vietnam War service
context_page_description: The second USS Barataria (AVP-33) was a United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender in commission from 1944 to 1946. She saw service in the later stages of World War II and was decommissioned postwar. She then was transferred to the United States Coast Guard and was in commission as the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Barataria, later WHEC-381 from 1949 to 1969, serving in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War during her lengthy Coast Guard career.
context_section_description: On 1 April 1967, Barataria departed Portland, Maine, and moved to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There she joined four other Casco-class Coast Guard cutters - USCGC Gresham, USCGC Yakutat, USCGC Bering Strait  and USCGC Half Moon in forming Coast Guard Squadron Three. All five cutters were former Barnegat-class ships. Gresham became flagship of the squadron, which was designated Task Unit 70.8.6. Captain John E. Day, commander of the squadron, hoisted his pennant aboard Gresham upon activation of the squadron at Pearl Harbor on 24 April 1967.
  Coast Guard Squadron Three was tasked to operate in conjunction with U.S. Navy forces in Operation Market Time, the interdiction of North Vietnamese coastal arms and munitions traffic along the coastline of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The squadron's other Vietnam War duties included naval gun fire support for ground forces, resupplying Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats and search-and-rescue operations. The cutters departed Pearl Harbor on 26 April 1967 and reported to Commander, United States Seventh Fleet, for Market Time duty on 4 May 1967. They were joined by Navy radar picket destroyer escorts (DERs) of Escort Squadrons 5 and 7.
  The ten Market Time ships arrived at Subic Bay in the Philippines on 10 May 1967. The five Coast Guard cutters and five Navy destroyer escorts continuously manned four Market Time stations off Vietnam, while only Navy warships served on two Taiwan patrol stations. One ship rotated duty as the station ship in Hong Kong.
  During her Vietnam War tour, Barataria was underway 83 percent of the time and cruised over 67,000 nautical miles (124,000 km) without a major mechanical or electrical failure. Keeping a close watch on all moving craft in her surveillance area, Barataria detected, inspected, or boarded nearly 1,000 steel-hulled vessels traversing her area, any one of which could have been a trawler trying to sneak supplies to the enemy.
  Barataria was called upon many times to use her main battery against enemy troops ashore who were engaged with allied forces; United States Army spotter planes reported all of Barataria's rounds on target, never once falling out of the target area.  On one gunfire support mission, Barataria scored three direct hits on point targets which had been spotted by aircraft.
caption: USCGC Barataria (WHEC-381, ex-WAVP-381), entering San Francisco Bay in January 1968 as she returns from her Vietnam War service.
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