USS Tranquillity (AH-14)

USS Tranquility (AH-14) was a Haven-class hospital ship in the service of the United States Navy during World War II.

Built as Marine Dolphin in 1943 by Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. under Maritime Commission contract, she was renamed Tranquility on 22 June 1944; launched on 25 July 1944; sponsored by Miss Carol P. Meekins; acquired by the Navy from the Maritime Commission on 14 August 1944; converted into a hospital ship at New York City by the Atlantic Basin Iron Works; and commissioned on 24 April 1945, Capt. Merritt D. Mullen, USNR, in command.

With a bed capacity of 802 and a complement of 568, Tranquillity was one of the first six fully air conditioned ships in the Navy. She was equipped with 85,000 cubic feet (2,400 m³) of medical storage space, and a 100 bed field hospital.

Tranquility got underway from Hampton Roads on 5 May 1945 for shakedown trials and assignment to the Pacific Fleet to provide hospital services, consultation, preventative medicine and casualty evacuation. Tranquility began service as a base hospital at Ulithi and was dispatched on 3 August 1945 to the Palau Islands to receive the survivors from the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) and transport them to Guam. Tranquility was then assigned to assist the 3rd Fleet by returning 766 patients from Guam to the US. On 26 September 1945 she was assigned to Operation Magic Carpet to return troops from overseas to the US and was designated APH-114.

On 25 March 1946 Tranquility was designated AH-14 and was decommissioned, in reserve, on 16 July 1956. She was struck from the Naval Register on 1 September 1961.

Tranquility received one battle star for World War II service.

References

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links

• Photo gallery at navsource.org