USS Mercy (AH-4)

USS Mercy (AH-4) in port
History
Ward Line
Name	SS Saratoga
Owner	Ward Line
Builder	William Cramp & Sons Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Launched	March 1907
In service	before October 1907[1]
Fate	Requisitioned by War Department, 23 May 1917
Out of service	2 June 1917[2]
History
United States Army
Name	USAT Saratoga
In service	2 June 1917
Out of service	27 September 1917
Fate	Sold to U.S. Navy
United States Navy
Name	USS Mercy
Acquired	27 September 1917
Renamed	Mercy, 30 October 1917
Commissioned	24 January 1918
Decommissioned	23 March 1934
Stricken	20 April 1938
Fate	Sold for scrap, 16 March 1939
General characteristics
Displacement	9,450 tons
Length	429 ft 10 in (131.01 m)
Beam	50 ft 2 in (15.29 m)
Draft	23 ft 4 in (7.11 m)
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Capacity	221 patients
Complement	420
Armament	None

USS Mercy (ID-1305/AH-4) was a hospital ship in the United States Navy during World War I. She was the first U.S. Navy ship of that name. The ship was previously known as SS Saratoga, a steamer for the Ward Line on the New York to Havana route, and considered the fastest steamship in coastal trade.^[3] Before being purchased by the Navy, the ship was briefly employed as United States Army transport ship USAT Saratoga, a career that ended after a collision off Staten Island, New York.^[3]

In her Navy career, Mercy made four transatlantic round trips to France, bringing home almost 2,000 wounded men. After the end of World War I, the ship was based in Philadelphia, and briefly laid up there in 1924. The ship was decommissioned in 1934 and lent to the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, struck in 1938, and scrapped in 1939.