page_title: Point-class cutter
section_title: Vietnam service
hierarchical_section_title: Point-class cutter / History / Vietnam service
caption_attribution_description: English: Close-up of gun crew on board USCGC POINT COMFORT (WPB-82317) firing 81mm mortar during bombardment of suspected Viet Cong staging area one mile behind An Thoi.
context_page_description: The Point-class cutter was a class of 82-foot patrol vessels designed to replace the United States Coast Guard's aging 83-foot wooden hull patrol boat being used at the time. The design utilized a mild steel hull and an aluminum superstructure. The Coast Guard Yard discontinued the building of the 95-foot Cape-class cutter in order to have the capacity to produce the 82-foot Point-class patrol boat in 1960. They served as patrol vessels used in law enforcement and search and rescue along the coasts of the United States and the Caribbean. They also served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. They were replaced by the 87-foot Marine Protector-class coastal patrol boats beginning in the late 1990s.
context_section_description: At the request of the U.S. Navy, 26 of the Point-class cutters were transported to Vietnam to serve with Coast Guard crews under U.S. Navy control during Operation Market Time. Coast Guard Squadron One was commissioned at Alameda, California on 27 May 1965. Crews immediately began training and preparation for overseas deployment. All USCG Point-class cutters in Vietnam were later turned over to the South Vietnamese Navy as part of the Vietnamization of the war effort.
  When North Vietnam overtook the South the then-South Vietnamese Navy cutters had varied fates. Some were captured and incorporated into the Vietnam People's Navy. A few South Vietnamese boats were scuttled, and some by fleeing South Vietnamese military and civilians to successfully escape to the Philippines. The boats that sailed to the Philippines were pressed into service by the Philippine Navy, boats decommissioned in the 1980s, at which time the boats sold for scrap or to the private market.
caption: Gun crew on board USCGC Point Comfort (WPB-82317) firing 81mm mortar during bombardment of suspected Viet Cong staging area one mile behind An Thoi, August 1965
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