AH-6 Comfort
Upon U.S. entry into World War II, the Army Transport Services generally assumed responsibility for evacuating Army sick and wounded, carrying them in the hospitals of troop transports. During the amphibious campaigns in the Mediterranean, small craft returning with casualties to transports or hospital ships transferred their patients by litter hoist or by hoisting the ambulance boats themselves to the rail and then transferring the patients directly to the deck. The most expeditious method was to keep one boat, usually a disabled one, permanently rigged for hoisting; ambulance boats would come alongside and directly transfer their casualties to it.
Ultimately the Army had twenty-six such ships, the majority converted passenger liners or troopships. The troopships offered neither comfort nor sufficient care, and there was no guarantee against enemy attack. Consequently, admirals William F. Halsey and Chester Nimitz decided instead to use Geneva Convention-protected ships whenever possible, to evacuate those who needed considerable medical care en route and would be unable to abandon ship without assistance in an emergency.
Two Navy hospital ships had been in commission in 1941; three were added in 1944 and seven more in 1945. By early 1944, the Comfort (AH 6), Hope (AH 7), and Mercy (AH 8) had been converted and placed into service with civilian crews and Army medical staffs.
The second Comfort (AH-6) was launched 18 March 1943 by Consolidated Steel Corporation, Wilmington, California, under a Maritime Commission contract. She was transferred to the Navy the same day, and converted to a hospital ship by Bethlehem Steel Company, San Pedro, California. The ship was commissioned on 5 May 1944. Comfort operated throughout World War II with a Navy crew and Army medical personnel. USS Comfort was struck by a Japanese Kamikaze plane off Okinawa on April 10, 1945. A total of 28 people were killed, including several of the ship's surgeons, along with six nurses and seven patients. Another 48 people were wounded, and there was extensive damage to the ship.
USS Hope, a 6,000-ton hospital ship, was built under Maritime Commission contract at Wilmington, California, as a C1-B type freighter. The Navy purchased her in late August 1943, when she was launched, and had her converted to a hospital ship at Terminal Island, California. Commissioned in mid-August 1944, the new ship steamed to the Palaus to care for men wounded during the September invasion there. In November she proceeded to Leyte, in the Philippines, on the first of several casualty evacuation missions. In early December, while so engaged, she was twice attacked by Japanese aircraft, but escaped without damage. USS Hope was decommissioned in May 1946 and laid up at Suisun Bay, California. She remained there, in the custody of the War Department and later the Maritime Administration, until sold for scrapping in 1978.
USS Mercy, a 11,250 ton (limiting displacement) hospital ship, was built under Maritime Commission contract at Wilmington, California, as a C1-B type freighter. She was acquired by the Navy when launched in March 1943, and converted to a hospital ship at San Pedro, California. The new ship was commissioned in August 1944, and began a voyage to the south Pacific at the end of that month. In October she went to the Philippines to evacuate casualties of the invasion of Leyte and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and continued this work well into the next year. During April and May 1945 Mercy transported casualties from Okinawa to the Marianas. She then returned to the Philippines for more evacuation missions and, for nearly two months beginning in mid-June, was station hospital ship in Manila Bay. Following Japan's decision to surrender in August 1945, Mercy carried a hospital unit to Korea for occupation service. She returned to the United States in November 1945 and made a final round-trip voyage to the central Pacific between early February and early April 1946. USS Mercy was decommissioned in mid-May of that year and transferred to the War Department for further duty as a U.S. Army Hospital Ship. She entered the Maritime Administration's James River Reserve Fleet in February 1950. Mercy remained in that agency's custody until May 1956, when she was loaned to the New York Maritime Academy and placed back into active service as the training ship Empire State III. Again laid up in June 1960, this time in the Hudson River Reserve Fleet, she was sold to a Spanish shipbreaking firm in November 1970.
(AH-6: dp. 6,000; l. 417'9"; b. 60'; dr. 27'8"; s. 14 k.; cpl. 233; cl. Comfort)
USS Comfort (II)-AH-6-1944-1946
USS Hope-AH-7-1944-1946
USS Mercy (II)-AH-8-1944-1946
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