[11][12] After the U.S. Army helicopter crew called in air strikes on the trawler, it was sunk and captured after a five-day action conducted by elements of the Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVNN).

Additional weapons qualifications and live fire exercises were held at Coast Guard Island and Camp Parks, California, along with refresher training in radar navigation, radio procedures and visual signaling.

[30] The staff and repair personnel arrived at Subic Bay 14 December 1965 while the division's boat crews received weapons and undertook survival training in California.

Division 12 shipped a complete kit of repair parts from Da Nang overnight by way of a U.S. Marine Corps C-130 flight to Cubi Point Naval Air Station.

[36] The morning after their arrival five of the division's eight cutters prepared to get underway for their first patrol accompanied by the Navy destroyer USS Savage, which coordinated the Market Time assets in the Da Nang area.

[49] Soon after patrol operations started in Division 12's area of responsibility (AOR), USCGC Point Orient encountered machine gun and mortar fire from the shore south of the Cửa Việt River while attempting to board a junk in the early morning hours of 24 July 1965.

[50][51] 19 September was a busy day for Division 11 in the Gulf of Thailand with USCGC Point Glover encountering a junk that fired on her and when unable to escape tried to ram the cutter.

[57] While patrolling off the coast of the Ca Mau Peninsula in the late evening hours of 9 May 1966 USCGC Point Grey reported sighting two large bonfires on the shore near the mouth of the Rach Gia River.

Salvage operations began the next morning and included the recovery of six crew served weapons and 15 short tons (14,000 kg) of ammunition of Chinese manufacture.

[61][62] While on patrol near the mouth of the Co Chien River in the early hours of 20 June, the skipper of Point League noted a large radar contact which, upon further investigation, was found to be running without navigation lights.

[63] The trawler returned with heavy machine gun fire hitting the cutter's bridge and wounding the executive officer and a crewman manning the mortar on the forecastle.

[64] The crews of the two cutters were joined by Point Hudson and dock landing ship USS Tortuga and several RVNN junks in fighting the fire and beginning salvage operations.

During the first pass all of the crew on the bridge were wounded and the commanding officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade David Brostrom, was killed along with the helmsman, Engineman Second Class Jerry Phillips.

[70][71] In the late evening hours of 1 January 1967 USCGC Point Gammon along with two U.S. Navy vessels, PCF-68 and PCF-71, intercepted a trawler attempting to land supplies on the Cau Mau Peninsula.

[72] A more successful action was fought in the early morning hours of 14 March 1967 when a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft spotted a trawler near Cu-Lao Re, an island 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Da Nang.

[75] A similar conclusion was the result of the capture of a steel hull trawler 15 July 1967 after three days of tracking by patrol aircraft and the radar picket, USS Wilhoite.

[76] After playing a cat-and-mouse game for three days with TF115 units the trawler headed for the mouth of the Sa Ky River on the Batangan Peninsula late on 14 July.

[84] During an action on 1 March 1968, in the early morning several Squadron One cutters were involved in the interdiction and destruction of four North Vietnamese trawlers attempting to smuggle arms and ammunition into South Vietnam at different locations.

[9] While on patrol just south of the DMZ in the early morning hours of 16 June 1968 USCGC Point Dume reported seeing two rockets fired from an unidentified source hit U.S. Navy PCF-19, which sank very quickly with the loss of five crew.

[85] Shortly thereafter, Point Dume came under fire from an unidentified aircraft along with the heavy cruiser USS Boston and the Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Hobart.

[86] Evidence during a board of inquiry later showed that it was a friendly fire incident involving U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft mistaking the ships for enemy targets.

[91][92] In February 1969, Squadron One personnel began training RVNN engineers in the maintenance and repair of the Point class cutters that would eventually be turned over to the South Vietnamese under the Vietnamization program.

[97] The need for Squadron One cutters had been supplanted by the shallower draft PCFs and Patrol Boat, River (PBRs) that were being concentrated in the Mekong Delta region for use in Operation Sealords.

With better foul weather stationkeeping abilities than the U.S. Navy craft, the Point-class cutters of the Squadron were shifted for use during the northeast monsoon season in the northern half of the country.

[99][104][105] The first assets turned over to the Vietnamese under ACTOV occurred on 1 February 1969 when 25 mostly smaller U.S. Navy vessels were transferred to the RVNN to be used in supporting Operation Sealords in the Mekong Delta.

Neisz cited cultural imperatives that required seniors to be more knowledgeable than subordinates and that it would be very difficult for officers to accept instruction from junior personnel without losing face.

As experience was gained by the Vietnamese crew members, new junior personnel reported in pairs replacing Coast Guardsmen that were then assigned ashore to assist with the VECTOR phase of training.

English–Vietnamese dictionaries were used extensively and Vietnamese sailors who spoke even broken English were often pressed into service to help translate the training syllabus for each job on the cutter.

[116][117] U.S. Coast Guard personnel stationed in Vietnam were encouraged by their commands to donate off duty time to assist in various civic action programs supporting the Vietnamese people.

[122] During the Christmas holidays, at local orphanages all squadron personnel distributed gifts of candy and toys as well as clothing, soap and toothpaste that had been donated by Coast Guard families in the United States and brought to Vietnam on the Commandant's airplane.