AmNav MERCY Assist

Title: “AmNav San Francisco Assist”; AmNav INDEPENDENCE and AmNav REVOLUTION Assisting U.S. NAVAL Hospital Ship MERCY
Watercolor painting by... more

by James Williamson

Title

AmNav MERCY Assist

Artist

James Williamson

Medium

Painting - Watercolor And Gouache

Description

Title: “AmNav San Francisco Assist”; AmNav INDEPENDENCE and AmNav REVOLUTION Assisting U.S. NAVAL Hospital Ship MERCY
Watercolor painting by artist James Williamson.

Artist James Williamson ASMA,
Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists

MERCY: relief of suffering; blessing; kindness and sympathy to those in distress; a refraining from harming or punishing offenders, enemies or persons in one’s power. Kindness in excess of what may be expected or demanded by fairness; forbearance and compassion; A disposition to forgive, pity, or be kind; the power to forgive or be kind; kind or compassionate treatment.
The USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) is the lead ship of her class of hospital ships in non-commissioned service with the United States Navy. Her sister ship is the USNS Comfort (T-AH-20). She was named for the virtue of compassion. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, USNS Mercy and her crew do not carry any offensive weapons, though defensive weapons are available. Firing upon the Mercy would be considered a war crime.
Mercy was built as a San Clemente-class oil tanker, SS Worth, by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, in 1976. Starting in July 1984, she was renamed and converted to a hospital ship by the same company. Launched on 20 July 1985, USNS Mercy was placed in service on 8 November 1986. She has a raised forecastle, a transom stern, a bulbous bow, an extended deckhouse with a forward bridge, and a helicopter-landing deck with a flight control facility. The Mercy class hospital ships are the third largest ships in the U.S. Navy Fleet by length, surpassed only by the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class and Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers.
The two Mercy-class hospital ships have become prime assets in the Navy's efforts to reach out to foreign countries and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Since 2001, the hospital ships have conducted a number of humanitarian-assistance and disaster-response missions at home and abroad, providing care to more than 550,000 people.

Comfort, which originally drew most of its medical staff from the Washington area, was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia in 2013 to be closer to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, where most of its medical staff now is based. Comfort deployed for 180 days for Continuing Promise 2015. In 2017 Comfort deployed to Puerto Rico to support relief efforts after Hurricane Maria, and in 2018 Comfort deployed to South and Central America for Enduring Promise 2018.

Mercy has made three 150-day deployments in recent years including Pacific Partnership 2015, 2016 and 2018. Comfort also provided humanitarian assistance and disaster relief for Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Features
USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) each contain 12 fully equipped operating rooms, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan and two oxygen producing plants. Each ship is equipped with a helicopter deck capable of landing large military helicopters. The ships also have side ports to take on patients at sea. When fully operational, the hospital ships have a crew of about 71 civilians and up to 1,200 Navy medical and communications personnel. The precise crew composition and size varies by mission type. During humanitarian-assistance missions, the crew often includes representatives from other U.S. services, foreign militaries and nongovernmental organizations.

Uploaded

September 21st, 2019