USS Yale (1888) - Navy Service

Navy Service

The same day she was acquired, she put to sea from New York, bound for Puerto Rico to patrol and help locate Admiral Cervera's Spanish fleet during the Spanish-American War. On 8 May, two days after her arrival off Puerto Rico, Yale encountered and captured the Spanish cargo ship Rita, installed a prize crew in her, and sent her into Charleston, South Carolina.

The following day, she had another brief encounter with the enemy off San Juan when a Spanish armed transport came out and fired a few shots. Yale was far more weakly armed than her opponent and retired from the scene. She returned to San Juan the following day, where a shore battery at Fort San Cristobal, under the orders of Capt. Angel Rivero Mendez, fired two poorly aimed shots at her with their Ordóñez guns, with both shots falling far short.

Pursuant to her orders, Yale patrolled off Puerto Rico until 13 May, at which time she cleared the area for St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) to telegraph her report to Washington. She returned briefly to Puerto Rico on 16 and 17 May, then headed for Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, in company with St. Paul. She remained at Cap-Haïtien until 21 May, then headed for waters off Santiago de Cuba where the Spanish fleet had been discovered. Yale remained there while the United States fleet assembled off Santiago to blockade Cervera's ships in that port. On the 28th, she quit the area; stopped briefly at Port Antonio, Jamaica; and then set a course for Newport News, Virginia. The ship spent 20 days at Newport News, heading back to Cuba on 23 June. She arrived off Santiago on 27 June but remained there only two days. On the 29th, she got underway for Key West, Florida, stopping there overnight on 3 and 4 July before continuing on to Charleston. Yale returned to Santiago on 11 July and remained in Cuban waters until the 17th. After participating in the invasion of Puerto Rico at Guánica, Puerto Rico, she set a course for New York on 26 July. She spent most of the first two weeks of August in New York and returned to Cuba on the 15th. Remaining only briefly, she embarked troops for the return voyage to New York.