March 27: Relief on the High Seas: A U.S. Hospital Ship in Four Wars

A presentation by NMHM Exhibits Manager, Steven W. Hill

The U.S. hospital ship Relief served the nation in four wars, from 1898 to 1918. When commissioned in the U.S. Army, she was the most modern hospital ship in the world, complete with all-electric lighting, x-ray machines, fully-equipped operating rooms and more. The Relief is the subject of a remarkable painting in the museum’s collections, pictured as she returned wounded troops from the Philippines in 1899. Join historian and NMHM exhibits manager Steven W. Hill to learn more about the hospital ship Relief and uncover the story behind the painting’s mysterious past .

When: Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 6:00–7:00 p.m.
Where: Silver Spring Civic Building, Fenton Room
1 Veterans Place, Silver Spring, MD 20910
FREE! Open to the public, no RSVP required
For more information, call 301-319-3303

www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum National Museum of Health and Medicine
2500 Linden Lane, Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-319-3300

CATNIPPED! The True Tale of Thomas Whiskers, USN

The following is actual correspondence between the skippers of the hospital ship USS Solace and the destroyer USS Bell in 1919/1920 regarding the disappearance of a valued ship mascot named "Thomas Whiskers."

13 December 1919

From: Commanding Officer, USS Solace
To: Commanding Officer, USS Bell
Subject: Ship’s Cat

Several members of the crew of this ship have informed me the commanding officer that the mascot of the Solace, Thomas Whiskers, has been kidnapped or catnipped [sic] by certain members of your crew and is being impounded on board your ship. This mascot is a large, black Tom and when last seen was in dress uniform consisting of a leather collar with brass tag marked USS Solace.

If this cat is on board your ship, please inform me and I will send a member of the crew for it.

RWP

________________________________________

January 1920

From: Commanding Officer, USS Bell
To: Commanding Officer, USS Solace
Subject: Your letter of Dec. 13, 1919

You ship’s cat “Whiskers” is being returned under guard, but an explanation of his presence aboard the ship is no doubt due you.

Prior to our departure from alongside the Solace, the cat in question developed a warm regard for the USS Bell, consequently spending much of his time aboard. On the morning we shifted berth his presence aboard was unknown to us. Later in the day after your ship had sailed, he was found to have taken possession of an unoccupied stateroom. The master-at-arms immediately made him prisoner on the ground that he was a stowaway and incarcerated him in the paint locker. This will account for the fact that he is no longer the black cat you describe, but battleship gray.

We advise against the removal of this collar since its low visibility aids the performance of his duties.

In regard to the dress uniform worn by the prisoner—in his attempts to remove the paint he pulled off the collar and lost it. This ship feels under no obligation in regard to the latter. In adding one ten cent collar to its stores it lost $2 worth of paint.

AWD


*Originally published in The Grog Ration, March-April 2008

Oral History: Nancy Crosby, USS Haven hospital ship nurse

LTJG Nancy Crosby, NC, USN with LT Marion Pearson, MC, USNR

All photographs shown are part of the Nancy Crosby Collection, BUMED Library and Archives

USS Consolation, Inchon Harbor

Telephone interview with Nancy “Bing” Crosby, Navy nurse aboard USS Haven (AH-12 ) during the Korean War. Conducted by Mr. Jan K. Herman, Historian, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 26 December 2001.

Where are you from originally?
Baltimore, MD.

When did you decide you wanted to be a nurse?
When I was a little girl. My mother’s closest friend was a nurse and I guess she influenced me.

Where did you go to nursing school?
Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. Then the Navy sent me to the University of Pennsylvania for my baccalaureate, and then to Boston University for my masters. They treated me very well.

When did you join the Navy?
I joined in 1949.

What do you remember about that?
I was a little nervous. My parents never said they were against it at all. We were kind of a Navy family. We grew up with webbed feet. We spent our summers at the Magothy River off of Chesapeake Bay. I was very delighted because both of my brothers were in the Navy. One went to the Naval Academy, and my other brother served in submarines. I was the only one that had to go to war. Would you believe that? Two brothers in the Navy and I was the only one who went to war.

