History
After delivery in 1962, Point Welcome was assigned a homeport of Everett, Washington, where she served as a law enforcement and search and rescue patrol boat.
At the request of the United States Navy, in April 1965, she was alerted for service in South Vietnam and assigned to Coast Guard Squadron One in support of Operation Market Time, along with 16 other Point class cutters. While the crew completed overseas training and weapons qualifications at Coast Guard Island and Camp Parks, California, Point Welcome was loaded onto a merchant ship, and transported to Subic Bay, Philippines in May 1965. She was refit for combat service. Shipyard modifications included installation of new single-sideband radio equipment, additional floodlights, small arms lockers, additional sound-powered phone circuits, and the addition of four M-2 machine guns. The original bow-mounted machine gun was replaced with a combination over-under 50 caliber machine gun/81mm trigger-fired mortar that had been developed by the Coast Guard for service in South Vietnam. For service in Vietnam, two commissioned officers were added to the crew to add seniority in the mission of interdicting vessels at sea.
Point Welcome was assigned to Division 12 of Squadron One to be based at Danang, along with Point Arden, Point Caution, Point Dume, Point Ellis, Point Gammon, and Point Orient. After sea trials, the Division left Subic Bay for Danang on 16 July 1965 in the company of USN Snohomish County, their temporary support ship. After almost two weeks at sea, they arrived at their new duty station on 20 July and began patrolling the coastal waters near Danang. Duty consisted of boarding Vietnamese junks to search for contraband weapons and ammunition and checking the identification papers of persons on board. Permanent engineering and logistic support of Division 12 was provided by a U.S. Navy non-self-propelled floating workshop, YR-71. During this time, the WPB's were directed to paint the hulls and superstructures formula 20 deck gray to cover the Coast Guard's stateside white paint. This increased the effectiveness of night patrols.
Read more about this topic: USCGC Point Welcome (WPB-82329)
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