The Mishawaka that went to sea

1963–2010 · YTB-764, A HARBOR TUG

The ship: For thirty-nine years the United States Navy had a Mishawaka, and she never came within a thousand miles of the river she was named for. The Mishawaka (YTB-764) was a Natick-class large harbor tug — 109 feet, 356 tons full load, a crew of twelve — laid down on 1 February 1962 at Slidell, Louisiana, by the Southern Shipbuilding Corporation, launched 3 January 1963, and placed in service that April in the 11th Naval District at San Diego. Harbor tugs are the Navy's unnamed workhorses, and her documented career is the class's career, with one photographed distinction: on 15 August 1983, in Puget Sound — she had been reassigned to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton — Mishawaka was one of four Natick-class tugs, with Manhattan, Arcata and Ottumwa, that assisted the ballistic-missile submarine USS Ohio out of dry dock at Naval Submarine Base Bangor, the river city's name on a hull helping the fleet's largest submarine class to sea. She was struck from the Naval Register on 28 October 2002 and sold by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service for commercial service, renamed Alois. The coda is the strangest part of the file, and it is documented in the same service record: Alois arrived at Harlingen, in the Netherlands, on 25 August 2008 with a ship on tow, was seized there by court order, and was auctioned off by the international transport workers' federation for 400,000 euros; in 2010 she was towed from Rotterdam back across the Atlantic to Port Arthur, Texas, where the record leaves her berthed, awaiting sale by the bank. The city's name went to sea in 1963 on a tug built in Louisiana; it ended, on the record reached, seized in a Dutch harbor and sold for a crew's unpaid claims.

Sources: NavSource Online, Service Ship Photo Archive — Mishawaka (YTB-764), compiling the Naval Vessel Register and service record: laid down 1 February 1962, Southern Shipbuilding Corp., Slidell; launched 3 January 1963; delivered 19 April 1963; service at San Diego, then Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton; the Ohio (SSBN-726) dry-dock assist of 15 August 1983 (U.S. Navy photo, PH1 Steve Smith); struck 28 October 2002; sold and renamed Alois; the Harlingen arrival of 25 August 2008, seizure and ITF auction at 400,000 euros; towed to Port Arthur, Texas, 2010. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for the tug stands at the Naval History and Heritage Command, noted by NavSource, and is the settling source for the naming record not read first-hand.