Yale II ScStr
Yale II
ScStr: dp. 5,200 (n.); l. 403' b. 63'; dr. 19' (mean); s. 22.4 k.; cpl. 213)
The second Yale (Id. No. 1672)—a screw steamer built in 1906 by the Delaware River Steamboat Co.— was purchased by the Navy on 13 March 1918 and commissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 26 March 1918, Lt. Comdr. Richard C. Brennan, USNRF, in command.
After being fitted out for naval service at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Yale put to sea on 20 May, bound for Nicaragua carrying a detachment of marines to duty at the legation at Managua. Steaming via Acapulco, Mexico, she arrived at Corinto, Nicaragua, on the 27th, landed the marines and some mail, and then headed on to the Panama Canal. She transited the canal on 30 May and continued her voyage to Norfolk, where she arrived on 3 June. She operated in the Chesapeake Bay area until 10 July when she departed Newport News, VA., in a convoy bound for Europe. On 21 July, the convoy arrived in Brest, France; and Yale was assigned duty as a cross-channel transport. During the war, she made 31 uneventful, round-trip voyages carrying troops between Southampton, England and the French ports of Brest and Le Havre. She continued that service after the end of hostilities on 11 November and made another 64 round-trip voyages carrying passengers and supplies.
On 6 May 1919, she departed Brest for the last time and set a course—via the Azores—to the United States. She anchored off Weehawken, N.J., on 22 May and disembarked passengers. Through the summer of 1919, she steamed up and down the east coast shuttling passengers between Norfolk and Hoboken, N.J. On 3 September, she moored in Back Channel at Philadelphia and remained there until sold. Yale was decommissioned on 10 June 1920. She was subsequently sold to the Harvard-Yale Syndicate which reconditioned her and put her in passenger service between San Pedro and San Francisco.
After 16 years of fast passenger service along the west coast, Yale was laid up in 1935, in 1940, she was moved to Sitka, Alaska, where she served as a worker's dormitory. She was again acquired by the Navy on 30 April 1943 and commissioned on 8 August 1943, Lt. Comdr. W. N. VanDenbrugh in command. She was renamed Greyhound (IX-106) on 19 August 1943. After brief service, Greyhound was decommissioned on 31 March 1944 and began duty as a floating barracks for personnel at various Pu~et Sound training schools. She was placed out of service on 9 March 1948, and her name was struck from the Navy list on 18 June 1948. She was turned over to the Maritime Commission on 12 November 1948 and placed with the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Olympia, Wash., until 6 June 1949 when she was sold for scrapping.