U.S. Navy transfer of Marine PFC Herbert E. Watts, polio victim in iron lung, from the hospital ship USS Repose docked in Tsingtao, China

Tsingtao, China, 1947.

1947 ORIGINAL PHOTOS REVEAL CHALLENGES IN TRANSPORTING A US MARINE IN IRON LUNG FROM CHINA TO AMERICA.

Archive of photographs documenting U.S. Navy transfer of marine PFC Herbert E. Watts, polio victim in an iron lung, from the hospital ship USS Repose docked in Tsingtao, China, 1947. Included are (3) official 4 X 5-inch sepia-toned photographs, showing Watts in the iron lung prior to transfer from the ship; 2 prints with typescript paper annotations affixed to verso marked "Official U.S. Navy PHOTO", all 3 prints inscribed, "November 1947"; TOGETHER WITH (8) 2 ¾ X 4 ¾-inch photographs with deckled edges, 5 of which are inscribed verso, "USS Repose/ October 1947" including one marked, "Watts", showing the transfer of the patient to a truck on the dock. The month inscribed in one set of prints is presumably incorrect, as all images appear to portray the same event. The remaining 3 prints are inscribed, "Tsingtao, China, January 1948, one of which shows Pier 2 in the snow, and the other 2 showing the air strip. ADDITIONAL (3) 3 ¼ X 4 ½-inch prints marked as follows, "Christmas Day, Tsingtao, China, 1947", "Air Strip, Tsingtao, China, 1948", and "General Mann [troop transport ship], Tsingtao, China, July 1948". All photographs are unmounted and in good condition with light scuffs and occasional edge bumps. This grouping of 14 photographs mostly depicts private, first class, Herbert E. Watts, confined to an iron lung, being hoisted from the deck of a hospital ship to an awaiting truck which would take him to a naval air transport service plane for relocation stateside. Known as "infantile paralysis" at the time and prior to Dr. Jonas Salk's development of a polio vaccine in the 1950s, Watts contracted the disease while stationed in China in Charlie Company, Third Marines. He required the negative pressure ventilator (iron lung) for survival. Watts was born in Alabama in 1929 and died in 1957 at the age of 28. USS REPOSE. With a bed capacity of 750 and a complement of 564, the hospital ship USS Repose departed Norfolk on July 8, 1945 for the Pacific. Serving as a casualty transport from various ports in the Pacific Ocean, the Repose also served as a base hospital ship in Shanghai and later Tsingtao (now known as Qingdao), China, supporting the occupation forces in northern China. The Repose remained in Asian waters, with an occasional return trip to the States until July 1949. After World War II, the Chinese Nationalist Party allowed Qingdao to serve as the headquarters of the Western Pacific Fleet of the US Navy from 1945 through 1948. In 1949, the Red Army entered Qingdao and the city and province have been under control of the People's Republic of China since that time.