Some were later transferred to the United Kingdom as part of the World War II Lend-Lease pact between the two nations.

The vessels were capable of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph), being powered by two 440 shp (330 kW) General Motors (Cleveland) 8-268A, 2-cycle diesel engines which drove two shafts.

These conditions were described (and surely exaggerated) by one author in a humorous poem "warning" other sailors to not transfer: Men don't live on YMS's they just exist under strains and stresses, tossed around like a bundle of peas, inside their ship on the calmest seas.

Eighty vessels of the class were ordered from US yards for transfer under Lend-Lease to the United Kingdom as the BYMS-class minesweeper.

France received 31 YMS-class minesweepers during World War 2, with one (D202, formerly YMS-77) being sunk by a mine in 1944.