USCGC Castle Rock (WAVP-383)

USCGC Castle Rock (WAVP-383), later WHEC-383, was a Casco-class United States Coast Guard cutter in service from 1948 to 1971.

Construction and U.S. Navy service
Castle Rock began life as the United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Castle Rock (AVP-35). She was laid down on 12 July 1943 by Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington, launched on 11 January 1944, and commissioned into the U.S. Navy on 8 October 1944. She operated in the Central Pacific during and after World War II. She was decommissioned on 6 August 1946 at San Francisco, California, and placed in reserve.

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 U.S. Navy loaned Castle Rock to the Coast Guard on 16 September 1948. After undergoing conversion for use as a weather-reporting ship, she was commissioned into the Coast Guard service as USCGC Castle Rock (WAVP-383) on 18 December 1948 at Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California.

North Atlantic and Caribbean service 1948-1971
Castle Rock was stationed at Boston, Massachusetts, after her commissioning. Her primary duty was to serve on ocean stations in the Atlantic Ocean 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.

In March 1956, Castle Rock towed the Finnish merchant ship Sunnavik from 300 nmi south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to safety.

Castle Rock reported to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for service during the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Castle Rock took part in the United States Coast Guard Academy cadet cruise in May 1963 and again in August 1965.

On 1 May 1966, Castle Rock was reclassified as a high endurance cutter and redesignated WHEC-383. On 26 September 1966 her period on loan to the Coast Guard ended when she was stricken from the Navy List and transferred permanently to the Coast Guard.

Castle Rock was stationed at Portland, Maine, beginning in 1967, with the same duties she had as during her years at Boston. On 22 February 1967 and 23 February 1967, she rescued eight people from the sinking fishing vessel Maureen and Michael 90 nmi southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada.

Vietnam War service 1971
Castle Rock was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three in Vietnam in 1971. On her way to Vietnam, she suffered an engineering casualty and sank at her pier in Singapore, but continued on her way after making repairs and reported for duty with the squadron on 9 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 munitions 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 boats, and search-and-rescue operations. Castle Rock served in this capacity until 21 December 1971.

Castle Rock earned two campaign stars for her Vietnam War service, for:


 * Consolidation I 9 July 1971-30 November 1971
 * Consolidation II 1 December 1971-21 December 1971

Decommissioning
The Coast Guard decommissioned Castle Rock in South Vietnam on 21 December 1971, the day her Vietnam War tour ended.

South Vietnamese service
Castle Rock was transferred to South Vietnam on 21 December 1971 and commissioned into the Republic of Vietnam Navy as patrol vessel RVNS Tran Binh Trong (HQ-05). When South Vietnam collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975, Tran Binh Trong fled to Subic Bay in the Philippines,

On 22 May 1975 and 23 May 1975, a U.S. Coast Guard team inspected Tran Binh Trong and several other former Casco-class cutters which had been transferred to South Vietnam in 1971 and 1972 and, like Tran Binh Trong, 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."

Philippine Navy service
After Tran Binh Trong was cleaned, repaired, and made ready to return to service, the U.S. Navy formally transferred her to the Republic of the Philippines in 5 April 1976. She was commissioned in the Philippine Navy as frigate BRP Francisco Dagohoy (PF-10) on 23 June 1979. She was decommissioned in June 1985, discarded in March 1993, and probably scrapped.