Where was your first assignment?
Bethesda, MD. Then I went to Beaufort, SC, about 2 years later, and then to the Haven.

How did you hear that the war had broken out in Korea?
I don’t remember much about it except that we were at war, Korea was near Japan, and North Korea had invaded South Korea. I heard they needed nurses because they were commissioning a hospital ship and they were looking for volunteers. I was delighted.

So you actually volunteered for service on the Haven?
Oh, yes. All the nurses were volunteers.

USS Consolation and Danish Hospital Ship Jutlandia

Who was your chief nurse?
Nell Harrington. She’s since died. She was a courageous little lady.

What do you remember about reporting to the Haven?
Oh, my, I was impressed. There was a big red cross on the side of it. It had a few rust spots because the men hadn’t finished all the painting. We painted it on the way over to Hawaii and Japan.

Where did you work on the ship?
I worked on the surgical wards because that’s where most of my naval experience had been. I also worked on the A deck for a while with patients with head injuries.

What do you remember about one of your patients, Sergeant Harry Smart?
I don’t remember him specifically because we were so busy then. We were working 18 hours a day. Patients were coming in so fast by helicopter and landing craft.

When did you get to Korea?
We were there in 1952 and ‘53. We went first to Pusan.

Do you remember CAPT Hamblett, the ship’s skipper?
Oh, Balloon Head?

Why do you call him that?
Because he had such a large head. First of all, he got himself a little car that he kept on the deck of the ship so that he would have transportation when he went ashore. He’d go out with the Korean women. He’d want to date us but after we dated him one time, we swore we’d never go again because he was kind of a lecherous fellow. He was bad news.

But he came up with this idea for the two pontoon floats.
Yes, he did.

Hospital Corpsmen carry a critically wounded patient aboard USS Haven

What do you remember about that?
I have pictures I took of those floats. They lashed them to the sides of the ship with great big cables. Then they practiced landing to ensure that the helicopters could land without too much wind influence on the side of the ship. It worked quite well.

Did you see the first flights land?
I don’t remember whether they were the first ones or not but we watched several of them come in. Then they brought the men up on stretchers, lifting them by litter hoist. It was marvelous.

Smaller copters lashed two stretchers, one on each side. Larger copters held several patients.

Bell HTL-4 aboard one of the Haven's pontoon landing floats, July 1952

And they could land more than one helicopter at a time?
Oh, sure. They could land them on each side of the ship where barges were lashed.

How many on each side?
One at a time on each side.

Were the pontoons decked with wood?
It was wood. They had painted large circles where the copters should land.

How long did you stay on the ship?
I was there pretty close to 20 months.

Were the floats then used while you were in Inchon?
Yes. Later, our helicopter landing pad was built on the afterdeck of the ship and barges were not needed.

I guess that was because you had to stay pretty far offshore because of the tides.
Oh, yes. They were 19- to 21-foot tides; they were impressive. The mud flats used to come out for miles.

You say you took pictures of the floats being used?
Oh, yes. I was impressed by their effectiveness.

How many do you have?
I have about six or eight slides showing the helicopters landing. I also have another one with Nell Harrington climbing into one. I also have slides of critically ill Marines being landed on our helicopter deck on the aft deck of the ship.

How did you get a picture of Ted Williams?
He was a patient on our ship. He was a Marine pilot during the Korean War and was on my ward. When he was getting better I asked him if he would mind if I took a couple of pictures. He was the most gracious fellow.

Marine pilot and Boston Red Sox star, Ted Williams, patient aboard USS Haven, March 1953. Glove courtesy of Haven's Welfare and Recreation Committee.

So he just went up on deck with a baseball glove and posed for you? Where did he get the glove?
Apparently, he kept it with him all the time. He was a neat guy.

Outside orphanage in South Korea.

Did any of the nurses ever get ashore to help Korean refugees?
We didn’t deal with Korean refugees until the battles quieted down. Some of the nurses volunteered to work at the orphanages. I never did that. But we used to get clothes from home for the children and we’d take the children on picnics and distribute the clothes. I have some pictures of that. Between battles we cared for Korean children. They were quickly evacuated when we again became busy. In appreciation, the children were brought to the ship to entertain us with Korean dances.

