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USNS Comfort (T-AH 20)

USNS COMFORT is one of the two Hospital Ships of the Navy. Both ships are maintained by the Military Sealift Command and are part of the Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force (NFAF).

USNS COMFORT was a participant of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, COMFORT deployed to New York City and served as a floating base for rescue workers. In mid-2002, COMFORT visited the North Sea and the Baltic Sea for a series of exercises. In late 2002, the ship left the US East Coast and deployed to the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In September 2005, COMFORT deployed to the Gulf Coast after only two days of preparation to assist in the recovery effort following Hurricane Katrina. After a good-will cruise to 12 central and south American countries in 2007, COMFORT's next humanitarian mission came in January 2010, following the earthquake in Haiti. This operation was a milestone for COMFORT because it was the first time in her career that she reached her full operational capacity, using all of her 12 operating room.

In March 2013, COMFORT's homeport was changed from Baltimore, MD, (where she had been based since her delivery to the Navy in 1987) to Norfolk, VA.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS COMFORT. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

• Click here to view the list.

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USNS COMFORT History:

USNS COMFORT was built in 1976 as the SAN CLEMENTE-class oil tanker SS ROSE CITY by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company and, after conversion into a MERCY-class hospital ship, was delivered to the Navy's Military Sealift Command on December 1, 1987. From the outset, the ship's peacetime pattern centered on remaining pier-side in reduced operating status with a small caretaker crew, designed to allow rapid activation when crises required a large afloat medical treatment facility. That readiness concept shaped the ship's operational rhythm over the decades-long periods of maintenance, drills, and medical embarkation planning punctuated by surge activations for war, disaster relief, and regional humanitarian missions.

The ship's first major wartime employment came with the Gulf crisis triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in early August 1990. USNS COMFORT deployed from Baltimore on August 11, 1990, to the United States Central Command area of responsibility in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, providing afloat hospital capability as the coalition built up, then executed combat operations beginning in January 1991. Through the late summer and fall of 1990 and into early 1991, the ship operated as a rear-area trauma and surgical platform supporting U.S. forces, then began the return transit as the war wound down. USNS COMFORT arrived back in Baltimore on April 15, 1991, and subsequently reverted to a reduced operating posture while remaining available for future tasking.

In 1994, instability in the Caribbean basin produced two significant activations that demonstrated how USNS COMFORT could be repurposed for mass humanitarian processing and contingency medical support. From June through August 1994, during Operation Sea Signal, the ship arrived at Kingston, Jamaica, functioning as an afloat migrant processing center for Haitian migrants while maintaining a limited inpatient and surgical capability. Only weeks later, from September through October 1994, the ship supported Operation Uphold Democracy, positioning off Port-au-Prince during the United States-led intervention intended to restore Haiti's elected government, while also supporting broader migrant-related and humanitarian requirements connected to the regional crisis. After completing those missions, USNS COMFORT returned to its lay-berth routine - maintenance, preservation, and periodic training cycles that sustained readiness without keeping the full hospital complex continuously staffed.

That "surge-ready" concept was tested again after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. USNS COMFORT was activated the afternoon of September 11, 2001, departed Baltimore on September 12, 2001, and arrived in New York City on September 14, 2001. Rather than receiving mass casualties in the numbers originally feared, the ship's most immediate contribution became support services and medical care for responders: from September 14 to October 1, 2001, USNS COMFORT was pier-side in Manhattan, providing meals, berthing, hygiene facilities, and medical services to relief workers operating at and around ground zero. After that support period, the ship stood down and returned to its reduced operating routine.

In the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, USNS COMFORT was again employed as a war-support medical platform. The ship sailed from Baltimore on January 6, 2003, deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and spent 56 days in the Gulf as an afloat trauma center. This deployment occurred against a geopolitical backdrop of rapid regime-change operations ashore and intense coalition logistics at sea, with the ship positioned to absorb combat casualties and stabilize patients for onward movement. USNS COMFORT returned to Baltimore on June 12, 2003, completing a nearly six-month activation before returning to reduced operating status.

