USS Cook Inlet (AVP-36) was a United States Navy Barnegat-class small seaplane tender in commission from 1944 to 1946.

She was still on duty at Iwo Jima when hostilities with Japan ended on August 15, 1945, bringing World War II to a close.

She then returned to the United States, calling at Iwo Jima and Pearl Harbor before reaching San Francisco, California, on 22 January 1946.

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

On 8 April 1966, she assisted the burning Norwegian passenger-freighter Viking Princess, sending a fire and rescue party aboard Viking Princess to fight her fires; rushing from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a three-hour voyage, the U.S. Navy frigate USS Wilkinson (DL-5) also assisted Viking Princess, taking 13 survivors of the ship aboard from the Republic of China merchant ship Chungking Victory and transporting them to Guantanamo Bay.

In 1969, "Cook Inlet" transported Jacques Piccard and other scientific personnel to Portland after their research sub, the "Ben Franklin" surfaced after its month long, 1400 mile journey, drifting in the Gulf stream.

On 8 January 1968, Cook Inlet evacuated a crewman in medical distress from the Swedish merchant ship California.

The squadron's other Vietnam War duties included fire support for ground forces, resupplying Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats, and search-and-rescue operations.

[3] By mid-1972, six other former Casco-class cutters – known in the Republic of Vietnam Navy as the Trần Quang Khải-class frigates – also were in South Vietnamese service.

On 22 and 23 May 1975, a U.S. Coast Guard team inspected Trần Quốc Toản and five of her sister ships, which also had fled to the Philippines in April 1975.