The Tirpitzhafen naval base in Kiel, along with the Tirpitzmole was the home port and docks for units of the Imperial German Kaiserliche Marine, the Reichsmarine during the Weimar Republic, the Kriegsmarine, the West German Bundesmarine and now the post-Cold War Deutsche Marine. During each, the historic name was retained.
About that.
The Marineinspekteur Vizeadmiral Andreas Krause has recommended the two Imperial-era names, along with their later WWII-era connotations, should be scrubbed and recast.
Tirpitzhafen would become Oskar Kusch Hafen, after the 26-year-old skipper of U-154 who was ratted out (perhaps falsely) by a junior officer for having been critical of the Nazis while on a war patrol and was subsequently executed by a naval firing squad on 12 May 1944 in Kiel with the blessing of Dönitz.
Just a few days later, in a low-level attack on shipping in Mako harbor on 4 April, a dozen B-25’s of the 345th Group claimed destruction of or damage to six merchant vessels.
Let us now talk about their efforts against Convoy HOMO-03, east of Amoy, China, on 6 April 1945.
Below, we see a series of images of 499th Bomb Squadron, 345th Bomb Group pilot Lt. Francis Thompson running his bat-nosed North American B-25J-22 Serial No. 4-429600 toward an IJN Kaiboken Type D-class frigate, Coast Defense Vessel No. 134. Thompson, piloting one of 24 B-25s from the Apaches that day “managed only to strafe in this low altitude, mast-height, daylight attack as he was crowded out by his wingman who scored a near miss and did probable damage to the frigate’s stern, and by the explosion of a delay-fused 500-pound bomb that had been dropped by the flight leader. ”
Both No. 134 and the Kaiboken C-class frigate CD No. 1 would be sunk that day in strikes by the 345th’s 501st and 499th Bomb Squadrons.
Less than an hour after the above images were snapped, the 345th’s 500th and 498th Bomb Squadrons would sweep in with another 24 B-25s and claim the Kagerō-class destroyer Amatsukaze. In all, the action would leave three Japanese warships wrecked and reportedly claim 700 of the Emperor’s warriors.
6 April:
– 1140 South of Amoy, twenty-four B-25s attack the small convoy. CD No.1 and No. 134 are quickly sunk.
– 1230 By this time AMATSUKAZE receives three direct hits from the B-25s in turn. One struck in the auxiliary machinery room (forward of No.2 turret); a second in the radio room, and the third in the wardroom. In addition, multiple rocket hits damaged the barrels of No.2 and No.3 turrets. The rear bridge was collapsed and topside damage heavy. All power was lost and Amatsukaze became adrift with bad fires raging aft. Amatsukaze claimed five planes shot down, and four damaged.(It was actually three planes destroyed).
– 2015 AMATSUKAZE has arrived off Amoy harbor continuing to drift.
– 2100 Rudder fails, and unable to anchor she runs aground (possibly deliberately to avoid sinking) on the shoals south of Amoy Harbor. Fires continue to burn throughout the night. Six officers, including Lt. Morita and 150 men survived; 3 officers, 1 passenger, and 41 crew lost.
To comply with the limits imposed under the Five-Power Washington Naval Treaty, the low-mileage 22,000-ton early 12-inch-gunned dreadnought USS Delaware (Battleship No. 28), was decommissioned 10 November 1923 and promptly sold for scrap, just 13 years after she joined the fleet. Her crew was hot-transferred to the brand-new 33,000-ton/16-inch-gunned super-dreadnought, USS Colorado (BB-45).
Ex-USS Delaware (BB-28) in dry dock at the South Boston Annex, Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, on 30 January 1924. The ship has been stripped in preparation for scrapping. Note propellers, rudder, armor belt and heavy fouling on her underwater hull. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 54675
Fast forward nearly a full century and the Navy has a new Delaware for the first time since that dark winter of 1923/24.
The U.S. Navy commissioned USS Delaware (SSN 791), the 18th Virginia-class attack submarine, on Saturday, in a low-key ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She is the 7th Delaware in the Navy’s history.
