NEW YORK (USTCNS) --- Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort returned to her Baltimore, Md. layberth from three weeks in New York City providing logistics support to disaster relief workers.

Comfort was activated the afternoon of Sept. 11 in response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and sailed the next afternoon to serve as a 250-bed hospital facility at Pier 92 in midtown Manhattan.

Comfort arrived at about 3 a.m. Sept. 14 at Naval Weapons Station, Earle, N.J., to load additional supplies and Navy medical personnel. While there, the ship was informed that the crew's mission had changed; Comfort would now be providing logistics services to disaster relief workers, some of whom had been napping briefly on the street and then returning to the smoking rubble of Ground Zero to search for survivors. Comfort quickly off-loaded nearly 450 Navy medical personnel and sailed to New York City with about 300 Navy medical personnel and 61 civilian mariners still aboard.

The ship arrived at Pier 92 in Manhattan at about 8:30 p.m. Friday evening ready to serve the relief workers. That evening, a small number of relief workers arrived aboard the ship. As word about the ship spread, more workers began arriving over the next few days.

By the time Comfort sailed Oct. 1 to return to Baltimore, the ship had served 17,000 meals to New York City police and firefighters, National Guardsmen, New York State Militia and volunteer relief workers from around the country and the world. The ship had also provided berthing for 2,300 guests and done 4,400 pounds of laundry.

The ship's clinic had seen 561 guests for cuts, respiratory ailments, fractures and other minor injuries, and Comfort's team of Navy psychology personnel had provided 500 mental health consultations to relief workers. Comfort also hosted a group of volunteer New York area massage therapists who gave 1,359 medical massages to ship guests.

Just prior to the ship's departure Oct. 1, New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani spoke over the ship's loudspeaker on behalf of a grateful New York City to thank the Comfort team for all their support.

As Comfort departed, the Navy medical personnel and the Marine Corps security force aboard manned the rails wearing NYPD and NYFD baseball caps as Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" played over the ship's loudspeaker. Onlookers on the pier cheered and waved as harbor tugs maneuvered the ship into the Hudson River, and Comfort began her return trip to Baltimore proud to have assisted New York City during the city's time of need.

(FROM MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)