USS Yankton (1893)

History
United States
Commissioned: 16 May 1898
Decommissioned: 27 February 1920
Fate:
  • Sold on 20 October 1921
  • Converted to mercantile service
  • Broken up in 1930
General characteristics
Displacement: 975 tons
Length: 185 ft
Beam: 27.6 ft
Draft: 13.10 ft
Speed: 14 knots (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Complement: 78 officers and men
Armament:
  • six 3 pounders
  • two Colt machine guns

USS Yankton (previously named La Cleopatre, Saphire III, Penelope)[1][2] was a steel-hulled schooner built in 1893 at Leith, Scotland, by Ramage & Ferguson. She was acquired by the US Navy in May 1898; renamed Yankton; and commissioned on 16 May 1898 at Norfolk, Virginia, with Lt. Comdr. James D. Adams in command.

According to Charles Armstrong, who was Medical Officer of the Yankton in 1918, the Penelope had been the extravagant yacht of Sarah Bernhardt,[3] a well-known French actress.[4] She was converted to a gunboat by the US Navy and partook in the Spanish–American War patrolling and engaging the enemy in Cuban waters.

The Yankton accompanied the Navy's Great White Fleet on the "round the world cruise" as a fleet tender in 1907–1908. In World War I she headed for Gibraltar to join the Patrol Forces protecting Allied shipping from German U-boats, and she came under hostile fire during combat.

After extensive litigation, she returned to merchant service. In May 1923, the Associated Press reported that Yankton, then under British registry, had been seized as a rum runner.[5] The ship was broken up at Boston during the summer of 1930.

References

  1. ↑ "Yankton" : Yacht and Man of War
  2. ↑ A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico (1916) by Edith O'Shaughnessy
  3. ↑ "Yankton" : Yacht and Man of War
  4. ↑ Eward A. Beeman: Charles Armstrong, M.D.: A Biography, 2007 pages 36–37
  5. ↑ "Former U.S. naval craft taken by prohibition men". San Antonio Express. San Antonio, Texas. Associated Press. 17 May 1923. p. 1.
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