USS Wateree (ATA-174), the third ship named , was a in the service of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. She later served with the Military Sea Transportation Service and the Peruvian Navy

Peruvian Navy

The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...

.

Construction and commissioning

The ship was laid down on 5 October 1943 at Orange, Texas

Orange, Texas

Orange is a city in Orange County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 18,643. It is the county seat of Orange County, and is the easternmost city in Texas. Located on the Sabine River at the border with Louisiana, it is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur...

 by the Levingston Shipbuilding Co. as the unnamed rescue tug ATR-101. She was launched on 18 November 1943, redesignated as auxiliary ocean tug ATA-174, and commissioned on 20 July 1944, Lt. A. J. Vetro in command.

World War II service

ATA-174 departed Orange on 4 August and arrived in Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

 on the 11th. Over the next 10 days, she conducted shakedown training in the Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...

 and then underwent an eight-day, post-shakedown repair period before heading for New York on 2 September. The tug remained at Staten Island

Staten Island

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

 for five days and then took departure for the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

 with three open lighters in tow. She made an unscheduled three-day stop in mid-September to evade a hurricane but finally arrived in Cristóbal

Cristóbal, Colón

Cristóbal is a port in the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. It is located on the western edge of Manzanillo Island and is part of the Panamanian city and province of Colón...

 on 26 September. On the 27th, she transited the canal and reported to the Pacific Fleet for duty. The tug departed Balboa

Balboa, Panama

Balboa is a district of Panama City, located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.- History :The town of Balboa, founded by the United States during the construction of the Panama Canal, was named after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the Spanish conquistador credited with discovering the Pacific Ocean...

 on 10 October towing YC-1131 and YC-1137 to San Diego, arriving on 26 October after a voyage complicated by a steering control failure. Following repairs at San Diego, the ship moved north to San Pedro, California making the voyage on 10 and 11 November. She remained there until 19 November when she took the three open lighters in tow and set a course for Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...

. The tug arrived in Pearl Harbor on 3 December, remained there for 10 days, and then got underway for the Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...

 on 13 December. After a 16-day voyage plagued by mishaps in her main propulsion plant, the tug arrived at Eniwetok Atoll on 29 December. Between 1 and 3 January 1945, she towed YSR-4 from Eniwetok to Kwajalein

Kwajalein

Kwajalein Atoll , is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands . The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island. English-speaking residents of the U.S...

 and, after a six-day stopover, continued on to Manus Island

Manus Island

Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest island of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth largest island in Papua New Guinea with an area of 2,100 km², measuring around 100 km × 30 km. According to the 2000 census, Manus Island had a...

 where she arrived on 18 January.

On 22 January 1945, she stood out to sea from Manus and set a course for Nouméa

Nouméa

Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...

, New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

. En route, however, she received orders diverting her to Guadalcanal

Guadalcanal

Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...

. The tug arrived at her new destination on 26 January. She served in the southern Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

 for almost two months. Early in February, she conducted diving operations on the sunken wreck of during the investigation of her explosion and sinking. In mid-February, she salvaged six bulldozers from 110 feet of water off Lunga Point. Later, she pulled two grounded submarine chasers off reefs in Skylark Channel. She concluded her duty at Guadalcanal on 22 March when she took ARD-18 in tow for Hollandia, New Guinea. She stopped at Hollandia from 30 March to 2 April and then continued towing ARD-18 to Ulithi

Ulithi

Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the largest in the world. It is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of...

 where she arrived on 7 April. After an overnight stop, the tug departed on the 8th and set a course for Manus. She reached Manus on 12 April but departed again the next day. The ship made Guadalcanal on the 17th and remained two days. From there, she voyaged via Espiritu Santo

Espiritu Santo

Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of . It belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region of Melanesia. It is in the Sanma Province of Vanuatu....

 to Tutuila

Tutuila

Tutuila is the largest and the main island of American Samoa in the archipelago of Samoan Islands. It is the third largest island in the Samoan Islands chain of the Central Pacific located roughly northeast of Brisbane, Australia and over northeast of Fiji. It contains a large, natural harbor,...

, Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

, arriving at the latter island on 27 April.

She made emergency repairs until 1 May on which day she shaped a course for the Russell Island

Russell Island

Russell Island may refer to:* Russell Island , in Queensland, Australia* Russell Island , in Queensland, Australia* Russell Island , United States* Russell Island , Canada...

 subgroup of the Solomons with AFD-20 in tow. In the Russells, she added a pontoon barge to the tow and continued on to Manus where she arrived on 20 May. On the 24th, ATA-174 resumed her voyage, this time to Leyte

Leyte

Leyte is a province of the Philippines located in the Eastern Visayas region. Its capital is Tacloban City and occupies the northern three-quarters of the Leyte Island. Leyte is located west of Samar Island, north of Southern Leyte and south of Biliran...

 in the Philippines where she arrived on 2 June. The tug remained at Leyte for 15 days and then got underway for Guadalcanal on the 17th. She reached her destination on 27 June but departed again the next day towing via Tulagi to Leyte. After a stop in the Russell Islands and another at Manus, she and her charge arrived in San Pedro Bay on 19 July. On the 23rd, the tug left Leyte and set sail for Espiritu Santo where, after a diversion back to the Russell Islands, she arrived on 10 August. The tug remained at Espiritu Santo until 14 August when she set sail to return to Leyte with YC-812 and YF-366 in tow. She arrived in Leyte on 29 August, delivered her charges, and remained there for a little over a week. On 8 September, the tug headed back to the Solomons by way of Manus. She arrived at Guadalcanal on the 19th and began duty as an air-sea rescue vessel, also towing diesel fuel barges between Tulagi and the Russells. That assignment lasted a little more than a month. On 26 October, she took a former LST in tow for Leyte and arrived there on 8 November. She departed Leyte 11 days later and, after stops at Eniwetok and Pearl Harbor, arrived in San Francisco on 1 January 1946.

For the next month, the tug operated along the west coast, visiting San Diego, Astoria, Oregon

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is the county seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Situated near the mouth of the Columbia River, the city was named after the American investor John Jacob Astor. His American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site in 1811...

, Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, and Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. On 18 February 1946, she reported for duty at the naval station at Astoria.

Decommissioning, MSTS service, and disposal

After almost 9 months of active service with the Columbia River Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet, she was placed out of commission on 16 January 1947. Berthed with the Columbia River Group, she remained inactive at Astoria until the summer of 1953. During that period, she received the name Wateree on 16 July 1948. On 2 June 1953, she departed Astoria to be transferred to the Commandant, 13th Naval District, who in turn transferred her to the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) for duty in Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

n waters. She was placed in service on 13 August 1953 and served with the MSTS in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest until the spring of 1955. On 14 March 1955, Wateree rejoined the Columbia River Group. She remained inactive until 27 July 1961 at which time she was sold to Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and renamed BAP Unanue (AMB-136).. She was disposed of by the Peruvian Navy

Peruvian Navy

The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...

in 1977-78.

External links

• Photo gallery at navsource.org