Philippines and ports of Japan and China for the protection of American lives, property, and interests with brief intervals of Yangtze River Patrol for the same purpose. She also made one convoy trip from the Philippines to British North Borneo and two trips to Guam in the Marianas. She arrived in San Diego from the Asiatic Station on 10 January 1918 and passed through the Panama Canal on 23 January convoying the British liner acting as a troopship from Cristobal, in the Canal Zone, to Norfolk, and on to New York, arriving on 11 February 1918. World War I, 1918 Galveston was assigned to Squadron 2 of the Atlantic Fleet Cruiser Force for convoy escort duties concurrent with the training of Armed Guard crews. After one convoy run through heavy weather from Tompkinsville to Halifax, Nova Scotia, she was largely employed in repeated convoy escort voyages between New York and Norfolk until 22 September 1918 when she departed Tompkinsville with a 19-ship convoy bound for Ponta Delgada, Azores. On the morning of 30 September a convoy straggler was attacked by German submarine . Alerted by the flashing explosion to starboard, Galveston headed for the scene of attack and opened fire on the U-boat. Cargo ship was shelled and sunk in the 2-hour battle with a loss of 213 lives and the submarine escaped but the remaining ships of the convoy were brought safely into Ponta Delgada 4 October 1918. Galveston returned to Norfolk on 20 October 1918 to resume her coastal convoy escort work until the Armistice. 1919–1923 She arrived in Plymouth, England, 26 March 1919; transported a contingent of British-American troops from Harwich to Murmansk, USSR as part of Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War there; then served as flagship of Squadron 3, Patrol Force, in Western European waters. She was largely concerned with the movement of prize crews and repatriation of crews of German ships until 22 June 1919 when she got underway to serve as station and flagship at Constantinople, Turkey. She arrived on station 14 July 1919 and broke the flag of Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol; transported refugees and American Red Cross officials to Constantinople from the Russian ports of Novorossiysk and Theodosia; and carried Rear Admiral Newton A. McCully from Theodosia to Yalta. She was relieved as station ship at Constantinople on 15 July 1920 by cruiser . With the initial assignment of