High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USCG Owasco (WHEC-39) was an Owasco class high endurance cutter which served with the US Coast Guard from 1945 to 1973. Originally intended for World War II service, she was commissioned only weeks before the end of the war and consequently did not see combat until her deployment in the Vietnam War more than 20 years later. Owasco, the lead ship in her class, was launched by the Western Pipe and Steel Company at San Pedro, California on 18 June 1944 and commissioned on 18 May 1945, barely two months before the end of World War II. Initially fitted out as a gunboat, the vessel was converted to peace time status at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland through the removal of much of her armament and installation of observation facilities and aerological equipment, a conversion completed in May 1946. Around this time her homeport was changed from Galveston, Texas to Boston. Owasco was named for Owasco Lake, New York.