The unheralded story is told in “Sanctuary Not Certain: American, British, Australian, And Canadian Hospital Ships In The European—African—Middle Eastern Theatre In World War II” ($33 in paperback from heritagebooks.com). Replete with photographs, charts, tables and maps, the book chronicles Allied hospital ships including the 24 operated by “civilian Merchant Marine employees of the Transportation Corps” for the U.S. Army.
Hospital ships were “converted passenger liners or troop ships” with clear markings. Many of the U.S. Army ships were named for flowers, like Shamrock and Marigold; others for “deceased Army doctors and Army nurses who had served with distinction”; still others retained their original names. “Each vessel had to be registered officially as to name and characteristics to be readily recognizable by the enemy.”
Details of life aboard hospital ships are hard to come by (no official diaries were required), but Bruhn has compiled a comprehensive account using available evidence. The chapter on the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944 notes on that day alone there were some ten thousand Allied casualties, “killed, wounded, and missing in action,” including 6603 Americans. The role of British hospital carriers was crucial.
Bruhn writes me that this, his thirty-sixth book (with subjects including “naval history, competitive running, building land yachts, or creating” a Stand Easy “hideaway pub”), will be his last; he and his wife Nancy plan to travel. He’s created a “legacy website,” davidbruhn.com, where viewers can request help “in learning more about a relative’s naval service.”
After Bruhn’s deep dive into naval history, a little shore leave is not uncalled for.
David Bruhn is Nancy Wiegman’s guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf on Northstate Public Radio, mynspr.org, Wednesday, June 25 at 10:00 a.m., repeated Sunday, June 29 at 8:00 p.m.