Do you know any of those nurses who may have worked in the orphanages?
I don’t know whether Pat Leisure did that or not. She worked in the operating room.

Did you treat any Korean patients?
Yes. Frequently, our Korean patients had worms. Because farmers periodically used human excreta for fertilizer, many of our Korean patients had worms. They really caused problems. Patients who had abdominal surgery sometimes needed a Levin tube. These were used to suction stomach contents. Worms frequently clogged the tubes and actually came up around the tube and were pulled from the nose.

"E" Medical Company, 6 miles from the front

LTJG Crosby aboard USS Haven.

Could you tell me the story of how you and Harry Smart found each other?
It was a delight because he went to a reunion up in North Carolina where he bumped into Frances Omori, the woman who wrote the book about the nurses in the Korean War. She told him that she had interviewed me and that she had my address. So she wrote me and asked if I would mind if she gave him my address. I wrote back to her and said I’d be pleased to talk with him. So he wrote the nicest letter and asked if he could someday come to see me. But we didn’t meet until about 2 years later. Just recently, he drove all the way down to Florida. He lives in Texas, but he was in North Carolina at the time. He drove all the way down just to see me. And we spent 5 hours here talking.

What was that meeting like for you?
Oh, it was very emotional at first. We hugged and cried. It was very warm and touching. I still get emotional when I talk about it. I don’t know where the feelings welled up from but they really were something. I was very, very moved. He made all those years in Korea worthwhile.

He was a Marine patient?
Yes. He says I saved his leg but I don’t remember. But, apparently, I did care for him on the ship. There were so many to care for.

He remembered you because he recalls they called you Bing. And that was your nickname.
Right. Crosby so they called me Bing.

Do you keep in touch?
We write letters and email. He’s a delight. I can’t believe he went to all that trouble to find me.

You were very important to him.
Apparently, I made a difference.

Do you ever think about that time back in Korea?
Yes, particularly when this war’s going on and when they talk about Vietnam. It makes me mad. You always hear about these wars but never hear about the Korean War until recently. And I believe that more of our men were lost in the Korean War than in the Vietnam War.

Surgery Tent, "E" Medical Company, 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Division, August 1952.

Papa-san smokes his pipe. Pusan, April 1952.

"E" Medical Company.

LTJG Virginia Brown, NC, USN, posing beside USS Haven then moored at Pusan, South Korea, March 1953.

Oral History: Anna Corcoran, nurse aboard USS Haven during the evacuation of defeated French survivors of Dienbienphu

Telephone interview with Anna Corcoran, nurse aboard USS Haven during the evacuation of defeated French survivors of Dienbienphu from Saigon in September 1954.  Conducted by Jan K. Herman, Historian of the Navy Medical Department, 26 May 2004.

 

Aren't you from Massachusetts?

Yes.  I grew up in Boston.

 

Where did you go to nursing school?

At the Carney Hospital School of Nursing, which at that time was in South Boston.  I graduated in February of 1948.

 

When did you decide to join the Navy?

I wanted to join when I first got out, but at that time, being at the end of the war, they said you needed several years experience.  Of course, Korea hadn't yet started.

As soon as we finished, a couple of us went to work in New York and then to New Orleans because we thought it would be fun.  We ran into some other nurses who wanted to go to California so we went there.  Korea started in June of '50 and I went to Los Angeles and applied to join.  In those days, of course, we didn't have computers and they had to send all the material back to Boston to make sure I was who I said I was.  So it took a few weeks, and I didn't go in until February of '51 and didn't go on active duty until May of '51.

 

Where did they send you for your first assignment?

San Diego.

 

I'll bet you enjoyed that.

I did.  I had a great time.  All my duty stations were great.

 

I know that for a nurse to be assigned to a hospital ship was the ultimate assignment at that time.  Did you feel that way about it?

Well, I did.  But you see, I went overseas to Guam and Japan.  Then we were due to rotate home--Ruby [Brooks], myself, and two other nurses.  There were about six of us.  The chief nurse called us in and said, "You will be having your orders back to the States but would you like to be assigned to the hospital ship?"  At that time they had reassigned a lot of their nurses either to Yokosuka or somewhere in the Pacific.  So they were short of nurses and asked us if we'd go aboard to supplement their number.

