USCG Winnebago (WHEC-40) was an Owasco-class high endurance cutter which served with the United States Coast Guard from 1945 to 1973.

[1][2] Winnebago was home ported in Miami, Florida, from 1945 to April 1946 and used for law enforcement, ocean station, and search and rescue operations.

While on ocean station duty, the cutter's crew took hourly weather observations, provided communications, air navigation and meteorological information to commercial and military aircraft and merchant ships.

In November 1963, while serving on Ocean Station Victor, Winnebago steamed to the assistance of the disabled MV Green Mountain State.

On 26 December 1964 the British MV Southbank was tossed by a 40-foot (12 m) wave onto a reef 400 yards (370 m) off Washington Island in the South Pacific.

Using lifeboats the shipwrecked crew and passengers escaped safely to the beach where the Washington Island natives cared for them until they were rescued by Winnebago.

Later in the same month, Winnebago rendezvoused with the Japanese MV Shoei Maru where the doctor amputated the foot of a 17-year-old seaman.

Winnebago was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three, South Vietnam, from 20 September 1968 to 19 July 1969 as part of Operation Market Time.

While serving in Vietnamese waters, Winnebago's gun crews destroyed or damaged 42 enemy bunkers, two observation towers, and a large base and several staging areas.