190830-N-N0101-155 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Aug. 30, 2019) The Virginia-class attack submarine USS Delaware (SSN 791) transits the Atlantic Ocean after departing Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding division during sea trials in August 2019. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of HII by Ashley Cowan/Released)
Combat Gallery Sunday: April 5, 2020, Keith Henderson
Keith Henderson was born on 17 April 1883 in Scotland and was reared there and in London. The son of a barrister, Henderson was artistically inclined and studied at Marlborough College, the Slade School of Art
and on the continent at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, later going on to have a studio in Paris prior to the Great War.
He was known for a variety of landscapes, aviary images, and still life studies as well as illustrating at least four popular books.
When the lights went out all across Europe in 1914, Henderson, in his early 30s, volunteered for the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (Prince of Wales’s Own) — a fairly gentlemanly unit, ranked No. 1 in Yeomanry Order of preference— and served on the Western Front in the unit, which was horse-mounted during the first few years of the conflict, and then served as infantry in the latter stages of the Great War.
A Wrecked Railway Bridge Near The Hindenburg Line Near Villers Guislain (1917) (Art IWM Art 246)
Fricourt Cemetery
A wounded tank
Between the wars, Henderson traveled extensively and completed both a myriad of illustrations for at least 14 books as well as walls of memorable and distinctive travel posters for the London Transport and the Empire Marketing Board.
When World War II came, Henderson, then in his 50s, was too old for front line service but pitched in as best he could in other ways, namely as a full-time war artist for the RAF.
In this role he was given lots of access to Bomber Command and Coastal Command operations, producing a number of captivating images.
One of the most iconic photos of a World War II sniper is this one:
All photos, Library and Archives Canada
The man shown above is Sgt. Harold A. Marshall of the Calgary Highlanders‘ Scout and Sniper Platoon. It was taken by renowned Candian Army Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit shutterbug Ken Bell during a scouting, stalking and sniping course in recently-liberated Kapellen, Belgium, along the Dutch border, 6 October 1944.
Besides his Mk II Standard No.2 binoculars, his kit includes a Lee–Enfield No. 4 Mk 1 (T) sniper rifle with a No. 32 MK 3 scope. These rifles were standard issue for marksmen use during WWII with about 26,000 manufactured in conjunction with Holland & Holland for the Commonwealth forces and remained in service until the early 1960s when it was replaced by the L42 series, the latter basically an accurized No. 4 Enfield in 7.62 NATO.
Sergeant H.A. Marshall of The Calgary Highlanders cleans the telescopic sight of his No.4, MkI(T) rifle during scouting, stalking and sniping course, Kapellen, Belgium, 6 October 1944 LAC 3596658 Ken Bell, photographer
Marshall wears a modified camouflaged paratrooper’s Denison smock. On his belt is a single No. 36M Mill’s Bomb grenade and a Gurkha kukri — because badass, that’s why. Around his head is a skrim camouflage face veil in place of the typical Highlander Tam hat or red and white diced Glengarry, the official field and garrison caps, respectively, of the unit at the time.
Marshall’s spotter, Cpl. Steven Kormendy, was also captured by Bell.
He wears much the same kit but notably has a captured German Walther P-38 9mm pistol as his sidearm.
Corporal S. Kormendy and Sergeant H.A. Marshall of The Calgary Highlanders cleaning the telescopic sights of their No.4 MkI (T) rifles during scouting, stalking and sniping course, Kapellen, Belgium, 6 October 1944. LAC 3596657 Ken Bell, photographer
Sergeant H.A. Marshall (left) and Corporal S. Kormendy, both of The Calgary Highlanders, observing terrain from a concealed firing position during scouting, stalking and sniping course, Capellen, Belgium, 6 October 1944. LAC 3596661 Ken Bell, photographer
Cpl. Steven Kormendy, left, and Sergeant Harold Marshall of the Calgary Highlanders sniper unit pose for photographer Ken Bell in Belgium on Oct. 6, 1944.