In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina and, soon after, Hurricane Rita, drove one of the ship's most detailed and well-documented domestic disaster responses. USNS COMFORT was activated on August 31, 2005, sailed from Baltimore on September 2, 2005, and made a logistics stop at Mayport, Florida, to embark additional supplies and personnel, including volunteer medical support. The ship arrived at Pascagoula, Mississippi, on September 9, 2005, where it provided care both aboard ship and through a shore-based clinic, treating large numbers of outpatients while the region's damaged medical infrastructure struggled to recover. As Hurricane Rita threatened the Gulf, USNS COMFORT departed Pascagoula on September 20, 2005, to evade the storm, then received orders on September 27, 2005, to proceed to New Orleans. After a 10-hour transit up the Mississippi River, the ship arrived on September 28, 2005, serving as an emergency trauma center as the city began to repopulate. During the New Orleans phase, USNS COMFORT's medical staff worked alongside civilian physicians from Louisiana State University under a partnership with Louisiana's public health authorities. USNS COMFORT departed New Orleans on October 8, 2005, and returned to Baltimore on October 13, 2005, concluding a concentrated multi-site medical relief effort before reverting once again to reduced operating status.

Beginning in the late 2000s, USNS COMFORT increasingly became a centerpiece for recurring Western Hemisphere humanitarian deployments intended to build medical interoperability and provide direct care alongside partner nations. On June 15, 2007, USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk for a roughly 120-day goodwill and medical assistance mission broadly associated with the early iterations of what later became the Continuing Promise framework. Over the summer and early fall of 2007, the ship conducted medical engagements across a wide arc of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean - including visits associated with Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname - before concluding the deployment in October 2007. For the 2009 iteration, USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk on April 1, 2009, for Continuing Promise 2009, operating through the Caribbean and Central and South America over the following months. The ship's return to Norfolk was marked on July 31, 2009, at the conclusion of the mission, after which the ship resumed reduced operating status.

The ship's rapid-response role returned to the forefront after the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake, which produced catastrophic casualties and collapsed medical infrastructure around Port-au-Prince. USNS COMFORT received activation orders on January 13, 2010, departed Baltimore on January 16, 2010, and arrived off Port-au-Prince on January 20, 2010, as part of Operation Unified Response. In the weeks that followed, the ship operated as a high-end surgical and inpatient platform afloat, receiving patients by helicopter and small craft and providing definitive care in an environment where shore hospitals were overwhelmed or nonfunctional. As Haiti's emergency medical throughput gradually stabilized and patients declined, USNS COMFORT completed the mission and returned to Baltimore on March 19, 2010, again standing down to a reduced operating posture.

From April through September 2011, USNS COMFORT conducted Continuing Promise 2011, serving as a mobile platform for humanitarian and civic assistance missions in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Peru. The ship's return to Norfolk was underway by early September. USNS COMFORT stopped in Norfolk on September 2, 2011, to disembark personnel after completing the roughly five-month deployment. Between major activations, the ship continued the steady, less visible work of readiness - equipment maintenance, preservation of hospital spaces, and periodic training events needed to ensure that a large medical platform could still be brought to full capability quickly.

A major logistical and institutional change followed: after roughly a quarter-century of lay-berthing in Baltimore, USNS COMFORT departed Baltimore for the last time on February 26, 2013, shifting to a Norfolk lay berth as part of a Navy effort to improve operational responsiveness and reduce sustainment burdens by co-locating the ship more closely with key logistics and medical support networks. With the ship established in Norfolk, the 2015 mission cycle was executed from that base: USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk on April 1, 2015, for Continuing Promise 2015, a six-month humanitarian and civil assistance mission that included visits associated with Barbados, Belize, Colombia, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Panama. USNS COMFORT returned to Naval Station Norfolk on September 30, 2015, officially completing the deployment and then resuming reduced operating status.

