USS ''Evea'' (YT-458), originally the sixth USS ''Resolute'' (YT-458), later YTB-458, was a United States Navy

tug A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

in commission from 1943 to 1944.

Design and construction

In the early 1940s a series of Allaquippa-class district tugs (YT) were ordered from

Gulfport Boiler & Welding Works Gulfport Shipbuilding Corporation (also called Gulfport Boiler & Welding Works) was a shipbuilding company at Port Arthur, Texas, formed as ''Gulfport Boiler & Welding Works'' opened in 1930. For World War II Gulfport built Tank Barges a Type B ...

Port Arthur, Texas Port Arthur is a city in Jefferson County within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Texas. A small, uninhabited portion extends into Orange County; it is east of Houston. The largest oil refinery in the United Sta ...

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

for transfer before completion to the United States Navy. These tugs had a displacement off 300 tons and were 102 feet 3 inches

length overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

, 95 feet length between perpendiculars, 24 feet in

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

and with a draught of 10 feet. They were powered by a 1000 bhp diesel-electric engine, supplied by General Motors, and driving a single propeller.

World War II service

Five of the Allaquippa-class tugs were completed for the British Royal Navy and supplied under the

Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

Act. The last of these, Yard No. 194 from Gulfport, was designated BYT 5 by the U.S. Navy, given the name ''Resolute'' on completion and transferred to the U.K. on 26 March 1942. She served in the Mediterranean as a salvage tug. She was acquired by the U.S. Navy at the Moroccan Sea Frontier on 16 May 1943 and placed in service as the harbor tug USS ''Resolute'' (YT-458). She was renamed USS ''Evea'' (YT-458) on 9 June 1943. Assigned duty in North African waters, she was reclassified as a "large harbor tug" and redesignated YTB-458 on 15 May 1944. During her service in the Mediterranean area she was involved in the Sicilian occupation (9–15 July 1943), the Salerno Landings (9–21 September 1943), and the Invasion of Southern France (15 August – 25 September 1944).

French Navy

''Evea'' was transferred to the French Navy under Lend-Lease at Marseille in autumn 1944 and renamed ''Malabar'' (A 709).The date of transfer is given as 19 October by Roche and 11 November in DANFS France later nominally returned ''Evea'' to the United States, after which she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and sold to France. On 26 November 1946 the tug sailed from Toulon for Singapore towing the French Navy steam tug ''Tulear'', destined for service at

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

. ''Malabar'' was then deployed as a port tug at

Diego Suarez Diego Suarez or ''Diego-Suarez'' may refer to: * Antsiranana, a city in Madagascar formerly known as Diego-Suarez * Diego Suarez (navigator) or Diogo Soares, 16th-century Portuguese navigator and explorer * Diego Suárez (soldier) (1552–1623), Sp ...

, Madagascar, where she arrived on 26 March 1947. On 19 July 1967 ''Malabar'' capsized and sank while assisting the 51,270 DWT British tanker ''Mobil Enterprise'' outside the port of Diego Suarez. In the accident ten of her crew lost their lives.

References

* (for USS ''Resolute'' (YT-458)) * (for USS ''Evea'' (YT-458/YTB-458)) {{DEFAULTSORT:Evea (YT-458) 1942 ships Ships of the Royal Navy Ships of the United States Navy Ships of the French Navy