Lieutenant-Colonel D.G. Maclaughlin of the Calgary Highlanders speaks with scouts Corporal S. Kormendy and Sergeant H.A. Marshall, Kapellen, Belgium, 6 October 1944. Note they have switched to their Tams with cap badges and the size of Marshall’s kukri. LAC 3257124
“Harold Marshall was one of the original Calgary Highlanders who sailed for the United Kingdom on S.S. Pasteur in 1940. Four years later, he was part of an elite platoon of scouts and snipers. Specially equipped and trained in stealth and camouflage, they were the forerunners of today’s reconnaissance troops. It was a dangerous job as scouts advanced ahead of troops and snipers were often exposed to enemy fire.”
Marshall took a bullet in the leg on 15 December 1944, a wound that ended his war. He went on to work for the City of Calgary Electric System from 1946 until 1975 and died just short of his 95th birthday in 2013.
He was also notably an avid curler, a sport he was shown partaking in his obituary.
Ken Bell would go on to profile Marshall in his excellent book, Not in Vain.
As for the Calgary Highlanders, formed in 1910 as the 103rd “Calgary Rifles” Regiment, they still exist in battalion strength as a reserve unit, based at the Mewata Armoury in Calgary. Active in Afghanistan in recent years, their Scottish motto is Airaghardt (Onward).
“Cavalry Soldier Loading a Rifle” by Winslow Homer, circa 1864. Black chalk and white crayon on gray-green laid paper. Donated to the Smithsonian in 1912 by Charles Savage Homer, Jr..
At the time the sketch was made, Homer was a relatively unknown 28-year-old artist filing war art from the camps of the Army of the Potomac for Harper’s Weekly.
Assention 1912-12-99, via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Recto: A soldier in Civil War uniform, stands in the foreground, feet spread, holding a rifle placed diagonally across his body in his left hand, using a long rod in his right hand to tamp gun powder down the barrel of the rifle.
An unidentified infantry sergeant of Sacramento’s Company E (former Yuba Light Infantry) 2nd California Infantry Regiment (now the 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment [Second California]), National Guard of California. Circa 1906-1912. It is a really nice cabinet photo of a pre-WWI infantry NCO.
This photo was taken by Hodson Fotografer (sic) of Sacramento and Oakland. California Military Department Historical Collection No. 2020.11.60.
This soldier is attired in the Army’s standard M1902 pattern new service dress uniform complete with a six-button dark blue coat and cap with service cords. He has an early model Springfield M1903 .30-06 rifle at the ready, which only began replacing the Guard’s Krags in about 1906. The rifle’s companion 20-inch spear-point M1905 bayonet is on the sergeant’s belt, another new item that only began fielding in 1906.
ATLANTIC OCEAN (March 29, 2020) A P-8A Poseidon aircraft assigned to the “Skinny Dragons” of Patrol Squadron (VP) 4 flies alongside the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) during a photo exercise, March 29, 2020.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Juan Sua/Released) 200329-N-CR843-0264
Formed in 1943, VP-4 is currently forward deployed to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations and is assigned to Commander, Task Force 67, responsible for tactical control of deployed maritime patrol and reconnaissance squadrons throughout Europe and Africa.
After cutting their teeth flying the PV-1 Ventura/PV-2 Harpoon during WWII, the Dragons switched to the P2V-1 Neptune in 1947 then the P-3 Orion in 1966. VP-4 become the first squadron at NAS Whidbey Island to covert to the P-8 Poseidon in October 2016.
Warship Wednesday, April 1, 2020: From Red Rover to Comfort
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 60500
Here we see the side-wheel steamer USS Red Rover, the Navy’s first (official) hospital ship, on the Western Rivers during the Civil War, with two rowing boats alongside.
Built during 1859 at Cape Girardeau, Mo, the riverboat was originally bought by the Confederates on 7 November 1861, and served as CSS Red Rover, a barracks ship for the floating battery New Orleans.
At Island No. 10, near New Madrid, Mo., from 15 March 1862, she was holed during a bombardment of that island sometime before 25 March and abandoned as a quarters ship. Seized by the Union gunboat Mound City the next month, she was repaired, and taken to St. Louis where she was fitted out as a summer hospital boat for the Army’s Western Flotilla “to augment limited Union medical facilities, to minimize the hazards to sick and wounded in fighting ships; and to ease the problems of transportation-delivery of medical supplies to and evacuation of personnel from forward areas.”
