March 31, 2020

Answering the Call: Stateside Deployments of U.S. Navy Hospital Ships

Editor's note: this blog was originally published in the Navy Live blog.On March 18, President Trump announced Navy hospital ships USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) and Comfort (T-AH-20) were to be activated and deployed stateside to serve as referral centers for non-COVID-19 patients. The longest-serving hospital ships in continuous operation in our history,

Nov. 2, 2018

Legacy of USNS Comfort

For the sixth time in its history, U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) recently left its homeport of Norfolk, Va., en route for South America and Central America to conduct an 11-week medical assistance mission. At its first stop, in Ecuador, the ship's embarked medical personnel treated more than 4,000 patients over the course of five

April 6, 2018

Remembering USS Relief (AH 1), the Navy's Floating Fortress of Health

USS Relief (AH 1). Nurses with their patients, on deck in March 1921.In 1936, "Our Navy" correspondent Mary McElliott was given special access to the hospital ship USS Relief (AH 1). She would marvel over its design and capabilities writing, "If you are accustomed to thinking of a hospital ship as a large institution, with a grim, forbidding