RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-06)

RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-03) This article assumes that the authoritative Jane's Fighting Ships 1973-1974, p. 592, is correct about the ship's lineage (i.e., that she was the former USS Cook Inlet (AVP-36) and USCGC Cook Inlet (WAVP-384/WHEC-384) and was designated HQ-06 in South Vietnamese service; the Naval Historical Center Online Library of Selected Images (see http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-c/avp36.htm) and NavSource.org (see http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/4334.htm) agree. However, much confusion exists on these points in print and on the Web. The United States Coast Guard Historian's Office (see http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/BeringStrait1948.asp) agrees that the ship was the former Cook Inlet, but does not mention her South Vietnamese "HQ" designation. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947-1982 Part II: The Warsaw Pact and Non-Aligned Nations, p. 369, agrees that the ship was the former Cook Inlet, but claims her designation in South Vietnamese service was HQ-02, a designation that Jane, p. 592, and NavSource.org (see http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/4334.htm) say was assigned to RVNS Tran Quang Khai, the former USS Bering Strait (AVP-34) and USCGC Bering Strait (WAVP-382/WHEC-382). Finally, the Inventory of VNN's Battle Ships Part 1 (see Part 1 at http://www.vnafmamn.com/VNNavy_inventory.html) claims that Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-06) was the former USS Wachapreague (AGP-8) and USCGC McCulloch (WAVP-386/WHEC-386), while the other sources all agree that Wachapreague/McCulloch became Ngo Quyen in South Vietnamese service. Even here confusion arises, however, in that Jane's, p. 592, NavSource.org, and the Inventory of VNN's Battle Ships Part 2 (see Part 2 at http://www.vnafmamn.com/VNNavy_inventory2.html) all claim that HQ-06 was Tran Quoc Toan and HQ-17 was Ngo Quyen,  while Conway's, p. 369, claims that HQ-06 was Ngo Kuyen and HQ-17 was yet another ship, Tran Binh Trong, which Jane's, p. 592, NavSource.org (see http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/4324.htm and http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/4335.htm), and the Inventory of VNN's Battle Ships Part 1 (see Part 1 at http://www.vnafmamn.com/VNNavy_inventory.html) all say was designated HQ-05. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for the ship (see http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/c13/cook_inlet.htm) apparently was written before the ship was transferred to South Vietnam and has not been updated, and therefore makes no mention at all of her South Vietnamese service. was a South Vietnamese frigate of the Republic of Vietnam Navy in commission from 1971 to 1975. She and her six sister ships were the largest South Vietnamese naval ships of their time.

Construction and United States Navy service 1944-1946
Tran Quoc Toan was built in the United States 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 and on occupation duty in Japan and Korea postwar. She was decommissioned in March 1946 and placed in reserve.

United States Coast Guard service 1949-1971
The U.S. Navy loaned Cook Inlet to the United States Coast Guard in 1948 and transferred her permanently to the Coast Guard in 1966. She was commissioned as the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Cook Inlet (WAVP-384) in 1949 and was redesignated a high endurance cutter and reclassified as WHEC-384 in 1966. Throughout her Coast Guard career of almost 23 years, she patrolled ocean stations in the North Atlantic, reporting weather data and conducting law-enforcement and search-and-rescue operations. She also served in the Vietnam War for several months in 1971.

Acquisition and operations
After her antisubmarine warfare equipment had been removed, Cook Inlet was transferred to South Vietnam on 21 December 1971 and was commissioned into the Republic of Vietnam Navy as the frigate RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-03) By mid-1972, six other former Casco-class cutters also were in South Vietnamese service. They were the largest warships in the South Vietnamese inventory, and their 5-inch (127-millimeter) guns were South Vietnam's largest naval guns. Tran Quoc Toan and her sisters fought alongside U.S. Navy ships during the final years of the Vietnam War, patrolling the South Vietnamese coast and providing gunfire support to South Vietnamese forces ashore.

When South Vietnam collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War in late April 1975, Tran Quoc Toan became a ship without a country. She fled to Subic Bay in the Philippines, packed with South Vietnamese refugees. On 22 May 1975 and 23 May 1975, a U.S. Coast Guard team inspected Tran Quoc Toan and five of her sister ships, which also had 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
The United States formally transferred Tran Quoc Toan to the Republic of the Philippines on 5 April 1976. She did not enter Philippine Navy service; instead she and her sister ship RVNS Tran Nhat Duat (HQ-03) were cannibalized for spare parts to allow the Philippines to keep four other sister ships in commission in the Philippine Navy.

The former Tran Quoc Toan was discarded in 1982 and probably scrapped.