The second USS Absecon (AVP-23) was a United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender in commission from 1943 to 1947, converted during construction to serve as a catapult training ship during World War II.

She commissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bermerton, Washington, on 28 January 1943 and completed her fitting out period on 14 February 1943 Absecon was assigned the duty of providing aviator training for catapulting and sled net recovery of floatplanes while underway.

From March to September 1943, Absecon operated out of the Naval Section Base at Mayport, Florida, coordinating observation-plane pilot training and serving as a target for practice torpedo runs.

One event highlighted her service during this period: On 13 November 1943, while serving as a target ship for torpedo bombers, Absecon observed a small freighter, SS Franklin Baker, flying distress signals.

The United States Coast Guard assisted in the effort to sink Franklin Baker, eventually succeeding by setting demolition charges on board her.

Absecon was based at Port Everglades until mid-July 1945, when she shifted to Pensacola, Florida, for duty involving training and logistical support of the observation aircraft operations there.

Barnegat-class ships were very reliable and seaworthy and had good habitability, and the United States 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.

During the 1950s, Absecon frequently visited Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, and Bermuda between stints on patrol on the high seas in the North and central Atlantic Ocean and periods of regular upkeep at Norfolk.

On 5 March 1955, Absecon provided medical assistance to a cadet aboard the Swedish training schooner HMS Falken en route to Bermuda.

On 21 September 1957, Absecon, on her ocean station in the central Atlantic, picked up a distress call from the West German four-masted steel-hulled bark Pamir.

The square rigger, homeward bound from Buenos Aires, Argentina,[2] with a cargo of barley and with 86 men[3] (52 teen-aged cadets among them) on board, had run into Hurricane Carrie and been battered severely by the vicious storm, ultimately sinking.

In 1958, Absecon made a cruise to Europe, visiting Hamburg, West Germany; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Dublin, Ireland; and Lisbon, Portugal, before returning, via Bermuda, to the United States East Coast.

On 13 September 1963, Absecon rescued the third engineer of the West German merchant ship Freiberg midway between Bermuda and the Azores after he had fallen overboard and remained in the water for 17 hours.

Early in 1972, Absecon was called to conduct a search and rescue action while on Ocean Station Bravo when a U.S. Navy pilot went down while on a training mission off the Virginia coast.

They were originally scheduled to sail to Subic Bay in the Philippine Islands, but were diverted to the U.S. Navy base at Apra Harbor, Guam.

[8] On 10 January 1979, Pham Ngu Lao joined the Vietnam People′s Navy patrol boats HQ-03, T-197, T-199, T-203 and T-205 in an action off Ream, Cambodia, that resulted in the sinking of two Cambodian warships.

[9] Pham Ngu Lao's status in the secretive Vietnam People's Navy is murky, but she was thought to be in active service into the 1990s and perhaps as recently as 2000.