Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 116 Part 4.djvu/729

 CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—OCT. 11, 2002 116 STAT. 3157 Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act of 2000, to monitor the Nation's progress toward the elimination of health care disparities; and (6) the information gained from research about factors associated with health care utilization and access, patient attitudes toward health services, and risk and protective behaviors that affect health and illness, should be disseminated to all health care professionals so that they may better communicate with all patients, regardless of race or ethnicity, without bias or prejudice. Agreed to October 3, 2002. S.S. HENRY BACON'S OFFICERS AND CREW— Oct. ii, 2002 RECOGNITION [H. Con. Res. 411] Whereas during World War II the United States Liberty ship S.S. HENRY BACON was assigned the task of conveying war materials and supplies to the beleaguered Russian nation via the dangerous Arctic Ocean passage (referred to as the Murmansk Run) from Iceland or Scotland to Murmansk in northern Russia, and faithfully fulfilled her mission; Whereas in early 1945 the British navy, having rescued a number of Norwegian civilians from occupied Norway and transported them to Murmansk, distributed them among the HENRY BACON and certain other merchant ships for transportation to England, with 19 of such refugees being assigned to the HENRY BACON; Whereas a convoy carrying those refugees, designated as Convoy RA 64 and consisting of 35 ships and naval escorts, departed Murmansk on February 17, 1945, amid one of the worst storms ever registered in the Arctic Ocean; Whereas the HENRY BACON, with a full crew and refugees on board, sailing as part of that convoy, suffered damage from the force of the storms and from internal mechanical problems; Whereas the HENRY BACON, while suffering from a loss of steering capacity, lost her place in the convoy and became a stray, unable to communicate with the convoy and required to maintain radio silence; Whereas the HENRY BACON was left to her own devices and was in such dire straits that engine room workers used a sledgehammer and wedge to physically turn the ship; Whereas on February 23, 1945, the HENRY BACON, alone in the freezing sea some 50 miles from the convoy, came under attack by 23 Junker JU-88 torpedo bombers of the German Luftwaffe; Whereas armed with only the small but formidable antiaircraft battery with which such merchantmen were equipped, the United States Navy Armed Guard on board the ship and the ship's merchant sailors fought gallantly against the oncoming torpedo bombers; Whereas although mortally wounded after a German pilot succeeded in scoring a hit with a torpedo to the ship, the HENRY BACON

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