In 2017, the ship shifted again toward disaster relief, deploying in the wake of Hurricane Maria as Puerto Rico faced severe medical-system strain and infrastructure damage. USNS COMFORT departed Virginia on September 29, 2017, arrived in San Juan on October 3, 2017, and worked with Puerto Rico's health authorities and the United States Department of Health and Human Services to provide medical support through an extended response period. The Navy announced the ship's homecoming back to Norfolk on November 21, 2017, after nearly two months on station in Puerto Rico, highlighting the ship's role in sustaining a stabilized medical environment during the recovery phase.

Training and preparedness remained integral even when no crisis loomed. On May 10, 2018, USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk to begin the underway portion of Comfort Exercise 2018, an advanced-phase event designed to test the integration of civilian mariners and Navy medical personnel and validate the ship's readiness for rapid crisis response. Later that year, the ship transitioned from training to operations: USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk on October 10, 2018, for an 11-week medical assistance mission under the Enduring Promise initiative, an engagement framed by regional pressure on health systems caused in part by large-scale cross-border migration. During that deployment, the ship conducted mission visits at Esmeraldas, Ecuador; Paita, Peru; Turbo, Colombia; Riohacha, Colombia; and Trujillo, Honduras, and returned to Norfolk on December 18, 2018.

In 2019, the ship executed a longer, region-wide medical assistance deployment explicitly linked to the humanitarian effects of Venezuela's political and economic instability and the resulting refugee and migrant flows into neighboring states. USNS COMFORT departed Norfolk on June 14, 2019, and the mission plan included working port visits in Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago. The deployment unfolded over the summer and fall, with documented mission activity including a completed medical mission event in Peru on July 14, 2019, followed by later Caribbean engagements - such as operations off Castries, Saint Lucia, on September 25, 2019; off Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, beginning October 3, 2019; arrival at Santo Domingo on October 14, 2019; activity at Kingston, Jamaica, on October 25, 2019; and activity off Port-au-Prince on November 7, 2019 - before USNS COMFORT returned to Norfolk on November 15, 2019, concluding the five-month effort.

During the early phase of the global coronavirus pandemic, USNS COMFORT was again employed domestically, reflecting how the ship can be used as part of defense support to civil authorities in extreme public-health contingencies. The ship departed Norfolk on March 28, 2020, after an interrupted maintenance period, arrived in New York on March 30, 2020, and supported pandemic response operations through April 30, 2020. USNS COMFORT then returned to Norfolk on May 2, 2020, with the Navy emphasizing continued readiness for future tasking once the immediate surge requirement diminished.

The ship's next major overseas humanitarian cycle was Continuing Promise 2022. USNS COMFORT deployed from Norfolk on October 19, 2022, and conducted a sequence of defined mission stops: Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, from October 26 to October 31; Puerto Cortes, Honduras, from November 1 to November 7; Cartagena, Colombia, from November 11 to November 20; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from November 27 to December 6; and Jeremie, Haiti, from December 11 to December 17. USNS COMFORT returned to Norfolk on December 21, 2022, concluding the mission and reverting to its steady-state readiness posture.

In 2025, the ship executed Continuing Promise 2025, again emphasizing partnership-building and direct care in the Caribbean and Central and South America. During this 79-day deployment, USNS COMFORT conducted port visits in Grenada, Panama, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Trinidad and Tobago, before returning to Naval Station Norfolk on August 17, 2025. After that homecoming, the ship resumed its peacetime reduced operating status in Norfolk.

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USNS COMFORT Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by me and shows the COMFORT at her layberth at Baltimore, Md., early in the morning on October 31, 2010.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the COMFORT at her new homeport of Norfolk, Va. The move from Baltimore to Norfolk saves the Navy approx. $2 million a year.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the COMFORT at the Marine Hydraulics Industries (MHI) Ship Repair & Services shipyard in Norfolk, Va., on April 13, 2016.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the COMFORT at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on September 21, 2018.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the COMFORT at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on December 26, 2021.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the COMFORT at the Pinto Island Shipyard, Mobile, Ala., on October 1, 2024.

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