Armstrong – Table of Contents

The worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 was responsible for
Armstrong’s return to the United States. Toward the end of World War I, the pandemic
was producing major morbidity and mortality in the United States, and the USPHS
requested that the Navy release many of its Regular Corps Medical Officers to help
affected communities deal with local epidemics. The Navy acquiesced to this request
since it felt that that the war would not last much longer. So, on August 16, 1918,
Assistant Surgeon, C.C. Charles Armstrong, USPHS, received orders (11) that “he was
detached from duty on board the USS Seneca, CG, and from such duty as may have been
assigned to him, and he was to report to the Commanding Officer of the USS
YANKTON for temporary duty on board that vessel. Upon arrival of the Yankton at a
port in the United States, he was to regard himself detached from temporary duty on
board that vessel, he was to report to his home and report by letter to the Surgeon
General, US Public Health Service”.
The USS Yankton (12), originally named Penelope, was a steel-hulled schooner,
built 1893 in Leith, Scotland. She was acquired by the US Navy in May 1898, and
commissioned May16, 1898 at Norfolk, Virginia. Her displacement was 975 tons; length,
185 feet; beam, 27 ½ feet; draft 13 feet 10 inches; speed, 14 knots; complement, 78;
armament, 6 3-pounders, 2 Colt machine guns. She partook in the Spanish-American
War patrolling and engaging the enemy in Cuban waters. In 1907-1908 she accompanied
the Navy’s “Great White Fleet” on the “round the world cruise” as a fleet tender. 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. The Yankton,
according to Armstrong, had been the extravagant yacht of a well-known French actress