The Strangest Combat Tug in Seattle
The Sotoyomo-class fleet tug moored at 6716 East Side Dr NE #1-526, with a view of Seattle’s Space Needle, has had an identity conflict over the years.
Built at Gulfport Boiler and Welding Works, Port Arthur, Texas in the last four months of 1944, this 143-foot “war baby” commissioned and served in WWII (earning a battle star in the Pacific for support in the Okinawa campaign) as USS ATA-202, then picked up the name USS Wampanoag on 16 July 1948.
Then, loaned to the Coast Guard as USCGC Comanche (WATA-202) in 1959, she was struck from the Navy List a decade later and began her second life as a full-fledged white-hulled medium endurance cutter (WMEC-202) off the California coast until she was laid up in 1980, capping 36 years service.
Following a third career as a commercial tug in the PacNorthWest, she has been used as a running (she still gets underway from time to time) museum ship by a series of foundations since 2007 and has been in Seattle since 2021.
Saluting her blue-side WWII service, and then her years as a proud USCG cutter, she wears a split livery.
Thank you for the article. I don’t get on here and say it enough but I enjoy getting the emails and going through the things you write.
Small point of clarification, the Comanche isn’t moored in Seattle. The facebook page shows a picture of it in Seattle with Queen Anne hill in the background but it is moored in Tacoma, which is a good 30 miles away. You definitely can’t see the Space Needle from there. My guess is they brought Comanche up for Seafair at some point and took the picture.