So four of us said yes.  When we got back to the States we would come into Long Beach and would then be given orders to our new assignments.  We went aboard in Yokosuka in the first part of September '54.

 

What was your first impression of the ship when you went first went aboard?

I loved it.  I had been in Yokosuka and had seen ships going in and out all the time.  I was assigned to a three-bed room with Martha Bruce and a Medical Service Corps pharmacy officer--Kay Keating.  Kay was the first woman non-nurse to be assigned to a ship.

 

When did you learn what the ship's mission was going to be?

They told us when they asked us if we wanted to go.  They told us that we would be evacuating people who had just been released from prison and would be taking the Foreign Legion back to Oran, Algeria, and the French soldiers into Marseille.  So we knew that right away.

 

What do you remember about your arrival in Saigon?

Saigon was a beautiful city.  It was so pretty and the buildings were so white.  There were nice roads and streets.  We didn't see a lot of destruction or anything like you'd see later.  There was a cocktail party for us the first night after we arrived.

 

Had you and your other nurse colleagues been aware of what had been going on?  Had you heard about Dienbienphu and all of that?

Yes, we did.  One of our doctors at Yokosuka had been sent up to evacuate a lot of the Christians from the north down to the south part of Vietnam.  His name was Dr. Tom Dooley.  He was my ward medical officer.  He loved life and he was great to the patients.  He would push the piano up there and play on the wards in the afternoon.  All the nurses were very fond of him, even though some of the doctors were a little envious.  Consequently, the Medical Department has never spoken well of him.  The CO and XO weren't crazy about him.

 

He had gone earlier up to Haiphong to help care for and evacuate the refugees.  That was called "Operation Passage to Freedom."

That's right.

 

So you knew about what had happened to the French and that you were going on this mission of mercy to Saigon to pick them up.  Did you have any idea before you saw them what condition they were in?

No.  I only knew about the Foreign Legion from the movies.

 

What do you remember about the loading of the patients aboard the Haven?

We loaded them in the middle of the night.  And there were two rumors as to why we were doing that.  One was that they didn't want the Viet Minh to know how many we were taking, and the other was that it was cooler in the middle of the night.  We loaded over 700 patients starting somewhere about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning.  We had them all aboard by 10 o'clock.

 

Were you up close to this action or were you below decks?

We saw them being loaded.  A lot of them walked aboard and some came aboard on stretchers or in wheelchairs.

 

What was your impression of their condition?

They were very thin and kind of grimy looking.  They looked malnourished but they all gained weight on the ship before we got to Oran.

 

Before you cast off and headed back down the river, was there any kind of ceremony or fanfare or was it just a routine parting?

As I recall, it was quiet.  I don't remember any band or anything to send us off.

 

Once you got underway, what was your role in caring for these patients?

I was assigned to the lowest deck where we had patients, the E deck, I think.  There were two wards and there were 87 patients in each ward.  We had triple-deck bunks.  On that floor they all had to be able to walk up stairs to get their meals because there was no elevator that came all the way down and therefore no food carts could come down.

I will never forget sick call.  Most of the patients down there were Foreign Legionnaires and many did not speak English or French but mostly Arabic.  We had one man who was our interpreter.  He had been a German SS trooper and had been a prisoner in Canada.  He spoke perfect English, perfect French, perfect German, and a little Arabic.  When we had sick call, the doctor would stand on the second bunk to examine the guy in the third bunk and the interpreter would squat on top of the third bedside table.  Then the doctor would ask a question, the interpreter would ask the patient, and then the answer was relayed back to the doctor.  It was certainly a very interesting and very different sick call than I'd ever done before or since.

 

Where did they get this interpreter from?

He was a Foreign Legionnaire.  A lot of the Legionnaires were ex German soldiers.

 

Besides malnutrition, what kinds of problems or diseases did these patients have?

Almost all of them had worms.  When I'd go down in the morning, they would bring their little boxes with stool samples to me to look at.  We had to make sure the heads were on the worms.  And after we had been underway for awhile, we found that almost all of them had body lice.

