as those from task forces returning from operations against the Japanese home islands. She departed Ulithi 26 March and entered Apra Harbor, Guam the following day, transferring 184 patients ashore in preparation for the Okinawa campaign. Japanese bombers attacked Relief on 2 April. One bomb fell several yards wide of the ship, but the only damage was temporary loss of suction in a lube oil pump. A barrage of antiaircraft fire from destroyer drove off the attackers. Relief anchored off the Okinawa invasion beach by day and stood out to sea each night, illuminated "like a Christmas tree." As massive suicide aerial raids became common at night, the retirement plan was abandoned 9 April and the hospital ships remained in the anchorage area, taking advantage of the cover of smoke screens and turning off their illumination. On the afternoon of 10 April Relief steamed for Saipan with 556 battle casualties. She then made a quick run to the fleet base at Ulithi for stores and diesel oil, thence steamed back to Okinawa, arriving 22 April. After delivering a complete field hospital unit, she departed 26 April with 613 casualties, arriving Tinian Harbor the 30th. In four similar missions of mercy, she evacuated nearly 2,000 wounded fighting men from Okinawa to hospital facilities at Guam and Saipan. Relief departed Saipan 7 July and touched at Guam en route San Pedro Bay, Leyte, the Philippines. She served as a Fleet Base Hospital in the Philippines for the remainder of the war. She departed Subic Bay 28 August, steaming via Okinawa for Dairen, Manchuria. Her mission was the recovery of Allied prisoners of war from the former Japanese military prison camp at Mukden, Manchuria. As she passed through the East China and Yellow Seas, and swept out ahead to destroy any mines that might be sighted. Appearing before Dairen Kou 8 September 1945, Relief gained no sight of either the tugs or the pilots which the Russians had promised. Entering the unfamiliar harbor, she moored unassisted to Pier No. 2. Dairen was under Russian military control, and shore leave was not permitted, although the Russians magnanimously invited the officers ashore on guided tours. The only word of the prisoners was that they were en route by rail from Mukden, some 200 miles (300 km) north of Dairen. The morning of 11 September, a navy doctor and a marine sergeant reported on board from