The ferry was assigned to provide transportation services among the military facilities in Manila Bay, the Philippines under administrative command of the Coast Artillery Corps.

Hyde was sunk during World War II during the Battle of Corregidor,[3] by Japanese aircraft on 26 December 1941 after safely delivering nurses from Manila to establish Hospital #2 at Coclaban.

Hyde was among the hundreds of small vessels acquired after the Spanish–American War and during the early part of the twentieth century to support overseas outposts that were owned and operated by the US Army for specific logistical purposes.

[3] This vessel along with a sister-ship, General Frank M. Coxe, was designed and built shortly after World War I, to ferry army personnel within strategic harbors.

[8] The ships were built on the Kanawha River, by Charles Ward Engineering Works of Charleston, West Virginia, a firm which specialized in shallow draft vessels such as ferries, riverboats, and tugs.