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USCGC Bering Strait WHEC-382

USCGC Bering Straight…

The USCGC Bering Strait WHEC-382 was originally commissioned as the Seaplane Tender Small USS Bering Strait AVP-34 in 1944. The USS Bering Strait was decommissioned in 1946 and later transferred from the United States Navy (along with several of her sister ships) to the United States Coast Guard in 1948. These former AVPs now became Casco Class Cutters, or WAVPs, and later designated as High Endurance Cutters, or WHECs. They were also referred to as 311' Cutters.

The USCGC Bering Strait conducted many tours on "Ocean Station" patrols where she conducted meteorological, oceanographic, and navigation aid missions during the 1950' and 1960's. During the Vietnam War the Bering Strait was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron 3 and served in Operation Market Time patrolling the coasts off of North and South Vietnam.

On January 1, 1971, the Bering Strait was transferred to the navy of the Republic of Vietnam (RVNS) and was designated HQ-2 Tran Quang Khai. For almost a year before this, the Bering Strait's crew trained and operated with RVNS crew members in preparation for the turn over ceremony. It was also during this time that the Bering Strait was painted with a gray paint scheme, shedding the always, recognizable Coast Guard white and spar yellow paint scheme.

Upon the defeat of the South Vietnamese forces in 1975 the Tran Quang Khai fled to the Philippines where she was later sold by the US Navy to the Philippine Navy and was designated PF-9 Diego Silang.

My model of the USCGC Bering Strait originates as the Iron Shipwrights' 1/350 resin kit of the USS Mackinac AVP-13, the forth ship of the Barnegat Class small seaplane tenders. As many of you may know, my fondness for this obscure class of little, auxiliary ships stems from the fact that my father served on one of them, the USS Duxbury Bay AVP-38, in 1952 and 1953. My eternal gratitude goes out to Ted and Jon of Iron Shipwrights for even having the inclination to create a model of one of these unique ships.

Besides the original kit, Iron Shipwrights provided me with some USCGC Hamilton decal sheets, 81mm mortar launchers, and special boat davits, which I modified, used mostly by old and new Coast Guard Cutters. The 5" Gun Turret is by Corsair Armada. The whale boats are from L'Arsenal as are most of the railings. The gun director, search lights, and signal flag bags are from Yankee Modelworks, The chocks and bitts come from the DRAGON USS Buchanan kit, as do the mushroom shaped deck vents located amidships. The bomb and boat winches are actually large 1/700 winches from Battlefleet Models as are the capstans. The ship's bell is from BMK. Deck hatches and pelorous' are from Paper Lab and the signaling lights are from Veteran Models.

A very, huge "Thank You!" goes out to Darren at Hawk Graphics for the custom made white hull letters and numbers! My vision of this gray paint scheme model would not have come true without Darren's assistance.

A lot of modifications and scratch building had to take place to convert this model to the Bering Strait. The entire foremast, tripod mast and surrounding superstructure and balloon hangar and deck, bridge sponsons and wind screen, fire control room atop the pilot house, large ventilation blowers and engine room intake and exhaust ventilation stack, and the side torpedo splinter shields were all made from scratch.

I would also like to express a special gratitude to several USCGC Bering Strait veterans and other USCG veterans who provided, to me, photos, information and sea stories during my model build.