 

It must have been bad for all of you.

It was bad for one of my corpsmen.  He had long hair on his arms and he got some.  We all felt so bad.  But then when everybody found out that we had them in both wards, I went up to the wardroom for the movie one night and all the fellas said to me, "You can't sit here!  You can't sit here!  We don't want your lice."

 

How did you get rid of the lice?

I hate to tell you because we'd be arrested today.  We lined them up in the heads and sprayed them with DDT.

 

Well, that was very effective.

It was very effective but it wasn't good for them or us to inhale.  But we did it.  We didn't know any better.

 

What about the worms?  How did you deal with that problem?

We gave them medicine for that and had to check their stools all the time.  Most of them had Ascaris, a kind of worm that people got in those countries.

 

So these were the biggest problems then, the lice and the worms.

Yes.  And then when we first got underway the patients enjoyed getting in the shower.  We had to tie the showers off and only let them have a shower once or maybe twice a week because we were out of water.  And the other thing they all did was eat bread.  They ate so much bread that the bakery couldn't keep up with them.  And a lot of our food, of course, was foreign to them.

I imagine that because most of the North Africans were Muslim, there were probably restrictions on their diet as far as pork and things like that.

Yes.  The crew tried to accommodate them but at that point, most of them were so hungry that they didn't adhere to the restrictions.  They just ate whatever they could.

 

I know they all spoke French and Arabic and you didn't speak those languages.  Did you manage to communicate despite this restriction?

Yes.  They would come up and try to tell you about themselves and their families.  We managed to communicate with them because we were with them all day.

 

Did any of them talk about their experiences at Dienbienphu or any of that?

Very little.  Most of them wanted to talk about their families.

 

On that voyage, the ship went up through the Suez Canal.

It did, and we had a problem in the Suez Canal.  We had a wonderful skipper.  His name was CAPT Clark.  We got to the Canal and were to be there at a certain hour in the morning.  He waited and waited and they didn't respond to his messages so he figured that he was supposed to go ahead.  So he started in.  Well, I'll tell you.  That pilot came aboard buttoning his pants.  He pulled us all the way over to the side because there were ships coming out.  It happened so suddenly that we broke our anchor.

 

The ship probably pulled into the Great Bitter Lake at the south end of the Canal.

Yes.  We went into the lake while they repaired the anchor.  We were there for 2 days.  Once the pilot got us into the lake, he left.

 

Did another pilot come aboard to take you through the Canal?

Yes.  I remember that the Suez Canal was more interesting than the Panama Canal.  It was very pretty.

 

Once you transited the Canal you went on to Oran to drop off the North African soldiers.  Was there some kind of ceremony at Oran when that happened?

There was a band and they took the Foreign Legion patients off.  Most of them, at this point, were ambulatory.  Some of their wounds had healed and they were in much better shape than when they had come aboard.  We had a couple of hours liberty in Oran.

When we left Oran later that afternoon and got underway, one of the soldiers jumped overboard.  He had been drinking all afternoon in Oran.  He wrapped his wallet in plastic and decided to go back.

 

So he hadn't had enough liberty?

That's right.  They put the small boat in the water and the captain turned that ship around so quickly we almost crushed the sailor between the small boat and the ship.

 

The sailor must have been in some kind of trouble.

We had a court martial for him, which was the first court martial I had ever gone to.

 

Marseilles was the next stop.  What do you recall about that?

The Catholic chaplain had arranged for anyone who wanted that could afford to, to go up to Rome to see the pope.

 

Did you go?

Yes.  It was very, very exciting.  We saw Pius XII.  He had been ill so we couldn't have a private audience with him.  But we went by train and got to Rome in the morning.  The Catholic USO people there met us and took us where we could shower if we wanted.  Then they took us out to Castle Gondolfo, where he was for the summer.  He addressed the sailors from the Haven, who were on a mission of mercy.  It was probably one of the most interesting things in my life to see him.  He spoke perfect English and in seven other languages.

 

When you off-loaded the French soldiers in Marseilles, was there some kind of ceremony?

