Name Trabajador Launched 1931 | Identification ON 181513 Length 34 m | |
Owner Visayan Stevedore-Transportation Co. Builder Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co., Ltd., Hong Kong Notes Commandeered by United States Navy and assigned to the 16th Naval District on 13 December 1941. | ||
Trabajador was a 111 foot (33.8 m) tug launched in 1931 by Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co., Ltd. for Visayan Stevedore-Transportation Company and registered as a United States vessel in Iloilo, Philippines.
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Commercial service
In 1935 the Trabajador took part in a rescue of survivors from British freighter Silver Hazel that was wrecked in San Bernardino Strait. Fifty-two of the fifty-four passengers and crew aboard were rescued.
United States Navy service
The tug was commandeered by United States Navy and assigned to the 16th Naval District on 13 December 1941 under command of Lt. (jg.) Trose E. Donaldson, USNR as the war came to the Philippines. Although the tug was not formally commissioned by the U.S. Navy, it still served in Manila Bay with the Base Section of the Navy's Inshore Patrol.
Trabajador, assisted by the USS Finch, dumped unused mines into Manila Bay as Corregidor came under air attack on 29 December 1941 and continued the operation through the next day. With the move of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three to Sisiman Bay on the Bataan Peninsula the tug became tender to the PT boat squadron. For a brief time the tug was the "luxury" vessel for the PTs with a real galley, wardroom and even a mess boy that baked pies. After the squadron had left with General MacArthur as a passenger thirty-two men were left behind including Lt. (jg.) Edward G. DeLong who assumed command of Trabajador on 25 February 1942. DeLong himself left Corregidor 2 May and made it to Mindanao where he was later captured and executed in prison camp.
Trabajador, likely sunk by fire delivered from Japanese artillery near Corregidor, was awarded a battle star.
Postwar
The tug remained on the bottom of Manila Bay until after the end of World War II. When the ship salvaged, it was renamed Resolute. It continued operations in the Philippines into the late 1970s.