USS Solace (AH-2)
Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1 July 1899.
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Solace |
| Builder: | Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia |
| Acquired: | 7 April 1898 |
| Commissioned: | 14 April 1898 |
| Decommissioned: | 12 October 1905 |
| Recommissioned: | 3 June 1908 |
| Decommissioned: | 14 April 1909 |
| Recommissioned: | 20 November 1909 |
| Decommissioned: | 20 July 1921 |
| Struck: | 6 August 1930 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 6 November 1930 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Hospital ship |
| Displacement: | 5,700 long tons (5,791 t) |
| Length: | 377 ft (115 m) |
| Beam: | 44 ft (13 m) |
| Draft: | 22 ft (6.7 m) |
| Speed: | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement: | 270 |
| Armament: | None |
The first USS Solace (AH-2) was a hospital ship in the United States Navy.
Solace was built in 1896 and 1897 by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia, and was operated as the SS Creole by the Cromwell Steamship Lines. The ship was acquired by the United States Navy on 7 April 1898, renamed Solace, and converted into a hospital ship. She was the first Navy ship to fly the Geneva Red Cross flag. Solace was commissioned on 14 April 1898, Comdr. Andrew Dunlap in command.
The hospital ship was in constant service during the Spanish–American War, returning wounded and ill servicemen from Cuba to Norfolk, New York, and Boston. In February 1899, she sailed for Europe, and she visited ports there, in the Near East, the Far East, and Hawaii, before arriving at Mare Island, California, on 27 May, for an overhaul. She returned to sea on 1 July 1899 and, until October 1905, carried mail, passengers, and provisions from San Francisco to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippine Islands, China, and Japan. Solace was placed out of commission at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 12 October 1905.
Recommissioned on 3 June 1908, Solace voyaged to the Fiji Islands; Samoa; and Magdalena Bay, Mexico, before transiting the Panama Canal, calling at Caribbean ports, and steaming to Charleston, South Carolina, Solace was decommissioned there on 14 April 1909.
Recommissioned again on 20 November 1909, Solace joined the Atlantic Fleet on 6 December 1909 and served as a hospital ship at ports along the eastern seaboard of the United States from Newport, Rhode Island, to Key West, Florida. She was under the command of Luther Lochman von Wedekind. She also operated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; in the Panama Canal Zone; and at other ports in the Caribbean. This routine was broken in October and November 1913 by a five-week voyage to France.
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