[Photo Album]: World War II Hospital Ship USAHA Louis A. Milne

Quarto measuring 12" x 9". Comb-bound blue leatherette over stiff paper boards with "Aloha Hawaii" stamped in gilt on the front cover. Contains 182 sepia-toned or black and white silver gelatin photographs measuring between 2" x 3" and 4" x 6", with captions. Additionally included are 43 commercial photographs and pictorial postcards. Very good album with rubbing and edgewear with near fine photographs. A photo album compiled by Daniel J. Corcoran while serving aboard the USAHS *Louis A. Milne*, a World War II hospital ship. Many of the images seen here depict the crew’s time in Hawaii during a stop for repairs in the summer of 1945 before continuing to The Philippines. The inside of the front cover features a postcard of the ship and the names of all its ports of call surrounding it, including Corregidor, Bataan, Manila, South Hampton, Cherbourg, Cuba, Azores, Panama, and Hawaii, among others. Following this the images show the ship and members of the crew both ashore and afloat while traversing the Panama Canal and in port at Honolulu. Most are captioned and Corcoran has identified many of his fellow crewmembers. One photo reads, "Bill Kochan giving the canal the once over." Once the ship was repaired it continued on to the Philippines and began to shuttle wounded from the Pacific Theater to hospitals in Honolulu, Oakland, San Pedro, and eventually Yokiska, Japan. Additional ephemera includes orders promoting Corcoran from Private First Class to Technician 5th Grade (the equivalent or a corporal), a liberty pass, a ration card, and a newspaper photo of the ship immediately before its commissioning. In 1944, the Army purchased an inter-coastal merchant steamer, the S.S. *Lewis A. Luckenbach*, and began converting the vessel into a 1,000 bed hospital ship, the largest hospital ship of its time. It was commissioned in March of 1945, and immediately began shuttling patients from hospitals in the European Theater to hospitals (Primarily Stark General Hospital) in Charleston, South Carolina. In August of 1945 it was transferred to the Pacific and arrived in Pearl Harbor on September 22nd where the ship underwent some minor repairs for nine days. The photos featured here show the crew before, during, and after the nine day stop in Hawaii. An interesting and unique collection of photographs following the crew of a horpial ship during World War II.…