| Penelope - a steel-hulled schooner built in 1893 at Leith,
Scotland, by Ramage & Ferguson-was acquired by the Navy in May 1898;
renamed Yankton; and commissioned on 16 May 1898 at Norfolk, Virginia,
Lt. Comdr. James D. Adams in command. |
| Purchased to augment the Navy for the Spanish-American War,
Yankton remained at Norfolk until 18 June when she exited the Chesapeake
Bay, bound for Cuba. She arrived off Santiago de Cuba on the 25th and reported
for duty with Rear Admiral William T. Sampson's North Atlantic Fleet. Two
days later, she took up blockade station off the southern coast of Cuba,
near Cienfuegos. During three weeks of patrolling that station, she encountered
the enemy on three occasions. First, as she was steaming to Casilda at about
0845 on 25 June, she observed sister yacht Eagle engaging a Spanish
shore battery on Cape Muno. Yankton closed to the shore to assist
Eagle and opened fire at 0850. Twenty minutes later, after learning
that one of her shells had landed in the midst of the enemy battery, she
ceased fire. That afternoon, she joined Dixie in shelling several
Spanish gunboats lying behind the reef at Casilda. Three days later, at about
1600, she sighted smoke on the southwestern horizon, apparently made by a
ship steering generally for Cienfuegos. Yankton chased the intruder
for about two hours, but her quarry apparently enjoyed a three-knot advantage
over the yacht. Yankton's commanding officer broke off the chase after
tentatively identifying the fleeing vessel as the Spanish auxiliary cruiser
Alfonso XII. However, he cited no evidence to corroborate that
identification. |
| Following that encounter, the converted yacht resumed her blockade
duty and continued the uneventful routine until 21 July. On that day, she
got underway for Guantanamo Bay, where she remained for nine days - probably
for upkeep and replenishment. On 30 July, she stood out of Guantanamo Bay
and, the following day, resumed station off Cienfuegos. She remained there
until three days after signing the armistice protocol of 12 August, when
she departed Cuban waters. After a two-day stop at Key West, Florida, she
continued her voyage north to Hampton Roads where she arrived on 22
August. |
| Yankton remained in the Virginia capes-Norfolk area until
the beginning of 1899. On 15 January, she stood out of Chesapeake Bay and
headed south to Cuba. After a one-night stop at Palm Beach, Florida, the
yacht reached Guantanamo Bay on the 24th. She returned to the newly independent
country to perform coastal survey work and to participate in the four-year,
postwar occupation of Cuba. Once each year, she returned north to Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, for an annual overhaul of two to three months' duration before
resuming her duties in Cuban waters. During that period, Yankton called
most frequently at Santiago de Cuba and at the newly leased American naval
base on the shores of Guantanamo Bay. Later, her duties took Yankton
to Nipe Bay, Levisa Bay and Gibara - all located in Oriente province along
the northeastern shore of the island. By early 1902, she had moved round
the island to the area of Cienfuegos and the Isle of Pines-both in the area
of her old wartime blockade station off the southern coast of central Cuba.
About that time, her area of operations was expanded to include Puerto Rico,
a former Spanish possession acquired by the United States at the settlement
of the Spanish-American War. |
| In June of 1903, Yankton completed her share of the Cuban
survey work and departed Santa Cruz Del Sur on the 17th. After a six-day
layover at San Antonio, Jamaica, to take on coal and provisions, she resumed
her homeward voyage on 24 June and arrived in Port Royal, South Carolina,
on the 29th. Later, she moved farther north to Norfolk, Virginia, where she
became tender to Franklin, the receiving ship at the naval station
there. That duty lasted through 1904. By 1905, the yacht was tender to the
Atlantic Fleet flagship,
Maine (Battleship
No. 10). In the summer of 1906, she became simply a tender for the Atlantic
Fleet and operated as such along the New England coast with the Fleet into
the fall. Late in December, Yankton moved to Cuban waters, when the
Fleet headed south for spring maneuvers, and supported American warships
during exercises, which lasted from January to April. During the second week
in April, she returned to Norfolk and resumed tending duties out of that
port until late in 1907. |
 On 16 December 1907, Yankton
departed Hampton Roads to accompany the "Great White Fleet" on its
round-the-world cruise under Lt.
Walter
R. Gherardi. Prior to the fleet visit to Puget Sound from San Francisco,
Yankton was placed under Lt. Commander
Charles
B. McVay. She visited Trinidad in the British West Indies and Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, on her way around Cape Horn. During the passage up the western
coast of South America, she made six stops in Chilean ports-most notably
Punta Arenas and Valparaiso and one at Callao, Peru. After a short side trip
to the Galapagos Islands during the first week in March and stops at Acapulco
and Magdalena Bay in Mexico, she reached San Diego, California, on the 31st.
She remained on the west coast until 30 June, when the fleet departed San
Francisco, bound for Honolulu, Hawaii. From there, the yacht moved on to
Tutuila, Samoa and thence to New Zealand. After a visit to Auckland from
10 to 16 August, she steamed on to Australia where she made stops at Sydney
and at Thursday Island. |
| On 9 September, Yankton set a course for the Philippine
Islands, reached Manila Bay on the 18th and remained in the Philippines through
the first week in October. While there, the yacht visited Cavite, Manila
and Olongapo several times each. On 9 October, she cleared Olongapo and joined
the rest of the Fleet for the voyage to Japan. On 18 October, she arrived
in Yokohama and provided services to the Fleet during a nine-day goodwill
visit to Japan. After that, the Fleet returned to the Philippines for a month.