Steamers, such as City of Memphis, were being used as hospital transports to carry casualties upriver, but they lacked necessary sanitary accommodations and medical staffs, and thus were unable to prevent the spread of disease.
Rapid mobilization at the start of the Civil War had vitiated efforts to prevent the outbreak and epidemic communication of disease on both sides of the conflict. Vaccination was slow; sanitation and hygiene were generally poor. Overworked military medical personnel were assisted by voluntary societies coordinated by the Sanitary Commission founded in June 1861. But by 1865 typhoid fever, typhus, dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, smallpox, measles, and malaria would claim more lives than gunshot.
Red Rover, serving first with the Army, then with the Navy, drew on both military and voluntary medical personnel. Her conversion to a hospital boat, begun at St. Louis and completed at Cairo, Ill., was accomplished with both sanitation and comfort in mind. A separate operating room was installed and equipped. A galley was put below, providing separate kitchen facilities for the patients. The cabin aft was opened for better air circulation. A steam boiler was added for laundry purposes. An elevator, numerous bathrooms, nine water closets, and gauze window blinds “… to keep cinders and smoke from annoying the sick” were also included in the work.
USS Red Rover line engraving after a drawing by Theodore R. Davis, published in Harper’s Weekly, January-June 1863, page 300, depicting a scene in the ward. NH 59651
Line engravings published in Harper’s Weekly, January-June 1863, page 300, depicting a scene on board the U.S. Navy’s Western Rivers hospital ship during the Civil War. The scene at left, entitled The Sister, shows a nurse attending to a patient. That at right shows a convalescent ward. The middle view is of a lonely grave on the river bank. NH 59652
Red Rover provided yeoman service throughout the rest of the conflict, treating over 2,400 patients during her career. She was sold at auction in November 1865.
The Spanish-American War
Fast forward to 1898 and the military, going to war with Spain, quickly moved to create a new hospital ship. The Army took the lead and purchased the three-year-old 3,300-ton steel passenger liner SS John Englis from the Delaware River Ship Building Co. and sent her south to Cuba as the hospital ship Relief.
U.S. Army Hospital Ship Relief NH 92845
U.S. Army Hospital Ship Relief nurses of the ship’s complement, while she was serving in Cuban waters, 1898. NH 92846
U.S. Army Hospital Ship Relief view in one of the ship’s wards, 1898, with a large skylight in the upper right. NH 92844
The Navy also rebooted its hospital ship program in April 1898 when they bought the 5,700-ton steamer SS Creole from the Cromwell Steamship Lines. Converted to the USS Solace, she was the first Navy ship to fly the Geneva Red Cross.
“as an ambulance ship, complete with a large operating room, steam disinfecting apparatus, ice machine, steam laundry plant, cold storage rooms, and an elevator. She could accommodate two hundred patients in her berths, swinging cots and staterooms. Her hurricane deck was enclosed with canvas to be used as a contagious disease ward. The vessel’s fresh water tanks held 37,000 gallons of fresh water, and her system of evaporators and distillers maintained the supply. She was given gifts of supplies and equipment from groups such as the Rhode Island Sanitary and Relief Association and the National Society of Colonial Dames, gaining an X-ray machine, a carbonating machine, etc. SOLACE’s crew included a surgeon, three passed assistant surgeons, three hospital stewards (one of which was a skilled embalmer) eight trained nurses, a cook, four messmen and two laundrymen. The ship and her crew had the honor of inaugurating antiseptic surgery at sea. The vessel also had twenty contract nurses who were members of the Graduated Nurses’ Protective association.
As noted by DANFS “The hospital ship was in constant service during the Spanish-American war, returning wounded and ill servicemen from Cuba to Norfolk, New York, and Boston.”
USHS Solace NH 96686
After the war with Spain was over, both Relief, which had been handed over to the Navy, and Solace were mothballed. However, when the Great White Fleet was organized to globetrot the country’s new all-steel Navy, Teddy Roosevelt stressed it needed a hospital ship to accompany it and the former USAHS Relief was updated as USS Relief.
