Seems to me a while back someone challenged this story. Here is the report from the May 1966 US Naval Forces, Vietnam summary:

In a significant CTF 115 action, PCF 61 while on a routine night patrol sighted a fifty foot junk near Song Cau, 20 miles south of Qui Nhon. When PCF 61 approached for a routine inspection, she found that the junk was overloaded with 157 passengers and that it was swamping due to the overload, heavy seas and high winds. Because of the conditions it was felt that any attempt to tow the boat would be futile, and the PCF went alongside to take aboard the passengers. Although a slightly larger load than the normal crew of six, 157 persons left the sinking junk and boarded the PCF. All were taken off safely, and the junk soon went down.

PCF 61 then proceeded to USS Vance (DER-387), also patrolling in the same area. All the refugees were transferred to Vance, who proceeded to Qui Nhon to turn them over to Vietnamese authorities for transportation to their destinations. It was later learned that all 157 refugees were enroute to Tuy Hoa and Nha Trang, fleeing their home in Song Cau, Phu Yen district to escape the Viet Cong in that area.

Hi Stew,
It certainly happened as stated. I was on the Vance at the time and we had people everywhere until we got to Qui Nhon. We gave them food, water, and blankets and our corpsman looked them over.

John

God help us when Andy Miller reads this. He was on the 61 boat and our old friend, Mr. Wells from the Coast Guard disputed this claim and it led to a uproar.

You should post this on Myfamily.com to get Andy's reaction.

The original message from Bill Wells stated that he couldn't find this incident in any official Navy records and he encouraged Andy to have it put on record. He really didn't question whether the incident happened or not but that point got lost in all the hot tempers and name-calling. It was blown completely out of proportion.

I still think this would make a great article for the Swift Current. Give the facts and dates to Dave Wallace and he will take care of the rest.

If we don't write down our history then some college weenie who never served a day in the military will do it. And it won't be correct.