In September 1914 the American Red Cross raised a group of doctors and nurses, all volunteers,  to go to Europe and provide medical care. Assistance was offered to all of the combatants and the Hamburg-American Line offered the use of their interned passenger liner S.S. Hamburg as transport. Re-painted as a hospital ship and renamed the S.S. Red Cross , it sailed that fall. Among the early members of the mission were Dr. Richard Derby and his wife, Ethel Roosevelt, the younger daughter of the former President. Click on this hyperlink to read an excellent article about the nurses in the Mercy Mission.

James (“Jim”) Patton BS BA MPA is a retired state official from Shawnee, Kansas and a frequent contributor to several WW1 e-publications, including "Roads to the Great War," "St. Mihiel Tripwire," "Over the Top" and "Medicine in the First World War." He has spent many hours walking the WW1 battlefields, and is also an authority on British regiments and a collector of their badges. An Army Engineer during the Vietnam War, he does work for the US World War 1 Centennial Commission and is affiliated with the WW1 Historical Association, the Western Front Association, the Salonika Campaign Society and the Gallipoli Association.