USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716) was a United States Coast Guard high endurance cutter commissioned in 1967 at the Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was the sixth ship or boat to bear the name of Alexander J. Dallas, the Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison (1814–1816). She is one of twelve s built for the Coast Guard. Dallas served in the Atlantic Ocean, venturing as far away as the Black Sea and Africa on occasion. Dallas was at first home ported at the former Coast Guard base on Governors Island, New York. She was relocated to her final homeport of Charleston, South Carolina in September 1996. She was decommissioned on 30 March 2012, and was transferred to the Philippines on May 22, 2012 as an excess defense article through the Foreign Assistance Act. Service history 1960s and 1970s In her earlier years, Dallas collected meteorological and oceanographic data while on ocean station as part of the Gate Project, and she assisted commercial aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean. During seven combat patrols off the coast of Vietnam, Dallas undertook 161 gunfire support missions involving 7,665 rounds of her 5-inch ammunition. This resulted in 58 sampans destroyed and 29 Viet Cong supply routes, bases, camps, or rest areas damaged or destroyed. Her guns made her very valuable to the naval missions in the area. During the United States Bicentennial in 1976, Dallas became the first US vessel to serve as escort of . Dallas served as a patrol vessel for the 1977 America's Cup Regatta out of Newport, Rhode Island. In September 1978, Dallas joined the search on Georges Bank for Captain Cosmo, a fishing vessel out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Dallas encountered seas during that search as high as the bridge wings, the decks of which are 38 feet from the waterline. Dallas also came upon the Queen Elizabeth 2 on that patrol, which reported taking a rogue wave over the bow that cracked windows on the bridge. The Captain Cosmo was lost with all hands in high seas. In April 1979, as Dallas was wrapping up a patrol and heading into Bermuda for a weekend of R&R, she received orders to sail south to the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. Its volcano, La Soufrière, was threatening to erupt and Dallas might be called upon to evacuate islanders. After several days of patrolling nearby, the volcano did send a large