Concept

USS Samaritan

Summary
USS Samaritan (AH-10) was a hospital ship that served with the US Navy in World War II. Prior to that, she served as a US Navy transport ship under the name USS Chaumont (AP-5). USS Chaumont, one of twelve 13,400-ton (displacement) Hog Island Type B (Design 1024) transports laid down in November 1918 as SS Shope for the U.S. Shipping Board, launched in March 1920 at Hog Island, Pennsylvania by the American International Shipbuilding Corporation. In November 1920 the ship was delivered to the Shipping Board and transferred to the War Department on 15 December 1920 with assignment to the U.S. Army Transport Service. Redundant to Army needs, she was transferred “on loan” to the Navy on 3 November 1921 and commissioned on the 22nd, Lieutenant Commander G. H. Emmerson in temporary command. On 1 December 1921, Commander C.L. Arnold assumed command. Permanent transfer to the Navy by Executive order was effective 6 August 1924. Assigned to transport duty, Chaumont sailed the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean throughout the 1920s and 1930s. From her home port at San Francisco, she commenced a career of trans-Pacific troop service that initially consisted of voyages between California and Manila via Honolulu. Two or three voyages in 1925-26 took her to Shanghai instead of Manila, and she continued to stop at Shanghai at least once during most subsequent years. One of her most important contributions, when in the Pacific, was aiding in the collection of meteorological information used by the Weather Map Service of the Asiatic Fleet. She also carried military supplies, Marine expeditionary forces, sailors and their dependents, and occasionally members of congressional committees on inspection tours, calling at ports from Shanghai to Bermuda. In August 1926 she sailed from San Francisco through the Panama Canal to Annapolis. The return trip took her to Norfolk, Virginia, where she was drydocked for routine maintenance, and then to Guantanamo Bay. Such voyages between the East and West Coasts also became near-annual events.
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