Coast Guard Cutters Go In

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 15

Coast Guard Cutters Go In

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 30.

The United States is sending 17 Coast Guard cutters to assist the South Vietnamese Navy in efforts to haft Communist infiltration by sea into South Vietnam, the Defence Department announced last night.

The 82ft cutters, normally armed with 20mm guns, will be manned by Coast Guard crews but will operate under control of the United States Seventh Fleet. About 200 Coast Guardsmen

will man the cutters, which will be shipped in Navy vessels to South Vietnam. The announcement said “participation of the Coast Guard, a branch of the armed forces which functions under the Treasury Department, is part of the enlarged United States support of the Republic of Vietnam in interdicting the flow of men, weapons and material by the sea into the camp of the Viet Cong Communist guerrillas. ‘The sinking last February of a North Vietnamese vessel revealed more than 80 tons of munitions, including more than 4000 weapons, emphasised the danger of these Communist efforts to infiltrate by sea.”

The announcement followed by one day a Saigon Govern-

ment disclosure, that patrols will be expanded to the 12mile limit and that the right of “hot pursuit” will be invoked in chasing enemy ships into international waters. The 17 Coast Guard vessels assigned to the patrol have

speeds from 17 to '23 knots (19 to 26 miles an hour), depending on the engines in particular boats. They have a displacement of 65 tons and are steel-hulled. The boats carry radar equipment.