Resolute, was built as the commercial wooden-hulled salvage tug SS Sarah E. McWilliams during 1916 by Great Lakes Engineering Company at Ashtabula, Ohio.

She had been renamed SS Resolute by the time the U.S. Navy purchased her for World War I service from her owner, Merritt and Chapman Company of New York City on 8 August 1918.

Resolute was based at the Central District Salvage Station at Stapleton on Staten Island, New York, throughout her U.S. Navy career.

Decommissioned on 15 May 1919, Resolute was sold to her former owner the same day and returned to mercantile service.

During early 1942 Resolute again served the U.S. Navy, operating for several months as a commercial tug under a charter to perform salvage work on the United States East Coast.