The USS Inflect sailed from Long Beach, California on 7 February 1966 with six officers and sixty-five men. During the cruise sixteen men were transferred and twelve joined our group. We were gone 310 days of which 231 were spent at sea, or about 74 percent of the total time gone. We steamed 43,754 miles or the equivalent of one and three fourths times around the world. It took 351,306 gallons of fuel and seventy two 'ship-to-ship' underway transfers of fuel, bacon and beans to stay on the move. The Inflect made four war patrols in Vietnam waters for a total of 165 days. We boarded and thoroughly searched 451 cargo junks, trawlers and steel hull ships, and inspected 1,317 less thoroughly. Most of the time we were one to three miles at sea, but many times we chased evading small craft to with in a few hundred yards of shore. Some days we fired our guns in anger, but our mission was to deny the enemy the use of the sea and not engage in land operations, and we accomplished our mission. In our 3500 square mile assignment we were "King of the Hill", and water borne cargo moved ot our pleasure'. While on patrol personnel found time to study for advancement and of thirty-five personnel that participated in a Navy wide examinations thirty-three were advanced.

Foot note: Much of the same statistics we also accomplished during our 1967/68 cruise.