WWI Hospital Ships
By 1910, Relief was a floating hospital at Olongapo while Solace, on the East Coast, was more mobile and would lend her hull to be loaded with wounded veterans returning from France in the Great War.
Two other steamers were taken up from service from the Ward Line– SS Havana and SS Saratoga— and were converted and renamed USS Comfort and USS Mercy.
The Great War’s USS Comfort and USS Mercy
They were the first Navy hospital ships to have female nurses aboard, with a capacity of seven, including a chief nurse. Both ships were outfitted with state-of-the-art operating rooms, X-ray labs, restrooms, and could accommodate 500 patients each.
Operating onboard U.S. Hospital Ship, 1918 NH 115703
It was around this time that the Navy turned to the concept of a purpose-built hospital ship. She would carry the name of the old Relief and, the 10,000-ton ship was the first ship of the U.S. Navy designed and built from the keel up as a hospital ship.
Photo #: S-584-049 Preliminary Design Plan for a Hospital Ship … February 1915 Preliminary design plan prepared for the Navy Department during consideration of a design for a hospital ship to be included in the Fiscal Year 1917 program. The original document was ink on linen (black on white). The original plan is in the 1911-1925 Spring Styles Book. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command. Photograph.Catalog #: S-584-049
The above plan was intended to satisfy characteristics issued on 12 April 1913 by the General Board. This design concept was selected for the construction of the Relief (Hospital Ship # 1). This plan provides a total berthing capacity of 674 for patients, no armament, and a speed of 14 knots in a ship 460 feet long on the waterline, about 61 feet in beam, with a normal displacement of somewhat less than 10,000 tons.
USS Relief (AH-1), was laid down on 14 June 1917 by the Philadelphia Navy Yard and completed in 1920.
USS RELIEF (AH-1) 1930s NH 108327
U.S. Hospital Ship RELIEF (AH-1) steams through the Panama Canal during the 1930s. NH 62908
WWII hospital ships
Spending a full career in peacetime service before the balloon went up at Pearl Harbor, Relief would “steam the equivalent of nearly four times around the world” during WWII and evacuate “nearly 10,000 fighting men as patients from scenes of combat in nearly every military campaign area of the Pacific Theatre.”
Can you spot Kate Beckinsdale? Here, this period LIFE photo shows U.S. Navy nurses on the Hospital Ship USS Relief AH-1 while the U.S. Pacific Fleet Battleships rest in Lahaina Roads, Hawaii, in the Summer of 1940. Photo by Carl Maydans
Other Navy hospital ships would join her during the war, such as the converted USS Solace (AH-5), the latter starting life as the 8,900-ton liner SS Iroquois. If the numbering scheme sounds odd, keep in mind the Navy allocated AH-2 to the original SpanAmWar-era Solace and AH-3/4 to the Great War-era Comfort and Mercy, even though none of those three ships were around as Navy hospital ships in WWII.
U.S. Navy Hospital Ship USS SOLACE (AH-5) arrives from Guam, 4 June 1945, bringing casualties from Okinawa. She made three evacuation trips from Iwo Jima to base hospitals at Guam and Saipan, carrying almost 2,000 patients, and seven trips from Okinawa. Photograph by PhoM2c J.G. Mull. 80-G-K-5631
Caption: Okinawa Campaign, 1945. Military ambulances lined up on shore at Guam, awaiting the arrival of U.S. Navy Hospital Ship USS SOLACE (AH-5) with casualties from Okinawa, 4 June 1945. Among ships in the left background is USS LSM-242. Photographer: PhoM2c J.G. Mull. 80-G-K-5629
Sick Bay USS Solace by Joseph Hirsch; C. 1943; Framed Dimension 25H X 31W
Navy Hospital Ship USS Solace by Joseph Hirsch; C. 1943. “The Navy’s hospital ships operate under the laws laid down by the Geneva Convention, being unarmed, fully illuminated at night, and painted white.” 88-159-EW
Other WWII hospital ships were USS Bountiful (AH-9) and USS Samaritan (AH-10), both converted WWI-era troopships as well as USS Refuge (AH-11), with the latter being the former APL line steamer SS President Garfield. Another liner, SS Saint John, became USS Rescue (AH-18). All of these would be disposed of after 1946.
