ESTESBOG

A HERO’S STORY

By Peter Walker

One morning in 2003 I heard on KUNC that the hospital ship USS Comfort had embarked from the East Coast for the Persian Gulf. I am a student of history. This was by no means the first time a USS Comfort has set sail to offer care and shelter for American service personnel in time of war.

The present USS Comfort  (hull number TAH-20) is the third such ship to bear the proud name. She was converted to a hospital ship from an oil tanker in 1987 and might still be in reserve had she not been activated for the first conflict with Iraq in 1990.

The first Comfort (AH-3) was converted from a liner in 1906 and brought wounded soldiers home from the Western Front during World War I.

In 1943 USS Comfort (II) was built from the keel up as a military hospital ship. At just under 10,000 tons displacement, she was a large ship for her time. Resembling an ocean liner, Comfort (AH-6) was painted white with large red crosses and carried no armament of any kind.

During World War II, USS Comfort was jointly operated with a U.S. Navy crew and Army medical personnel.

I am going to leave the USS Comfort for a few moments to explain why this seemingly benign auxiliary ship means something to me.

I grew up in the little rural town of Poland in southwestern Maine. As a child and teenager, I attended the Congregational church in the village of Poland Corner. Abutting the west side of the church yard was a large, yellow, frame house that belonged to an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Chesley.

About four buildings away is the Poland Town Hall, aside from three surviving Grange Halls the only auditorium in the 1950s for a widely dispersed population of some 1,200 people.

Virtually all of the ceremonies and functions of Poland Community School were held on the stage at the back of the Town Hall. At the back of the stage was an Honor Roll that listed the 250 or so young men from Poland, Maine that served in the Armed Forces in World War II.

There was just one woman on that list. Her name was Frances Chesley. Frances Chesley enlisted as a WAAC nurse. In 1944 and 1945 she served on the USS Comfort.

The Comfort was busy throughout the Pacific in 1944. She treated and evacuated wounded, including liberated POWs, from New Guinea and the Philippines and brought them home to California late in the year.

Early 1945 saw the Comfort in the western Pacific once again, this time treating and evacuating wounded soldiers and Marines from Okinawa in early April. After dropping off a load of patients at Guam, Comfort returned to harm’s way. Again she pulled close in to Okinawa to receive wounded. The operating rooms on Comfort were busy day and night.

Prior to April 23, 1945, Comfort led a charmed existence. Despite her clear markings as a ship of mercy and a noncombatant, she had been attacked by several Kamikaze planes and once by a badly mistaken U.S. pilot. The antiaircraft guns of escort ships successfully fought off the Kamikazes until that fateful Sunday morning when, to the horror of sailors on surrounding escorts, a suicide plane dove straight into Comfort’s aft operating room killing 28 personnel including sailors, wounded GIs, doctors, and 6 WAAC nurses.

Frances Chesley was one of four Poland, Maine citizens to make the ultimate sacrifice in World War II.