Historic California Posts, Camps, Stations
and Airfields
Naval Convalescent Hospital, Santa
Cruz
(Naval Special Hospital, Santa
Cruz)
Entrance to the Naval
Convalescent Hospital Santa Cruz
History by
the Society for the History of Navy Medicine
12th Naval District medical authorities
sought facilities that were “especially desirable …
for convalescents and … also well suited for recreational
purposes”. The Santa Cruz resort hotel Casa Del Rey fit
the ticket, and could be made ready to receive 500 patients within
2 weeks of lease signing.
Retired Medical Corps Captain Frederick
E Porter was detailed to command the hospital, which he commissioned
on 9 March 1943. The hospital experienced its busiest year in
1944, when 8099 patients were received. In all, more than 18,000
men received convalescent services before the hospital was decommissioned
1 April 1946.(3 The old hotel then went on to serve as senior
citizen housing in its later years. It sustained serious damage
in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It has since been demolished.
Hospital Annex
History
by Thomas L. Snyder
In Of Ships & Surgeons Notes on
the History of Naval Medicine Sponsored by the Society for the
History of Navy Medicine The U. S. Navy’s “Phantom”
World War II Hospitals in California, Part II In Part 1 of
this series, I discussed the Navy’s four “temporary”
new constructions in northern California, which were part of
Navy Surgeon General Ross McIntire’s program to provide
hospital care for the casualties of war. But even these new beds
were not enough to supply the needs for an expected million casualties
if the expected invasion of the Japanese home islands took place.
War time hospitalization came under the oversight of the Federal
Board of Hospitalization, an independent executive agency established
in 1921 to coordinate the hospital programs of the military services,
the public health service, Veterans Administration and Indian
Health Service in order to avoid duplication of services and
overbuilding of facilities.(1)
Every proposal for new Navy beds went
through this body, and there were inevitable bureaucratic delays
in getting beds approved. In January 1943, the 12th Naval District
Medical Officer wrote We will undoubtedly need a number of places
for convalescents. If possible, I think M & S should get
direct appropriations from Congress to take over hotels, call
them hospitals, leave the entire management and staff with the
exceptions of bell-boys, chambermaids, etc. as is. We to pay
the flat rate per man per day. This will be cheaper and the contracts
can be made much more easily and quickly.(2)
U. S. Naval Convalescent Hospital, Santa
Cruz, California 12th Naval District medical authorities sought
facilities that were “especially desirable … for convalescents
and … also well suited for recreational purposes”.
The Santa Cruz resort hotel Casa Del Rey fit the ticket, and
could be made ready to receive 500 patients within 2 weeks of
lease signing. Retired Medical Corps Captain Frederick E Porter
was detailed to command the hospital, which he commissioned on
9 March 1943. The hospital experienced its busiest year in 1944,
when 8099 patients were received. In all, more than 18,000 men
received convalescent services before the hospital was decommissioned
1 April 1946.(3)
The old hotel then went on to serve as
senior citizen housing in its later years. It sustained serious
damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It has since been
demolished.
Footnotes:
(1) United States Government Manual, 1945,
First Edition, “Federal Board of Hospitalization”,
found at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ATO/USGM/FBH.html, accessed
23 April 2011. This appears to be a direct transcription of the
titled government document, transcribed and formatted for HTML
by Patrick Clancy of the Hyperwar Foundation.
(2) National Archives and Records Administration,
College Park, MD (“Archives II”), Record Group 52,
Records of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Headquarters Records,
Correspondence 1842-1945, Entry 15B, File NH70-7 – 7/A1-1,
letter Inspector of Medical Activities, Pacific Coast, to assistant
chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, RADM Luther Sheldon at
the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 29 January 1943.
(3) Administrative History of U. S. Naval
Special Hospital, Santa Cruz, California, 30 June 1946. This
file is in the “Santa Cruz” folder in the History Library
at the U S Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (“BuMed”),
2300 E Street, NW, Washington, DC.
