to implement in-port training. Following upkeep and repair periods at the Charleston Naval Shipyard during April and May 1968, Wrangell prepared for her upcoming WestPac deployment. On 4 September 1968, the ship got underway; transited the Panama Canal; spent five days at Pearl Harbor; and, after evading Typhoon Paye off Wake Island, arrived at Subic Bay on 16 October. She soon departed Subic Bay for the coast of North Vietnam and employment on the Yankee Station. Wrangell finished out the year with three operating-periods off the coast of Vietnam and in the Tonkin Gulf. The largest underway replenishments were conducted with ships such as the battleship and the carriers and . In addition, she armed many smaller units – destroyers, guided missile destroyers, and Coast Guard cutters. One of the latter, , sent her whaleboat across to Wrangell on 21 November while off the Mekong Delta in what Wrangell's command history termed "what may well be history's smallest rearming." Winnebago's request: five rounds of 5-inch ammunition! The rearming of the USCGC Winnebago was the determining activity which placed the USS Wrangell and its entire crew on the ship AT THAT TIME on the Veterans Administration list of ships whose crew was "presumed to be exposed to the effects of Agent Orange. That determination was published Veterans Day 2012. Only two days later, on 23 November, Wrangell and other American and South Vietnamese naval vessels took part in a search and rescue mission in the South China Sea. Despite the winds and heavy seas of Typhoon Mamie, the ship located the Indian vessel Laxmi Jayanti, helpless due to a steering casualty. Ultimately, after making temporary repairs, the Indian ship resumed her voyage, under escort, to Saigon. Wrangell, her part in the search completed, headed for Subic Bay. While en route back from Subic Bay to Yankee Station, the ship received the nod for another mercy mission. On 3 December, Wrangell reversed course on orders from Commander, Naval Forces, Philippines, and rendezvoused with the freighter SS American Pilot, sending over a corpsman in the ship's motor whaleboat to assist a sailor who had suffered an arm wound that was bleeding profusely. After her corpsman had stanched the bleeding and given sufficient help to enable the man to be safely transferred to a shore facility for further treatment, Wrangell continued on for Yankee Station. She subsequently spent Christmas in Hong Kong and later