ARMY HOSPITAL SHIPS IN WORLD WAR II

Introduction

During the unsuccessful British attack on the Spanish Caribbean port of Cartagena in 1741, the sick and wounded troops of the assault force were placed on board what were called, with less truth than charity, naval hospital ships. There, in the shocked words of surgeon's mate Tobias Smollett, "they langusihed in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation." Without adequate care, food, or medical attention, the casualties, as Smollett described them: "...Were pent-up between decks in small vessels where that had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves in their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations, and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries."

The so-called hospital ships in the British Fleet, before Cartagena were a far cry from the clean, comfortable, well-equipped and staffed vessels that saw service in the Allied cause during World War II. But the development of hospital ships as we know them was a long time in coming.

Indeed, it was well over a century after Cartagena before the concept of hospital ships as sanctuaries for evacuating the sick and wounded, immune from capture or attack, was specifically accepted as a principle of international law. The Geneva Convention of 1864 and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 established the principles under which modern hospital ships operate. According to these treaties: "Military hospital ships, that is to say, ships constructed or fitted out by States specially and soley with a view to assisting the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked, the names of which shall have been communicated to the belligerent Powers at the commencement of hostilities, and in any case before they are employed, shall be respected and cannot be captured while hostilities last." The Geneva and Hague agreements further stipulated rules for the conduct of hospital ships, their markings and identificatioin, and the behavior of their crews, staffs, and passengers.

Army Hospital Ship Links

The Earliest Hospital Ships
World War II US Army Hospital Ship Louis A. Milne
World War II And Vietnam US Navy Hospital Ship Sanctuary (AH-17)

Robert G. Harris
e-mail: harris3141@aol.com
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