What about AH-6, AH-7, and AH-8? Those were the purpose-built 6,000-ton hospital ships USS Comfort, USS Hope, and USS Mercy, respectively.
The WWII USS Comfort, USS Hope, and USS Mercy,
Completed late in the war (1944) they served in the last days of the conflict in the Pacific then were put in mothballs from which they never emerged in U.S. service again.
A new generation
Speaking of being completed late in the war, the 15,000-ton Haven-class hospital ships were ordered in 1943 and by and large missed the conflict.
Large vessels with a 700-man crew/hospital staff, they could accommodate 800 patients and make 17.5 knots on ocean-crossing trips. The six-ship class held the line for the Navy in Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. They consisted of the USS Haven (AH-12), USS Benevolence (AH-13), USS Tranquillity (AH-14), USS Consolation (AH-15), USS Repose (AH-16), and USS Sanctuary (AH-17).
The U.S. Navy hospital ship USS Benevolence (AH-13) moored in Bikini Atoll lagoon, during Operation “Crossroads”, in mid-July 1946. Several of the operation target ships are visible in the background. U.S. Navy photo 80-G-K-17386
A 52-bed ward USS_Repose (AH-16)
USS Repose (AH 16) is seen in this aerial photo off of South Vietnam. Sailors can be seen waiting by the helo deck as they anticipate the photographer’s helicopter to land. The white paint scheme is quite striking against the blue water. Repose and its sister ship USS Sanctuary (AH 17) played a crucial role in expanding medical capabilities and treatment for American forces, as well as for the Vietnamese. Courtesy of the Navy Medicine Historical Files
USMC Corporal Hollander, is assisted with his Thanksgiving dinner by USN Lt. Junior Grade Green on board the hospital ship USS Repose AH-16 off of Inchon, Korea – November 1952 US Navy BUMED Library and Archives – 09-5085-30
The last of the class in service, Repose, was on station off Vietnam during the 1967 USS Forrestal fire that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. By that time, the Haven-class ships were typically supplied with patients via medevac helicopters. Added to this were thousands of Marines who were injured ashore.
Navy Surgeons Perform surgery on a wounded Marine aboard USS REPOSE (AH-16) as the hospital ship steams off The Coast of The Republic of Vietnam, a few miles South of The Seventeenth Parallel, October 1967. USN 1142173
USS REPOSE (AH-16) underway during operations off the South Vietnamese coast, 22 April 1966. “The hospital ship, with heliport astern, advanced medical facilities, and well-staffed medical crew, has been credited with saving many lives during the Vietnam War. The ship sails off the coast and can rush to areas of major action where helicopters lift casualties aboard.” Photographer, Chief Journalist Jim F. Falk K-31174
An unidentified Navy nurse with patients aboard the USS Sanctuary (AH 17) off the coast of Vietnam, 1967. The Sanctuary made multiple deployments to Vietnam from 1966 to 1971.
Following Vietnam, the Navy’s hospital ship line consisted of the WWII-era Haven-class ships, which were being disposed of.
With no purpose-built AHs on the Naval List, Big Blue’s go-to plan for hospital ships in the event of a conflict from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s was to convert Tarawa-class LHAs as needed, as these amphibs would be completed with decent medical bays, although nothing like that seen on earlier white hulls.
While each Tarawa could field “17 ICU beds, 4 operating rooms, 300 beds, a 1,000-unit blood bank, full dental facilities, and orthopedics, trauma, general surgery, and x-ray capabilities,” the bottom line was that they were command-and-control ships for amphibious landings stuffed with Marines and their equipment, aircraft, and vehicles and could scarcely be taken out of the line to serve as dedicated hospital ships.
Realizing this was a no-go in the event of a mass-casualty event, the Navy cheaply acquired a pair of decade-old San Clemente-class oil tankers, SS Worth and SS Rose City, in the mid-1980s.
Ex-SS Rose City in drydock during conversion to the hospital USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) at National Steel and Shipbuilding, in San Diego, CA. National Steel and Shipbuilding photo from “All Hands” magazine, March 1986 via Navsource.
