USS Wompatuck (AT, 1898)

Quick Links Menu.

USS Wompatuck on 21 April 1899
Click on this photograph for links to larger images of this class.

Class:        WOMPATUCK
Design:        Tug, 1896
Displacement (tons):        324 gross, 462 displ.
Dimensions (feet):        130.0' oa, 117.5' pp x 25.5' x 12.0'
Original Armament:        2-6pdr 3-3pdr (1898)
Later armaments:        none (1899);
3-1pdr (1900), 2-1pdr (1918);
none (1920)
Complement:        38 (1919)
Speed (kts.):        13
Propulsion (HP):        650
Machinery:        Vert. triple expansion, 1 screw

Construction:

AT	Name	Builder	Keel	Launch	Commiss.
--	WOMPATUCK	4 Apr 98	Harlan & Hollingsworth	--	1896	6 Apr 98

Disposition:

AT	Name	Decomm.	Strike	Disposal	Fate	MA Sale
--	WOMPATUCK	31 Jul 31	21 Apr 44	1942	Lost	--

Class Notes:
The ocean-going steel tug ATLAS was built for the Standard Oil Co. by Harlan & Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Del., and delivered in October 1896. She was used to tow coal barges between New York, Savannah, and Portland, Me. The press reported on 29 Mar 98 that her purchase by the Government had been completed on the previous day and that she had been delivered to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was being fitted to join the fleet then being prepared for use as a picket force in an emergency. The sale date of record was 4 Apr 98. She was purchased from the Standard Oil Co. for $65,000 and was renamed WOMPATUCK (misspelled WAMPATUCK in some early Navy records).

WOMPATUCK saw active service off Cuba as an inshore combatant during the Spanish-American War, helping cut a cable, conducting coastal raids, and supporting troop landings. She was decommissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 15 Oct 98 and her relatively (for a tug) heavy armament was removed. Recommissioned on 12 Nov 00 and given a more modest armament, she departed New York on 10 Dec 00 for Norfolk and from there sailed for the Philippines via the Suez Canal with the gunboat ANNAPOLIS, the yacht FROLIC, and the tug PISCATAQUA (q.v.). She arrived at Cavite on 24 Apr 01 and remained in the Far East for the remainder of her career. After helping suppress the Philippine Insurrection she was assigned to the Cavite Naval Station in 1904 as a harbor tug and continued to serve there until decommissioned on 31 Jul 31. She was designated YT-27 when the Navy's standard hull classification scheme was implemented on 17 Jul 20. She probably carried no armament for much of the period between 1900 and 1918.

WOMPATUCK was stricken from the Navy List on 11 Feb 38 and lay at Cavite awaiting disposal until, on 9 Jul 41, she was withdrawn from the sale list. Converted to a self-propelled diesel oil barge, the unnamed vessel was designated YO-64 on 9 Oct 41. Her fate during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in early 1942 is unrecorded. YO-64 was stricken from the Navy list on 21 Apr 44.

Ship Notes:

AT	Name	Notes
--	WOMPATUCK	Ex merc. ATLAS. To YT-27 17 Jul 20. Stk. 11 Feb 38. Off sale list 9 Jul 41, to YO-64 9 Oct 41. Lost 1942 during the fall of the Philippines.