Note: Tomorrow I may slip my post time a little; you’ll understand, I hope, tomorrow. Mentioning hope, check out this link to learn about, among other things, an iron cow!! Hope, SS Hope, was born of USS Consolation, AH-15.
Anyone know the US first hospital ship? When did USNS Comfort last call in the sixth boro? Answers follow below.
I used the photo below just over five years ago in a post about Red Cross ships; tanker SS Rose City became USNS Comfort in 1985. Study the photo and compare it to the current iteration.
I’m thrilled Mercy has been activated in the west and Comfort will arrrive here, but only a very short time ago there was serious consideration to mothball and maybe scrap at least one of these vessels. Also, as positive as they are, what they are not is panaceas. Mechanical, electrical, and other bugs need to be sorted out on the ships. Crews need to resolve dynamics; after all, even two months ago all those crews were happily working elsewhere, and as USNS ships, they have hybrid civilian/military crews.
And the US first hospital ship, establishing a “makeover” tradition, began life in Cape Girardeau, MO in 1859 as a Mississippi River steamer. The Confederacy transformed it into a barracks, the US army captured it, and she was made into a hospital ship. I believe she carried the name Red Rover throughout all three lives. Nursing staff on USS Red Rover were members of the Sisters of the Holy Cross.
Click here for a ketch used to evacuate wounded going back to 1803. What were we involved with 217 years ago?
USNS Comfort made her last call in NYC was in September 2001, and I honestly didn’t recall that. Does anyone have photos to share from that deployment?
Finally, I’ve mentioned it before, but back in 1980 SS Rose City had a young crewman named John Moynihan, who wrote a noteworthy account of his hitch aboard the vessel. It’s a great book in itself; his father was a senator from New York.
Long ago and faraway, I boarded this hospital ship on a tributary of the Congo River; that it operated there at all is a scintilla of evidence that even a dictator can do good things by his subjected peoples. I’m unable to learn the disposition of this ship, SS Mama Yemo, but a little researching did lead me to understand that it was developed by a US doctor, William Close, whom I’d love to learn more about.
SS Rose City photo thanks to William Lafferty; sentiments and filtering of info by WVD, who thanks you for keeping your distance.
Hats off to the folks dredging USNS Comfort‘s berth even as we read.
And finally, a request . . . if you get photos of her arrival tomorrow, consider sharing them with this blog.
tugster: a waterblog 
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 29, 2020 at 11:18 am
Jim Murray
Hi, Just after 9-11 the hospital ship was tied up at a West side pier. We had to go to the pier to get FEMA I.D. cards. Unfortunately there were very few people coming out of the ruins of the Trade Center to treat. I don’t think the hospital ship stayed very long. Somewhere I have a book on the history of the hospital ships. I will have to look for it. Be Safe and Stay Well. Jim Murray ________________________________
March 29, 2020 at 2:17 pm
tugster
Someone asked via email what I saw inside the hospital ship, SS Mama Yemo. It was almost 50 years ago, so the real answer of what I saw is “I can’t remember much.” The “port” was about a mile from the school and my house, a short ride with my motorbike. I write “port” because a river steamer stopped there once or twice a month, and that was it. Someone had knocked on my door that late afternoon to say that my “sister” was in the port on a hospital ship. Since I have three sisters, all nurses but younger than my 21 years, I knew it wasn’t true, but I was certainly intrigued. My “sister” turned out to be a young Canadian nurse, who was summoned and appeared on deck soon after I appeared on the bank. She invited me aboard; I recall she was as astonished that I was there as I, that she. It was clean, had AC, and smelled like a medical facility. A detail she stressed was that there were two operating rooms . . . theaters, I think she called them, or maybe that was just the word in French. That’s about it. There were no Americans working on the ship, and she was the only Canadian. We may have exchanged names . . . it would have made sense to do so, but I certainly don’t recall it. I know the ship was a short-lived project. Does anyone know what became of it?
March 29, 2020 at 2:40 pm
Olde Towne Photos
Some nice photos of the USNS COMFORT on several US Navy websites and Flickr. Enjoyed reading about her previous life.Clyde