FreightWaves Classics: USS Repose helped rescue wounded soldiers in three wars

FreightWaves Classics is sponsored by Sutton Transport, a Midwest LTL leader for over 40 years. Sutton Transport proudly serves the states of Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Ask for a price here.

On October 16, 1965 – 57 years ago yesterday – the US Navy hospital ship USS Repose was re-committed to the Vietnam War. For more than a decade, the ship was moored with the reserve fleet in Suisun Bay in northern California.

World War II/1940s

The ship was built in 1943 by Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock in Chester, Pennsylvania, and launched the following year for World War II service. The ship was 520 feet long, displaced 11,141 tons and had a top speed of 18.7 knots (21.5 mph). She was launched on 8 August 1944 and was subsequently purchased for conversion into a hospital ship by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Brooklyn, New York. After her conversion, USS Repose was commissioned on 26 May 1945, less than three weeks after the end of the war in Europe.

At that time, the capacity of the ship was 750 people, and the crew – 564 people. USS Repose left Norfolk on July 8, 1945 and sailed for the Pacific Theater. Repose served as a casualty transport from several Pacific ports and served as a base hospital ship at Shanghai and later Qingdao, China. It supported the occupation forces in northern China. The ship remained in Asian waters (eventually returning to the US) until July 1949.

Korean War/1950s

After returning to San Francisco, USS Repose was decommissioned on 19 January 1950 and added to the reserve fleet.

However, the ship’s time in the reserve fleet was relatively short. It was activated on 26 August 1950 (two months after the start of the Korean War) and sailed for Pusan, Korea, picking up a US Navy crew at Yokosuka, Japan.

The USS Repose served in South Korean waters and evacuated patients to Japanese ports when necessary. The ship returned to San Francisco and Mare Island Naval Shipyard for repairs and installation of a helipad. (For more on Mare Island Naval Shipyard, follow this link.) Repose returned to South Korean waters; the armistice took effect on 27 July 1953, but the ship remained on station until early 1954.

The hospital ship returned to the United States and was docked at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard until being transferred to the Naval Reserve Fleet on 27 September 1954. On 21 December 1954, Repose was decommissioned at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco Bay.

Vietnam War/1960s

After nearly 11 years in reserve in Suisun Bay, USS Repose was commissioned for duty in Vietnam on October 16, 1965.

US personnel served as military advisers to the South Vietnamese armed forces shortly after the French were defeated in 1954. By early 1965, however, there were fewer than 30,000 Americans in Vietnam. By the fall of 1965, there were nearly 185,000 American personnel in the country.

USS Repose reached Vietnam on January 3, 1966. He was deployed to Southeast Asia for more than four years and was nicknamed the “Angel of the East.” During her deployment, doctors and nurses aboard Repose treated more than 24,000 patients, including 9,000 casualties. About 8,000 surgical operations were performed on the ship, which were performed not only on military personnel, but also on Vietnamese civilians.

During Repose’s time outside Vietnam, the experience of the ship’s doctors and nurses helped define the most modern hospital ships. Anchored in combat zones, Repose and Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) worked to quickly get casualties aboard for emergency medical care.

In the 1966 edition of the Navy All hands the magazine published an overview of what was on board the ship. The article specifically stated, “Repose is now equipped with the latest diagnostic and treatment equipment, including a frozen blood bank; heart-lung apparatus; hydroacoustic echoencephalograph and recompression chamber. The conclusion read as follows: “It is a modern floating hospital with 750 beds, staffed by 24 doctors, 30 nurses and 256 orderlies.” In addition, the ship also had three operating rooms, a laboratory and an X-ray unit.

The hospital ship was on station and assisting on July 29, 1967, when a fire on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal killed 134 sailors and injured 161. An electrical anomaly caused the missile on the F-4B Phantom to explode, striking the external fuel tank of the A-4 Skyhawk. Flammable jet fuel spilled over the plane’s cockpit, caught fire and caused a chain reaction of explosions. The ship survived, but the damage totaled more than $72 million, not including the damaged aircraft.

1970s and end of line

USS Repose left the Vietnam war zone on 14 March 1970 and was decommissioned in May 1970. It was moored at Long Beach, California and was used as an annex for the Long Beach Naval Hospital. However, this was costly and Repose was sold for scrap in 1975.

FreightWaves Classics thanks ggarchives.com, US Navy, USS Repose Memories Facebook page, wikipedia, womenofwwii.com, and ysfine.com for the information and photos that contributed to this article.