A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones. In the 19th century, redundant warships were used as moored hospitals for seamen.
HMS Dumbarton Castle (P265) was an offshore patrol vessel of the British Royal Navy. Her main role was the protection of the offshore assets of the United Kingdom, including oil and gas installations and fisheries out to the 200-nautical-mile limit.
HMHS Llandovery Castle, built in 1914 in Glasgow as RMS Llandovery Castle for the Union-Castle Line, was one of five Canadian hospital ships that served in the First World War. On a voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool, England, the ship was torpedoed off southern Ireland on 27 June 1918. The sinking was the deadliest Canadian naval disaster of the war. 234 doctors, nurses, members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, soldiers and seamen died in the sinking and subsequent machine-gunning of lifeboats. Only 24 people, the occupants on a single life-raft, survived. The incident became infamous internationally and was considered, after the Armenian genocide, as one of the war’s worst atrocities. After the war, the case of Llandovery Castle was one of six alleged German war crimes prosecuted at the Leipzig trials.
Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Maine was a hospital ship of the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary, that served during the First World War and the Second World War.
HMHS Glenart Castle was a steamship originally built as Galician in 1900 for the Union-Castle Line. She was renamed Glenart Castle in 1914, but was requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 26 February 1918, she was hit and sunk by a torpedo fired from the German U-boat UC-56.
HMHS Dover Castle was a steam ship originally built for the Union-Castle Line and launched in 1904. In 1914 she was requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 26 May 1917 she was torpedoed 50 nautical miles North of Bône, Algeria by UC-67 of the Imperial German Navy.
HMHS Gloucester Castle was a steam ship originally built for the Union-Castle Line, but requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 30 March 1917 she was torpedoed by German U-boat UB-32. She was, however, salvaged, and returned to civilian service after the war. She was sunk by the German commerce raider Michel in 1942 off Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
SS Galeka was a steam ship built in 1899 for the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company by Harland and Wolff. She was launched on 21 October 1899 and completed on 23 December 1899. Later she was requisitioned for use as a British troop transport and then a hospital ship during the First World War. On 28 October 1916 she struck a mine laid by the German U-boat UC-26.
SS Devanha was a passenger liner and cargo vessel operated by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
Helmut Patzig, also known as Helmut Brümmer-Patzig was a German U-boat commander in the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I, and the Kriegsmarine in World War II. He was captain of U-86, the vessel that sank a Canadian hospital ship, HMHS Llandovery Castle, in 1918. Patzig evaded prosecution at the Leipzig War Crimes Trials in 1921 because he fled German jurisdiction. During the Second World War he returned to naval service, serving as commander of the 26th U-boat Flotilla, a U-boat training group, from 1943 into 1945.
SS Donegal was a Midland Railway passenger ferry that served in the First World War as an ambulance ship. She was completed in 1904 and sunk by enemy action in April 1917.
RMS Asturias was a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ocean liner that was built in Ireland 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 British Admiralty requisitioned her as a hospital ship.
HMHS Letitia was a British hospital ship that ran aground at Portuguese Cove in Halifax Harbour, Canada on 1 August 1917 while carrying 546 wounded Canadian soldiers from Liverpool, United Kingdom to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
HMHS Liberty was a hospital ship which served with the Royal Navy during the First World War. Formerly the steam yacht Liberty, she was built in 1908 for Joseph Pulitzer, then renamed to Glencairn when sold to James Clark Ross in 1912 before reverting to the Liberty in 1914 when sold to Lord Tredegar. The ship served as a hospital ship in World War I, before being broken up in 1937.
HMHS China was a hospital ship that served with the Royal Navy during the First World War. She was launched in 1896 for P&O as RMS China from Harland and Wolff in Belfast.
SS Braemar Castle was a passenger-cargo steamship, built for Castle Line in 1898, that spent more of her time in British government service than working for her owners. She served both as a troopship and as a hospital ship, prefixed HMT and HMHS respectively, before, during and after the First World War.
SS Maid of Kent was a British passenger ferry and later converted to a hospital ship. She was named after Elizabeth Barton.
United Kingdom
