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Yew (YN-32) was laid down on 22 May 1941 at Camden, N.J; by the John H. Mathis Co; launched on 4 October 1941; sponsored by Miss Alice E. Morgan, daughter of Comdr. A.L. Morgan, USN (Ret); and placed in service on 1 July 1942

Yew reported for duty to Commander Atlantic Fleet. Her first assignment was to grapple for communication cable and repair it, at the mouth of Delaware Bay. Following this assignment she went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, then to Newport R.I. and to the Melville Net Depot. There she trained officers in ship handling and net work. While there they also helped to repair the net at Newport.

Yew then sailed to Boston. There they worked on the net line by grappling the net onto each horn and washed it with fire hoses to clean off the heavy sea growth which had accumulated on it. While there ship was dry docked to outfit it with a "Y" gun and depth charges.

From Boston the ship sailed to Norfolk, then to the Yorktown Mine Warfare Depot. There they tested a net by blowing up a section to see how much it would take. Ship returned to Norfolk, loaded it with net gear and were underway for Bermuda.

A couple of days later they joined up with Task Force 39 known as the "Spitkit Convoy" which was sailing to Casablanca, Morocco in North Africa. Convoy consisted of 10 Minesweepers, 1 Repair Ship, 8 Patrol Craft (PC's) and 9 Subchasers (SC's). They were all destined to make up Rear Admiral Hall's Sea Frontier Forces, Northwest African Waters. The cruiser USS Memphis would escort them to longitude 30 degrees west, where they would be released. The Task Force made Casablanca safely 25 November 1942 after experiencing heavy weather.

Yew would have assignments in the coastal waters of Morocco and Algeria in 1943 and 1944.

At Casablanca she helped clean up the harbor and worked on the net protecting the harbor entrance. She also laid channel buoys and buoys for the Minelayers. Then the crew spent 4 days loading up and coiling cable in the forward hold of ship. This was Anti-Submarine Indicator Loop Cable which they laid off the coast of Casablanca. Their next assignment there was to salvage the mooring of the French Battleship Jean Bart and move it over to the seawall. The battleship was then moved to the seawall.

Yew's next assignment was in the Oran area of Algeria. After being separated from their convoy in a fog they arrived in Gibraltar late, thereby missing their convoy for Oran. While waiting for another convoy they painted the ship and caught a later convoy for Oran.

Their assignment was to lay a 3 mile net across a cove at Arzew, 20 miles east of Oran. Working with them were 2 other Net Tenders, USS Hackberry (AN-25) and USS Pepperwood (AN-36), also 2 Yard Tugs YT-458 and YT-459. When this assignment was completed the other 2 Net Tenders went elsewhere and Yew stayed in the area working harbor assignments at Arzew and other small harbors including Mers-El-Kebir.

On January 1, 1944 Yew was reclassified AN-37. She was ultimately decommissioned at Oran, Algeria on 30 November 1944 and simultaneously transferred to the French Navy under Lend-Lease. She served as Scorpion (A-728) until she was nominally returned by the US Navy on 21 March 1949 but was sold outright to the French on the same day. Her American name, Yew, was struck from the Navy list on 28 April 1949.

Scorpion served the French Navy into the mid-1970's before she was disposed of.

Written and contributed by Charles Theobald, Edited by Glenn Paulson

This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo