Mercy In Mobile Bay

The US Navy hospital ship Mercy arrives at the port of Mobile the morning of AUG 03 2025. Moving at 14 mph, the 894 foot by 105 foot Mercy finishes a nineteen day voyage that began JUL 16th from its homeport of San Diego, CA.

Operated by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, Mercy, along with the US Navy ship Comfort, is designed to provide on-site emergency medical care for American military forces, but is also used for disaster relief and other humanitarian needs. Each ship contains twelve well equipped operating rooms and 1,000 beds. Comfort, which is stationed at Norfolk, VA, previously spent time undergoing an overhaul and upgrades at Alabama Shipyard. Mercy will spend about a year at the same facility, receiving maintenance. Both ships were originally supertankers built in the 1970s before the Navy converted them into hospital ships in the mid 1980s.

The third Navy ship to carry the name, Mercy served in Operation Desert Shield and provided support to multinational allied forces in numerous partnership exercises. In 2004, Navy Vice Admiral Michael L. Cowan said Comfort and Mercy should both be retired, saying, “They’re wonderful ships, but they’re dinosaurs.” New ships, though, are on the horizon. Mobile’s Austal USA has won a contract worth $867 million to build a fleet of three new EMS, or Expeditionary Medical Ships. Compared to their older counterparts, the new ships will be smaller, faster, and capable of accessing shallow ports.

Photo shot from Point Clear, roughly eight miles away…