They carried a maximum of 10 tonnes (10 long tons) of fuel oil that gave them a range of 15,000 nmi (28,000 km; 17,000 mi) at 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph).

[2] Following shakedown in Chesapeake Bay, Jicarilla departed New York towing barges 9 August 1944, bound for San Francisco via the Panama Canal.

The tug remained in Hawaiian waters until November doing salvage and towing work, including the difficult task of pulling SS Antigua off a reef from 14 to 21 October.

Departing Pearl Harbor on 7 November, she towed barges of supplies to advance bases at Eniwetok and Ulithi, arriving the latter island on 3 December.

The fleet tug rode out the typhoon and returned to Ulithi oni 22 December, but the great storm sank three gallant destroyers, two of them from Jicarilla's group.

She sailed on 9 January with a convoy of LCI's and LST's; despite numerous air attacks by the Japanese, she arrived at Mangarin Bay 2 days later.

The veteran tug arrived at Kerama Retto, repair base for the Okinawa operation, 16 April, and remained there to perform salvage work on ships damaged in the desperate kamikaze attacks.

Jicarilla spent the summer of 1946 in the Marshall Islands in support of Operation Crossroads, the history-making atomic test series in the Pacific.

Returning to the United States on 14 September, she performed towing duties on the West Coast and at the Canal Zone until 23 January 1947, when she sailed again for the Far East from Bremerton, Washington.

In August 1962, Jicarilla was transferred to the Maritime Commission, National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California, where she would later be sold to Colombia on 1 March 1979, as ARC Sebastián De Belalcázar (RM-73).