Menewa (YN-34)
1940-1947
The second chief of the Native American Creek Confederacy know as "Great Warrior."
(YN‑34: tonnage 132; length 91'; beam 23'; draft 11'; armament 2 .30-caliber machine guns, 2 rifles)
The steel-hulled, diesel-engined tug Consultor was built in 1939 at Brooklyn, N.Y., by Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc.; purchased by the Navy from her builder on 16 August 1940; renamed Menewa on 23 August 1940 and classified as a net tender, YN-34. Fitted-out at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., Menewa was placed in service at her fitting-out yard on 9 September 1940.
On 18 October 1940, Menewa was ordered to the Fifth Naval District for temporary duty out of Norfolk, Va., but soon thereafter she departed Hampton Roads, Va., with the oiler Sapelo (AO‑11) on 30 October for assignment in the Fifteenth Naval District, headquartered in the Panama Canal Zone. She arrived in those waters on 13 November. On 8 April 1942, she was redesignated as a net tender (tug class) YNT‑2.
On 26 January 1943, Menewa capsized and sank in 45 feet of water while repairing nets off Cristobal. The submarine rescue vessel Mallard (ASR-4) began salvage operations on 3 February, but the tender foundered off Pier 6, Cristobal, while under tow. Refloated and restored to operational condition, with the Court of Inquiry, convened by Commandant Fifteenth Naval District to ascertain the cause for the mishap, being forwarded to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations in early July 1943, she continued to operate as a tug-class net‑tender, although limited to performing her duties in protected waters, out of Balboa through 1945, ending her active service at the Submarine Base there as of 10 January 1947..
On 14 March 1947, Menewa was stricken from the Naval Register. Turned over to the Foreign Liquidation Commission for disposition on 24 September 1947, she was sold to the Peruvian Government, Ministry of Marine. Renamed Tigre (1947), and, subsequently, Franco, the little vessel served under the Peruvian flag in the reaches of the upper Amazon River.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
8 January 2021
