HM Hospital Ships

[Brian James]

HM Hospital Ship Asturias pictured prior to her launch at Harland & Wolff Shipyards,Belfast,September 26th 1907.
She was a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ocean liner that was built in Belfast in 1908 and scrapped in Japan in 1933. She was a Royal Mail Ship until 1914, when on the eve of the First World War the Admiralty requisitioned her as a Hospital Ship.
In 1917 a German U-boat torpedoed Asturias,the torpedo failed to detonate,but she was badly holed and sinking,her crew managed to beach her at Bolt Head on the South Coast of Devon. She was raised and towed into port and spent the next two years as an Ammunition Hulk. In 1922–23 RMSP had her repaired and re-fitted as the cruise ship Arcadian. She was laid up in 1930 and sold for scrap in 1933.

[jbryce1437]

Thanks Brian, a few more Hospital Ships

Aba

aba--2ww-ex-glenapp.jpg

Amarapoora

hmhs amarapoora,during ww2.jpg

Asturias

HMHS%20ASTURIAS[1].jpg

Atlantis

atlantis-hosp-ship.jpg

Atlas
Royal Navy Wooden Warship and later Hospital Ship HMS Atlas alongside her is the Paddle Tug Red Cross. c1935. Published by the Nautical Photo Agency. HMS Atlas was a 91-gun second rate ship which was never completed and spent her entire service in reserve or as a hospital ship. She was launched in 1860 and lent to the Metropolitan Asylums Board for use as a hospital ship in 1881 and sold to them in 1885. Atlas served until 1904, when she was sold for breaking

atlas with tug red cross alongside.jpg

Britannic

hmhs britannic 5.jpg

Centaur

HOSPITQAL%20SHIP%20CENTAUR%20-04[1].jpg

China

hmhs china[3].jpg

Delta

hmhs delta[1].jpg

Egypt

hmhs egypt[1].jpg

Eloria

hmsh eloria basrah 1917[1].jpg

Essequibo

HMHS%20ESSEQUIBO-1[1].jpg

Garth Castle

garth castle[1].jpg

Grantully Castle

hmhs grantully castle[1].jpg

[jbryce1437]

More Hospital Ships:


Maine

HMHS%20Maine[1].jpg

rfa maine,built as leonardo da vinci,completed 51925 captured by the british at kismayu.jpg

Marama

MARAMA[1].jpg

Morea

Morea_-_001s[1].jpg

Nabha

hospital ship nabha[1].jpg

Nevasa

hmhs nevasa[1].jpg

Oxfordshire

oxfordshire 1912 hosp ship.jpg

Somali

HMHS Somali.jpg

Somersetshire

HMHS-Somersetshire-in-Devon-river[1].jpg

Soudan

HMHS%20SOUDAN-1901-1926[2].jpg

St Andrew

HMHS%20ST%20ANDREW[1].jpg

St David

ST DAVID.jpg

St George

HMHS%20ST%20GEORGE[1].jpg

St Patrick

HMHS%20ST%20PATRICK-1906-1929.[1].jpg

Syria

hmhs syria bombay[1].jpg

Uganda

uganda2[1].jpg

Vasna

hmhs vasna,dated 1941.jpg

Vita

hmhs vita,dated in the far east,dated 31945.jpg

Worthing

Worthing2.jpg

[ivorthediver]

Thank you for those Jim , as I said before my uncle David served on one during the last war after HMS Puffin was beached as a constructional loss and got his Chief ticket on her but sadly I didn't make a note of which .

[oldsalt]

Maine was the hospital ship we had in Korea.

[ivorthediver]

As I said I am unable to find out which it was but thanks for the identification .

[Brian James]

White Star Line's SS Britannic pictured on the ways at Harland & Wolff Shipyards,Belfast.She was launched just before the start of the First World War in February 1914. She was designed to be the safest of the three ships with design changes actioned during construction due to lessons learned from the sinking of her sister Titanic. She was laid up at her builders for many months before being put to use as a Hospital Ship in 1915. In 1915 and 1916 she served between the United Kingdom and the Dardanelles. On the morning of November 21st 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a naval mine laid by the Imperial German Navy near the Greek island of Kea and sank 55 minutes later, killing 30 people.
There were 1,065 people on board; the 1,035 survivors were rescued from the water and lifeboats. HMHS Britannic was the largest ship lost in the First World War. The loss of the ship was compensated for by the award of the Hamburg America Line liner SS Bismarck to the White Star Line as part of postwar reparations; she became the RMS Majestic.

