USS Tanager (AM-5) was an Lapwing-class minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.

After operating locally out of Boston, Massachusetts through the late summer of 1918, Tanager, in company with Western King, departed New London, Connecticut, on 26 September 1918, bound for the Azores.

The minesweeper subsequently operated out of Punta Delgada on local escort duties with the Azores detachment through the fall, before pushing on toward Portugal and reaching Lisbon on the day after Christmas 1918.

While sweeping Group 10 late in June 1919, Tanager fouled a mine in one of her "kites"; and it exploded close aboard, forcing the ship to limp to Kirkwall for repairs.

In company with other vessels of her squadron, Tanager sailed for the United States on 1 October 1919 and – after stops at Brest, France; Lisbon; and Hamilton, Bermuda – arrived at New York on 19 November 1919.

In August 1925, she served on a plane guard station for the PN flying boats' unsuccessful flight from the West Coast of the United States to Hawaii.

She commenced local operations almost immediately and, for the next few months, made patrols off the Corregidor minefields; towed targets for destroyer and submarine exercises; and conducted minesweeping and minelaying duties.

From October through December 1941, Tanager participated in the laying of an anti-submarine net across Mariveles Bay, Bataan – a difficult operation accomplished in spite of the fact that there were no specialized net-laying craft in the Philippines.

On the next day, Japanese planes destroyed General Douglas MacArthur's Far East Air Force on the ground on its Philippine fields and struck the Cavite Navy Yard on the 10th.

In ensuing months, Tanager and her dwindling number of sister ships and former China river gunboats lived a furtive, hunted existence.