USCGC Cook Inlet ( WAVP - 384 ) USCGC " Cook Inlet " ( WAVP - 384 ) , later WHEC - 384 , was a " Casco " - class United States Coast Guard cutter in service from 1949 to 1971 . Construction and U . S . Navy service . " Cook Inlet " began life as the United States Navy " Barnegat " - class seaplane tender USS " Cook Inlet " ( AVP - 36 ) . She was laid down on 23 August 1943 by Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton , Washington , launched on 13 May 1944 , and commissioned into the U . S . Navy on 5 November 1944 . She served in the Central Pacific during World War II , including in the Iwo Jima campaign , and on occupation duty in Japan and Korea postwar . She was decommissioned on 31 March 1946 and placed in reserve at Alameda , California . Transferred to the United States Coast Guard . " Barnegat " - class ships were very reliable and seaworthy and had good habitability , and the Coast Guard viewed them as ideal for ocean station duty , in which they would perform weather reporting and search and rescue tasks , once they were modified by having a balloon shelter added aft and having oceanographic equipment , an oceanographic winch , and a hydrographic winch installed . The Navy loaned " Cook Inlet " to the United States Coast Guard on 20 September 1948 . After undergoing conversion for Coast Guard use , she was commissioned into the Coast Guard on 15 January 1949 as USCGC " Cook Inlet " ( WAVP - 384 ) . U . S . Coast Guard service . Atlantic operations 1949 - 1971 . " Cook Inlet " s home port was Portland , Maine , throughout her entire Coast Guard career . She served in the Atlantic Ocean , where her primary duty was to serve on ocean stations to gather meteorological data . While on duty in one of these stations , she was required to patrol a 210 - square - mile ( 544 - square - kilometer ) area for three weeks at a time , leaving the area only when physically relieved by another Coast Guard cutter or in the case of a dire emergency . While on station , she acted as an aircraft check point at the point of no return , a relay point for messages from ships and aircraft , as a source of the latest weather information for passing aircraft , as a floating oceanographic laboratory , and as a search - and - rescue ship for downed aircraft and vessels in distress , and engaged in law enforcement operations . On 12 October 1953 , " Cook Inlet " rendezvoused with Coast Guard cutter USCGC " Chambers " ( WDE - 491 ) in the Atlantic to take a medical patient from " Chambers " which " Chambers " had evacuated the previous day from the merchant ship " Neva West " . She then transported that patient to medical facilities ashore . " Cook Inlet " took part in the United States Coast Guard Academy cadet cruise of August 1965 . On 28 January 1966 , " Cook Inlet " rescued survivors in of a swamped pleasure craft . Between 3 February 1966 and 8 February 1966 , she escorted the distressed Liberian merchant vessel " Arion " to Bermuda . On 8 April 1966 , she assisted the burning Norwegian passenger - freighter " Viking Princess " , sending a fire and rescue party aboard " Viking Princess " to fight her fires ; rushing from Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , in a three - hour voyage , the U . S . Navy frigate USS " Wilkinson " ( DL - 5 ) also assisted " Viking Princess " , taking 13 survivors of the ship aboard from the Republic of China merchant ship " Chungking Victory " and transporting them to Guantanamo Bay . " Cook Inlet " was reclassified as a high endurance cutter and redesignated WHEC - 384 on 1 May 1966 . Her loan period from the Navy came to an end on 26 September 1966 , when she was transferred permanently from the Navy to the Coast Guard . On 8 January 1968 , " Cook Inlet " evacuated a crewman in medical distress from the Swedish merchant ship " California " . Vietnam War service 1971 . " Cook Inlet " was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three in Vietnam on 2 July 1971 . Coast Guard Squadron Three was tasked to operate in conjunction with U . S . Navy forces in Operation Market Time , the interdiction of communist coastal arms and munition s traffic along the coastline of Vietnam during the Vietnam War . The squadron ' s other Vietnam War duties included fire support for ground forces , resupplying Coast Guard and Navy patrol boat s , and search - and - rescue operations . " Cook Inlet " served in this capacity until 21 December 1971 . " Cook Inlet " earned two campaign star s for her Vietnam War service , for : Decommissioning . The Coast Guard decommissioned " Cook Inlet " in South Vietnam on 21 December 1971 , the day her Vietnam War tour ended . Foreign service . South Vietnamese service . " Cook Inlet " was transferred to South Vietnam on 21 December 1971 and commissioned into the Republic of Vietnam Navy as patrol vessel RVNS " Tran Quoc Toan " ( HQ - 06 ) . When South Vietnam collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975 , " Tran Quang Toan " fled to Subic Bay in the Philippines . On 22 May 1975 and 23 May 1975 , a U . S . Coast Guard team inspected " Tran Quang Toan " and several other former " Casco " - class cutters which had been transferred to South Vietnam in 1971 and 1972 and , like " Tran Quang Toan " , fled to the Philippines in April 1975 . One of the inspectors noted : " These vessels brought in several hundred refugees and are generally rat - infested . They are in a filthy , deplorable condition . Below decks generally would compare with a garbage scow . " Acquisition for spare parts by the Philippines . After " Tran Quang Toan " was cleaned , the U . S . Navy transferred her to the Republic of the Philippines in April 1976 . Cannibalized for spare parts , she never entered Philippine Navy service . She was discarded in 1982 and probably scrapped .