Hospital Ship USS REPOSE (AH-16)
Vietnam 1966-70
Latest revisions- 02/25/2007
USS Repose in DaNang Harbor 1969
"The Angel of the Orient"
This page is dedicated to all the men and women who served aboard this ship in World War II, Korea and Vietnam
NEW STUFF! Her 'Unforgettable Year' - A story about Repose nurse Lt. Annelle Lee published in GRIT 1968
Click here to visit the Repose archive for some interesting images and historical documents!
A BRIEF
HISTORY
USS REPOSE was built for the United States Maritime Commission by the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Chester Pennsylvania. Her keel was laid on 22 October 1943, and on 8 August 1944 she was launched as the SS Marine Beaver. She was delivered to the Navy prior to completion for conversion to a hospital ship. She was commissioned on 26 May 1945, and joined the Pacific Fleet on 14 July 1945. In September 1945 she left Buckner Bay on Okinawa to ride out an approaching typhoon. She was caught up in the storm and weathered 170 mile per hour winds and 75-foot seas, and passed through the eye of the typhoon on September 16. Click here for a personal account of the voyage as experienced by a young Navy nurse.
She spent most of the years from 1945-1949 in the North China Station, assisting in evacuations of civilians and treatment of British casualties from actions by the Communist Chinese. Repose was manned by a Military Sea Transportation civilian crew from September 1949 until August 1950, when she resumed her role as an active duty Navy ship in the Korean Conflict. In 1952 a helicopter flight deck was added to her stern as a new era in direct evacuation of casualties began.
Repose was decommissioned in December 1954, but after ten and one-half years with the Reserve Fleet at Suisan Bay, California, she was again called to active service in October 1965. On 14 February 1966 she arrived in Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam, and in April 1967 she was joined by her sister ship USS Sanctuary (AH-17). The ships alternated duty: one would spend three days off Dong Ha near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in northern I Corps, while the other was in DaNang Harbor. Every three months one ship would steam to Subic Bay Naval Base in the Phillipines for approximately 10 days of maintenance (and some liberty for the crew), while the other stayed "on the line" off Dong Ha.
Prior to her return to her home port of Alameda on 20 April
1970, Repose admitted over 24,000 
patients, including
more than 9,000 battle casualties, performed nearly 8,000 surgical operations,
and her flight deck saw over 15,000 consecutive safe helicopter landings.
She served not only Allied military personnel, but also Vietnamese
civilians. When operating rooms and personnel were available, surgeons
restored the appearance of damaged faces and corrected severe birth defects for
Vietnamese children.
The ship had two
captains: the ship's skipper and a Medical Corps captain in charge of the
Hospital in Repose. The hospital crew consisted of 25 physicians,
3 dentists, 4 Medical Service Corps officers, and 29 nurses assisted by about
315 chief petty officers and corpsmen. The ship's crew had a complement of
about 315 enlisted men and 25 officers. All of these, plus three
operating rooms, laboratory, x-ray facilities and beds for 750 patients were
contained in a ship about 520 feet long and 70 feet
wide.
In April 1970, as
war casualty loads decreased, Repose left the South China Sea to return home,
leaving Sanctuary as the sole Navy hospital ship in Southeast Asia. Repose paid
a final visit to Subic Bay, then steamed to Hong Kong where she received a fresh
coat of white paint for her hull and red for her crosses. Next stop was
Kobe, Japan, where the crew was allowed liberty to attend the 1970 World's Fair.
After a few days in Yokuska she steamed east across the Pacific to Pearl
Harbor, and eventually arrived at her home port of Alameda, near Oakland, on 30
April 1970.
After she returned from Vietnam Repose served as a dockside hospital annex for the Long Beach Naval Hospital, but soon this proved to be uneconomical and she was reduced to scrap. The Sanctuary is currently berthed in Baltimore, and is being converted into a community healthcare facility.
Sunset on the flight deck- USS Repose- South China Sea- 1970
Shipmate E-mail
Did you serve aboard Repose? Were you a patient? Do you have a story to tell about her? E-mail the webmaster and I will include your information on the USS Repose Bulletin Board!
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