After a 35-month, $208 million conversions, these 65,000-ton beasts emerged as the MSC-crewed USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH-20), following in the numbering convention started by the 1898-era Relief.
USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) (left) and USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) tied up at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) piers, in December 1986. Also visible is USS Albert David (FF-1050) undergoing overhaul and two Knox-class frigates in the background. US National Archives Identifier (NAID) 6654982 by PHC Kristofferson. A US Navy photo now in the collections of the US National Archives.
The third-largest ships in the Navy by length surpassed only by the nuclear-powered Nimitz– and Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers, they are crewed when on a 5-day standby by a 70-man complement that swells to over 1,200 when fully operational, with one stationed on each coast. They have 1,000 beds and have proved useful in regular peacetime hearts-and-minds style goodwill cruises as well as in the Gulf Wars and in hurricane relief.
The ships are fully equipped on par with a large metro hospital.
Labs
Blood banks
Nutritionist-managed patient/crew meals
Orthopedic Spaces
ICU
Post-anesthesia care
All backed up by logistics
Both ships are now activated and deployed to help backfill hospital capacity to free up room for COVID-19 cases.
USNS Mercy arrived in Los Angeles on 28 March
While USNS Comfort arrived in New York on 30 March
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Smart Irishmen Wanted for HM Irish Regiment of Foot Guards Coloured chromolithograph recruiting poster after Black. Published by HM’s Stationery Office, 1927.
The Irish Guards regiment of the Britsh Army was formed on 1 April 1900 by order of Queen Victoria, to honor the Irish war dead in the war with the Boers. To this day, “The Micks” remain the “young” regiment of the Guards and their 1st Battalion is based in London at the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow.
Today, they are 120 years old.
One of their fallen Great War officers, 18-year-old John Kipling, late of Wellington College, led his fresh platoon of the Irish Guard’s 2nd battalion “over the top” at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and was never seen alive again. The truth was, young Mr. Kipling should probably have never been there, having previously failed his admission to the Royal Navy due to poor eyesight. However, his father, Rudyard Kipling, pulled some strings and arranged to find a place in the Guards for his only and most beloved son.
John’s loss would reportedly crush the renowned author and poet.
With that,
The Irish Guards – by Rudyard Kipling (1918)
We’re not so old in the Army List, But we’re not so young at our trade, For we had the honor at Fontenoy Of meeting the Guards’ Brigade. ‘Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare, And Lee that led us then, And after a hundred and seventy years We’re fighting for France again! Old Days! The wild geese are flighting, Head to the storm as they faced it before! For where there are Irish there’s bound to be fighting, And when there’s no fighting, it’s Ireland no more! Ireland no more!
The fashion’s all for khaki now, But once through France, we went Full-dressed in scarlet Army cloth, The English-left at Ghent. They’re fighting on our side to-day But, before they changed their clothes, The half of Europe knew our fame, As all of Ireland knows! Old Days! The wild geese are flying, Head to the storm as they faced it before! For where there are Irish there’s memory undying, And when we forget, it is Ireland no more! Ireland no more!
From Barry Wood to Gouzeaucourt, From Boyne to Pilkem Ridge, The ancient days come back no more Than water under the bridge. But the bridge it stands and the water runs As red as yesterday, And the Irish move to the sound of the guns Like salmon to the sea. Old Days! The wild geese are ranging, Head to the storm as they faced it before! For where there are Irish their hearts are unchanging, And when they are changed, it is Ireland no more! Ireland no more!
We’re not so old in the Army List, But we’re not so new in the ring, For we carried our packs with Marshal Saxe When Louis was our King. But Douglas Haig’s our Marshal now And we’re King George’s men, And after one hundred and seventy years We’re fighting for France again! Ah, France! And did we stand by you, When life was made splendid with gifts and rewards? Ah, France! And will we deny you In the hour of your agony, Mother of Swords? Old Days! The wild geese are flying, Head to the storm as they faced it before! For where there are Irish there’s loving and fighting And when we stop either, it’s Ireland no more! Ireland no more!
