Banaag (Tug)
1911-1942
A Philippine word which, in the Tagalog dialect, means “dawn.”
(Tug: tonnage 125; length 96'0"; beam 16'0"; draft 7'6-3/8"; armament 1 3-pounder)
Banaag a composite hull, copper-sheathed tug was built in 1910 at Hong Kong by the Whampoa Dock Co. Delivered to the U.S. Navy on 1 February 1911, Banaag was placed in service at the naval station at Olongapo, P.I., and served there for the next three decades. During this time she was classified as a district tug, YT-104, on 17 July 1920.
The Japanese onslaught against the Philippines in December 1941 found Banaag on duty at Olongapo; and, on 18 December, she was reported to be “tied up across the bay so that she will not be endangered if the station proper” should be bombed. By that point, her 3 pounder gun had been turned over to the 4th Marine Regiment, recently arrived from Shanghai, China, for use as artillery. Banaag may well have been destroyed while the Olongapo Naval Station was being demolished on Christmas Day 1941.
Her name was stricken from the Navy Register on 24 July 1942, and she was subsequently listed as “lost due to enemy occupation.”
Robert J. Cressman
2 March 2006
