The declared blockade of Cuba and other Spanish territories demanded more hulls than the United States Navy possessed. Transatlantic liner St. Louis and the converted merchant ship Yankee therefore operated as auxiliary cruisers alongside the regular cruiser Marblehead at Guantánamo Bay. Small Spanish gunboats withdrew when confronted first by one large ship and then by the combined group, avoiding an action they could not win. Their appearance shows that the war's geographic scale depended on mobilized commercial hulls as much as the Navy's formal cruiser inventory.
Notable Point · 1:00:20-1:02:24
Auxiliary cruisers fill the Cuban blockade
Converted liners and merchant ships joined regular cruisers because the United States lacked enough purpose-built vessels to blockade Spanish territory.