ATA-197 was laid down on 4 December 1944 at Orange, Texas, by the Levingston Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 6 January 1945; and commissioned on 15 March 1945.

The tug transited the Panama Canal on 25 April and, two days short of a month later, arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

She departed Pearl Harbor on 1 June and voyaged through the central Pacific to Eniwetok, Guam, Okinawa, and Saipan, towing various craft at and between those islands.

There she participated in a hydrographic survey operation conducted by the Naval Oceano-graphic Office in the South China Sea.

In the fall of 1969, an Inspection and Survey Board determined that Sunnadin was unfit for further naval service and, on 20 November 1969, she was decommissioned at Pearl Harbor; and her name was struck from the Navy list.