| Career (South Vietnam) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | RVNS Trần Bình Trọng (HQ-05) |
| Namesake: | Trần Bình Trọng (1259–1285), a Trần Dynasty general and prince famed for helping to repel Mongol invasions, and for choosing to be executed rather than defect. |
| Builder: | Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington |
| Laid down: | 12 July 1943 |
| Launched: | 11 March 1944 |
| Completed: | October 1944 |
| Acquired: | 21 December 1971 |
| Fate: | Fled to Philippines on collapse of South Vietnam April 1975 Formally transferred to Republic of the Philippines 5 April 1976 |
| Notes: | Served as U.S. Navy seaplane tender USS Castle Rock (AVP-35) 1944-1946 Served as U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Castle Rock (WAVP-383), later WHEC-383, 1948-1971 Served in Philippine Navy as patrol vessel BRP Francisco Dagohoy (PF-10) 1976-1985 Discarded March 1993 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Tran Quang Khai-class frigate |
| Displacement: | 1,766 tons (standard) 2,800 tons (full load) |
| Length: | 310 ft 9 in (94.72 m) (overall); 300 ft 0 in (91.44 m) waterline |
| Beam: | 41 ft 1 in (12.52 m) |
| Draft: | 13 ft 5 in (4.09 m) |
| Installed power: | 6,080 horsepower (4.54 megawatts) |
| Propulsion: | 2 x Fairbanks Morse 38D diesel engines |
| Speed: | approximately 18 knots (maximum) |
| Complement: | approximately 200 |
| Armament: | 1 × 5-inch/38-caliber (127-millimeter) dual-purpose gun 1 or 2 x 81-millimeter mortars in some ships[1] Several machine guns |
RVNS Trần Bình Trọng[2] (HQ-05)[3] was a South Vietnamese frigate of the Republic of Vietnam Navy in commission from 1971 to 1975. She and her six sister ships were the largest South Vietnamese naval ships of their time.
Contents |
Trần Bình Trọng was built in the United States by Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton, Washington, as the United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Castle Rock (AVP-35). Commissioned in October 1944, Castle Rock served in the Central Pacific during and after World War II. She was decommissioned in August 1946 and placed in reserve.
In 1948, the U.S. Navy loaned Castle Rock to the United States Coast Guard, which commissioned her that year as the cutter USCGC Castle Rock (WAVP-383). She was later reclassified as a high endurance cutter and redesignated WHEC-383. While in Coast Guard service, her primary duty was to patrol ocean stations, reporting weather data and engaging in search-and-rescue and law-enforcement operations. She also performed combat duty in the Vietnam War for a few months in 1971.
After her antisubmarine warfare equipment had been removed, Castle Rock was transferred to South Vietnam on 21 December 1971 and was commissioned into the Republic of Vietnam Navy as the frigate RVNS Trần Bình Trọng (HQ-05)[4] By mid-1972, six other former Casco-class cutters also were in South Vietnamese service. They were the largest warships in the South Vietnamese inventory, and their 5-inch (127-millimeter) guns were South Vietnam's largest naval guns. Tran Quang Khai and her sisters fought alongside U.S. Navy ships during the final years of the Vietnam War, patrolling the South Vietnamese coast and providing gunfire support to South Vietnamese forces ashore.
Possession of the Paracel Islands had long been disputed between South Vietnam and the People's Republic of China. With South Vietnamese forces stationed on the islands drawing down because they were needed on the Vietnamese mainland in the war with North Vietnam, China took advantage of the situation to send forces to seize the islands.
On 16 January 1974, the South Vietnamese frigate RVNS Ly Thuong Kiet (HQ-16) spotted Chinese forces ashore on the islands. Both Ly Thuong Kiet and the Chinese ordered one another to withdraw, and neither side did. Reinforcements arrived for both sides over the next three days, including Trần Bình Trọng, which appeared on the scene on 18 January 1974 with the commander of the Republic of Vietnam Navy, Captain Hà Văn Ngạc, aboard.
By the morning of 19 January 1974, the Chinese had four corvettes and two submarine chasers at the Paracels, while the South Vietnamese had Trần Bình Trọng, Ly Thuong Kiet, frigate RVNS Trần Khánh Dư (HQ-4), and corvette RVNS Nhật Tảo (HQ-10) on the scene. Trần Bình Trọng landed South Vietnamese troops on Duncan Island (or Quang Hoa in Vietnamese), and they were driven off by Chinese gunfire. The South Vietnamese ships opened fire on the Chinese ships at 10:24 hours, and the 40-minute Battle of the Paracel Islands ensued. Not equipped or trained for open-ocean combat and outgunned, the South Vietnamese ships were forced to withdraw. Nhật Tảo was sunk, and the other three South Vietnamese ships all suffered damage; Chinese losses were more difficult to ascertain, but certainly most or all of them suffered damage and one or two may have sunk.
The Chinese seized the islands the next day, and they have remained under Chinese control ever since.
When South Vietnam collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War in late April 1975, Trần Bình Trọng became a ship without a country. She fled to Subic Bay in the Philippines, packed with South Vietnamese refugees. On 22 May 1975 and 23 May 1975, a U.S. Coast Guard team inspected Trần Bình Trọng and five of her sister ships, which also had fled to the Philippines in April 1975. One of the inspectors noted: "These vessels brought in several hundred refugees and are generally rat-infested. They are in a filthy, deplorable condition. Below decks generally would compare with a garbage scow."[5]
After Trần Bình Trọng had been cleaned and repaired, the United States formally transferred her to the Republic of the Philippines on 5 April 1976.
The ship was commissioned into the Philippine Navy as frigate BRP Francisco Dagohoy (PF-10)[6] on 23 June 1979. She was decommissioned in June 1985,[7] and was discarded in March 1993, probably scrapped.[8]
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