There was a ceremony.  It was an emotional homecoming for them.  In fact, one of them had died en route.  His sister had come aboard.  They off loaded the body in a casket with the French flag draped over it.  That was very, very emotional to watch.  Of course, at that time, we didn't know how many of our own would be going home that way from Vietnam.

 

Were there a lot of relatives waiting on the pier for their men?

There were a lot of people and we assumed that a lot of them were relatives because of the greeting they gave.

 

Where did the ship go after leaving Marseilles?

We picked up a few patients from the 6th Fleet.  One was a patient in a cast and someone else who needed to go home.  In those days, we weren't flying patients a lot.  We went around Gibraltar and then crossed the Atlantic before going through the Panama Canal.  We ended the trip at Long Beach having completed a round-the-world cruise.

 

It will be 50 years ago this year since you did all that.  Do you ever think about it anymore?

Well, I remember a lot about my shipmates.  They were a great bunch of people.  In fact, I've been going to some of their reunions.  Of course, the ship has been out of commission for so long and most of the people are getting pretty old.

 

Of course, you couldn't have imagined back in 1954 that 10 years later we would be involved in Vietnam just like the French were.

That's right.  And we'd suffer the same defeat they did.

 

When did you retire from the Navy?

I retired as a commander in 1977 after being on active duty for 26 years.

 

What do you do with your time now?

I do some volunteer work and I wonder when I ever had time to work because I'm so busy.

 

You live part of the year in Marshfield and where do you live the rest of the year?

In Cocoa Beach, FL.

 

Near the Kennedy Space Center.

Yes.  We sit on the porch and watch the Space Shuttles take off.

 

I've really enjoyed hearing your story about the Haven.  Thank you for sharing it with me.

I'm glad to be able to help you.

Archives: Shaw Collection

Shaw Collection
1941-2003(?)
Personal papers
1 boxes, arranged, unrestricted, finding aid available

This collection contains the autobiography, some personal papers, and
images of LCDR John Shaw, MC.

John Andrew Shaw was born on Oct. 6, 1910, in Centreville, Miss. He was
called to active duty in the medical corps of the United States Naval
Reserve in the summer of 1941, and was on duty as Officer of the Day at
the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese
attacked Pearl harbor. He served at the naval hospitals at Pearl
Harbor, Aiea Heights, Long Beach, and was the urologist on the USS Haven
serving the Pacific Fleet. After the bombing of Nagasaki, his hospital
ship was sent there to evacuate allied prisoners of war before the
American army of occupation came in. He was released from active duty
with the rank of commander in 1946.

He wrote an autobiography, "The Twentieth Century As It Happened To Me,"
along with a few articles of prose.

Dr. Shaw died early Tuesday morning, April 1, 2003, in Red Lodge,
Montana.

US Navy medicine collection at Columbia University

Columbia University Medical Center's A.C. Long Health Sciences Library's Archives & Special Collections has just sent us a link to the papers of Clement Clay, noting they have several thick folders of records from his time as commanding officer of the USS Repose hospital ship, during WWII.

 

 We have several boxes of information and photographs on the Repose, which I haven't gotten to yet except for reboxing them yesterday. There are many biographical files here, but Clay doesn't appear to have one.

 

A September 11th memory

Reprinted from Navy Medicine November-December 2001.

My name is Daniel Smith of the Skokie IL. Fire Department. Myself and five other firefighters recently stayed aboard the USNS Comfort deployed to New York City after the September 11th terrorist attack on the WTC. The Comfort was to serve as a mass casualty hospital facility. With few survivors the roll of the Comfort was changed to house and feed rescue personnel working at the trade center site.

The hospitality of the Comfort's crew was exceptional. We were bunked and fed by a very caring and helpful group of Officers and enlisted personnel. We could never board or leave ship without someone insisting on us eating. We are grateful to the Marines who guarded the ship, patrolled the dock area and controlled the access to the ship. This gave us great peace of mind while being preoccupied by the loss of our brother firefighters.

I extend a gratitude of thanks to Navy Department, Navy Medicine and the Comfort's Captain and the crew for JOB WELL DONE.