on 1 May 1966. On 13 November 1969, Absecon evacuated a crewman of the merchant ship Morgenstern in need of medical assistance while Morgenstern was in the mid-Atlantic. In late 1971, while battling seas over 30 feet (9.1 meters) in height on Ocean Station Charlie in the North Atlantic, Absecon narrowly escaped capsizing when she was hammered by a rogue wave estimated at 50 feet (15 meters) in height that rolled her 32.5 degrees, only one-half-degree short of her rollover point. Early in 1972, Absecon was called to conduct a search and rescue action while on Ocean Station Bravo when a U.S. Navy pilot went down while on a training mission off the Virginia coast. She recovered only a life jacket from the ocean, and the pilot and the wreckage of his plane were never found. Decommissioning and transfer to South Vietnam In April 1972, Absecon and two of her sister ships, the Coast Guard cutters and , were deployed as Coast Guard Squadron Two, with crews composed mainly of members of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. They were originally scheduled to sail to Subic Bay in the Philippine Islands, but were diverted to the U.S. Navy base at Apra Harbor, Guam. The Coast Guard decommissioned the three cutters and transferred them to the U.S. Navy, these events both occurring for Absecon on 9 May 1972. After her antisubmarine warfare equipment had been removed, she was transferred to South Vietnam on 15 June 1972. Republic of Vietnam Navy service South Vietnam commissioned the former Absecon into the Republic of Vietnam Navy as the frigate RVNS Pham Ngu Lao (HQ-15) She was the last of seven former Casco-class cutters transferred to South Vietnam in 1971 and 1972. Known in South Vietnam as the Tran Quang Khai-class frigates, they were the largest warships in the South Vietnamese inventory, and their 5-inch (127-millimeter) guns were South Vietnam's largest naval guns. Pham Ngu Lao 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. South Vietnam collapsed in late April 1975, bringing the Vietnam War to an end. Although all six of her sister ships fled to the Philippines, Pham Ngu Lao remained behind and was captured by North Vietnam in May 1975. Vietnam Peoples Navy service Pham Ngu Lao was commissioned into