On 29 November, she departed the Philippines to return to the United States
via the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. En route, she stopped at
Singapore and Colombo, Ceylon, before transiting the Suez Canal early in
January 1909. During her passage through the Mediterranean, the yacht stopped
at Messina, Sicily, from 9 to 14 January, to assist the victims of an earthquake
that had recently struck that island. From there, the ship continued her
voyage-via Villefranche, France; Gibraltar; and Funchal in the Madeira
Islands-and arrived at Fort Monroe, Virginia, on 17 February 1909. |
| Between 1909 and 1917, Yankton continued her routine as
tender to the Atlantic Fleet. At the beginning of each year, she left the
northeastern coast of the United States to support the Fleet during maneuvers
and exercises out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The lone exception to that east
coast-Caribbean schedule came in the late fall of 1912 when she visited
Hispaniola to investigate conditions and to protect American interests during
political unrest in the Dominican Republic. She remained in the vicinity
of that island from 6 November 1912 until 4 January 1913, steaming between
and visiting the port towns of Monte Christi and Puerto Plata. Following
that mission, she moved on to winter maneuvers in Cuban waters and generally
resumed her previous routine. |
| During the first few months of 1917, Yankton patrolled
the waters around Cuba, helping to protect the flow of trade to and from
Cuba and other Latin American nations. War came early in the spring, less
than two months after the German Empire announced its resumption of unrestricted
submarine warfare. A month after the 6 April declaration of war, the converted
yacht began duty with the newly organized Patrol Force. Her initial assignment
sent her to the waters along the coast of northern New England. Late in August,
Yankton headed for Gibraltar to join a section of the Patrol Force
protecting Allied shipping in the approaches to the coasts, of England and
France from German U-boats. |
| The converted yacht served at the Gibraltar station until mid-August
1918. Besides the Atlantic approaches to the strait, she patrolled portions
of the western Mediterranean. In addition to carrying out offensive patrols
against enemy submarines, she joined the screens, which escorted convoys
on the final legs of their voyages to Europe and North Africa and shepherded
Allied ships in the western Mediterranean. Her logs indicate several brushes
with U-boats, which, unfortunately, could not be confirmed by other
sources. |
| On the other hand, the brief scrape with U-38 unquestionably
did occur in May 1918. On the 5th, Yankton was steaming in company
with a convoy bound from Bizerte, Tunis, to Gibraltar when she sighted the
U-boat to port. As other ships opened fire, the yacht rang up full speed
and charged to the attack. About that time, a tremendous explosion occurred,
and Yankton crewmen spied a large geyser of water near the Italian
steamer SS Alberto Treves. Yankton fired her guns at the culprit
and, after the submarine submerged, dropped depth charges in the vicinity
of its last known position. Alberto Treves had suffered a single,
non-fatal torpedo hit and managed to make port at Marseilles only to be sunk
in the Atlantic five months later by a torpedo from U-155. |
| Through the remainder of the war, Yankton engaged no other
enemy submarines, but she did assist torpedoed merchantmen. On 29 May, she
helped to rescue the crew of another Italian steamer, SS Piero
Maroncelli. On Independence Day 1918, the German Navy treated
Yankton to a 4th of July display when a U-boat torpedoed the British
ship SS Merida. Fortunately, the torpedo failed to sink Merida,
and she reached port under her own power. The warship continued to patrol
and escort convoys until 19 August when she received orders to return to
the United States for repairs. Steaming via Lisbon, Portugal, and Ponta Delgada
in the Azores, she reached the New York Navy Yard on 5 September.
Yankton was operating with the Atlantic Fleet when the armistice was
signed on 11 November 1918. Just less than a month later, she received orders
directing her to return to European waters. |
| The ship arrived in Plymouth, England, on 16 January 1919, but
departed soon thereafter to carry two naval officers to Murmansk, Russia,
where they were to serve as American port officers. She reached her destination
in turbulent northern Russia on 8 February. When Rear Admiral N. A. McCully
arrived to take command of American forces in northern Russia on 23 February,
he took up residence in the converted yacht. Later, he abandoned her for
a more suitable flagship, Des Moines (Cruiser No. 15). Yankton
and the other American ships assigned to northern Russia took no active part
in the military operations conducted against Bolshevik forces located nearby,
though they did, on occasion, provide some measure of support for the forces
of other Allied nations. The yacht contented herself with patrols, with duty
as radio ship at Murmansk, and with service as a military passenger transport
between Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. In June, she served temporarily both as
port officer and radio ship for Murmansk. On 9 July, after bringing passengers
from Arkhangelsk to Murmansk, she departed the latter port (in company with
SC-95, SC-256, and SC-354) and headed back to England. |
| She remained in European waters until near the end of 1919. On
7 December, she received orders to return to the United States and arrived
in New York sometime in January 1920. She was decommissioned at New York
on 27 February 1920 and remained there until sold on 20 October 1921. Presumable,
her name was struck from the Navy list sometime between decommissioning and
sale, probably about the time her sale was ordered on 5 June 1920. Following
her sale, Yankton was converted to mercantile service, but she turned
up in government records once again two years after her sale when she was
seized in New York laden with illegal rum. After extensive litigation, she
returned to merchant service - honest merchant service, this time until broken
up at Boston during the summer of 1930. |
Displacement, 975; Length, 185'; Beam, 27'6"; Draft, 13'10"; Speed,
14 knots; Complement, 78; Armament, six 3-pdrs., two Colt machine
guns |
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