The Sentinel Woman

Pier reviewed paper
Senior Enlisted Academy
Class 237 Orange Group

Senior enlisted leaders should know the hospital ships’ history because they have much broader roles beyond caring for wounded and sick service members. This essay will cover the background of the U.S. Navy hospital ship, their evolution, and importance to military culture.

Background

Using ships during times of war to transport wounded from the battlefields has been historically recorded since ancient times. The U.S. has been using ships for treating and transporting wounded since the early days as a nation. During the first Barbary War when U.S. forces captured a French vessel, they not only used the ship as a combatant but as a hospital ship treating the wounded (Burden, 2017). This ship was subsequently renamed Intrepid. Originally built as a Confederate Barracks ship during the Civil War, CSS Red Rover was captured by Union Army forces, repaired, and converted to a floating hospital. Serving first as an Army hospital ship, she treated her first patient on June 11, 1862; however, it was not until December 26, 1862, that the U.S. Navy commissioned her as Red Rover. Communicable diseases and infections were more deadly than bullets (Naval History and Heritage Command, 2015). Since the Union specifically retrofitted Red Rover as a hospital, she proved invaluable to their forces along the Mississippi River. She had what the current fleet of Army steamers lacked: a sanitary environment that included laundry facilities, bathroom facilities, elevators, operating rooms, galleys, and water closets (Burden, 2017).

In 1898 the Army converted a coastal passenger steamer ship to a floating hospital, naming her USAHS Relief, and was transferred to the Navy in 1902, subsequently being commissioned as Relief. She was retrofit with two medical wards, an upper deck with a 500-person capacity, contagion isolation wards, two psychiatric wards, an operating room, ice machine, and a generator for electric lighting and ventilation. She served in four wars: the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Uprising, and WWI (Hill, 2015). Understanding the background of the Navy hospital ship lays the foundation for their evolution.

Evolution

As the U.S. Military increasingly became aware of modern hospital ships’ importance and modern medical advances, these early ships paved the way for other historically significant military advances, including the integration of women and minorities. The nurses who served aboard Red Rover during the Civil War were a diverse group and set in motion the establishment of the Navy Nurse Corps 50 years later. This group included male nurses, Sisters from the Order of the Holy Cross, and Black female nurses (Burden, 2017).

As the World Wars occurred during the 20th Century, many more hospital ships were retrofit from passenger liners or built as Hospital Ships. USS Relief (AH 1), the only ship specifically built from its keel as a hospital ship, was commissioned on December 28, 1920 (Sobocinski, 2018). The ship showed the world that hospital ships serve many purposes and have the ability to change course in its medical mission; such as, transporting POWs back home during WWII, serving as stationary hospitals, acting as recovery units for troops to heal and return to battle, shuttling wounded service members back stateside from battlefields, and serving the world with humanitarian aid (Sobocinski, 2018). USS Relief also played an important role in integrating women in the military, being the first Navy ship built with berthing for Navy nurses (Sobocinski, 2018). Hospital ships continue to serve a primary purpose of supporting combatant forces and as secondary support for humanitarian operations (Hegranes, 2020). The evolution of Navy hospital ships from retrofit floating hospitals to an established class of ships with a diverse crew signify their importance to military culture.

Importance

The Navy’s two currently serving hospital ships, USNS Mercy (T AH 19) and USNS Comfort (T AH 20), are technologically advanced vessels. They both boast a 1000-bed facility with 12 operating rooms, radiology department, a laboratory, pharmacy services, optometry department, intensive care unit, dental unit, a morgue, oxygen-producing plants, helicopter pads, and side ports to transfer patients to other ships (Hegranes, 2020).

While hospital ships have the capability to save countless lives as a result of battlefield injuries, they have also served as a beacon of goodwill and diplomacy throughout the world in support of humanitarian missions, providing support to the U.S. and other nations affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes; as well as, widespread medical emergencies and pandemics (Sobocinski, 2020).

This essay covered the background of Navy hospital ships, their evolution, and importance to military culture. Senior enlisted leaders should know the history behind hospital ships because they are the caretakers of military heritage and tradition. Navy Hospital Ships stand proud knowing that they bring hope to not only servicemembers but to all nations. When disaster strikes, those on home and foreign shores can feel comfort and mercy knowing that the United States will always answer the call by providing needed medical care to those who need it most.

References

Burden, T. (2017, March 1). An overview of US Navy hospital ships. Naval Order of the United States.
Hegranes, E. (2020, March 24). The history of hospital ships. U.S. Naval Institute.
Hill, S. W. (2015). U.S. Army Hospital Ship “Relief”. Military Medicine, 180(1).
Naval History and Heritage Command. (2017). Red Rover.
Sobocinski, A. B. (2018). Remembering USS Relief (AH 1), the Navy’s Floating Fortress of Health.
Sobocinski, A. B. (2020). Navy hospital ships have history of answering nation’s call.