[Pelican]

‘Britannia 2.0’ – MP pushing for hospital ship
June 18, 202060
Penny Mordaunt, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North, is pushing for a vessel to provide a range of “medical, administrative, training, communication and logistic services”.
Mordaunt has suggested that private and/or research cash could be used to fund the vessel, alongside funding from the UK aid budget.

Writing here in a letter to the Prime Minister, the Paymaster General & Cabinet Office Minister said:

“Dear Prime Minister,

Britannia 2.0

I have always made the case that the only way to improve our national resilience and increase our capabilities is through partnership between public, private and third sectors. We have hundreds of brilliant not for profit organisations that make up the backbone of our national resilience and international humanitarian assistance, from map making, to medical care, search and rescue to veterinary training. If we used our ODA funding to better support such partnerships we could do so much more at home and overseas. As Secretary of State at DFID, and then at Defence, I made the case for better blending the ODA budget with private and social sector funding. Now as your civil contingencies minister and with responsibility for the cross-government ODA funds I will continue to make that case.

However, I also wanted to write to you in my capacity as the MP for Portsmouth North to ask you to, again, give consideration to such a partnership to increase our maritime assets.

The challenges our nation faces will require us to have a greater maritime presence. From the need to protect our coastal waters, the threats we face to shipping, the desire to have a greater presence in certain parts of the world, to the massive workload of the Royal Navy.

The unprecedented strain on the public purse we will face in the coming years requires us to make better use of the funds we do have, and lever in more from outside the public sector.

We need a steady drumbeat in our remaining ship halls to make production viable and to keep industry investing in skills and innovation. It is a sovereign capability we cannot lose. We need a greater number of sea-time opportunities for the next generation of mariners to properly train and qualify, and we need more platforms so that we are not taking grey hulls off vital tasking to provide ships for humanitarian or diplomatic missions.

As I have discussed before, the concept of highly flexible vessels that could be part-funded from the ODA budget in partnership with private, research, commercial and charitable funds could help meet all these objectives. In 2018 whilst at DFID I scoped a UK Aid Maritime capability. This would be ODA eligible and, in effect, a floating DFID office. Our scoping work examined options to fund it and the specification. An initial survey of other Government departments and agencies indicated they could and would make use of such a vessel. We know that industry would also support as would a growing coalition of commercial and trade ventures, research organisations, shipbuilders and ship support companies, maritime training organisations and medical and health projects. These vessels have been rightly seen as a successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia. Given the level of interest, it may be possible to generate income from the vessels.

They would provide a safe and secure environment for personnel and resources to deploy close to operational areas. It could be a highly flexible facility that can provide a range of medical, administrative, training, communication and logistic services. It could undertake sustained operations or be redeployed to support locally dispersed initiatives. It could operate as a university hospital, rotating medical staff. For longer-term crisis, it would make us less reliant on less auditable local routes to provide relief. It would be able to deploy offshore in international waters, in geo-politically sensitive operational areas as well as our own coastal water should the need arise. It has the potential to become a centre for UK volunteering. It could be used in times of strain by the Royal Navy, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, border force or other agencies and departments, for example, the FCO for repatriation missions.

It would be a UK flagged, controlled and auditable asset and should seek to be aligned with our shipbuilding ambitions.

The concept has attracted much support including from UK-Med, Britannia Maritime Aid and the Florence Nightingale Foundation whose nurses and midwives are keen to help.

Now more than ever we need to be smarter in how we use public funds to further our national interests. Retaining and developing shipbuilding and its support industries will be an important part of the levelling up agenda for many parts of the UK, and this initiative would keep some yards open.

The potential of such a scheme is well established, but now the Government needs to develop those options. As long as this issue is seen through the prism of one department it will not become a reality. I ask that in your reprioritisation of ODA this and other concepts which have the potential to lever in further funds, create jobs, retain capabilities, and deliver on our ambitions for Global Britain are made a reality. A good next step would be to refit an existing vessel to test the concept.

Now is the time to be bold and creative. To think about what we actually need and how we can deliver on it with a reduced budget.

I would be delighted if you would ask Ministers to take this forward and, although such vessels should always be deployed if Portsmouth were to be their base port!

Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP”

Source of article and image is UKDJ

[Brian James]

Hospital Ship HMHS Carthage pictured at Devonport c 1880..She served during the Boxer Rebellion.

[Brian James]

Lusitania Class, Cunard Line ocean liner RMS Mauretania pictured under construction at Wigham, Richardson & Swan Hunter Shipbuilding Yards, Wallsend, Tyneside on April 14th 1905 and nearing completion on May 4th 1906...She was requisitioned by the Admiralty in WWI and served as a Troop Transport and Hospital Ship.