The wreck of a long lost United States Navy destroyer – once dubbed ‘the ghost ship of the Pacific’ – has finally been found.
USS Stewart (DD-224) was a Clemson-class destroyer that, incredibly, served in both the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War.
The battleship was scuttled by the Americans after she suffered severe battle damage.
However, unbeknownst to the Allied forces, the Imperial Japanese Navy salvaged the USS Stewart, repaired her hull and recommissioned her as Patrol Boat No. 102 (PB-102).
She eventually met a watery grave – which has now been rediscovered by seabed survey using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).
The USS Stewart – named after Charles Stewart, a Rear Admiral who commanded a number of warships in the early 1800s – was built in 1919. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, USS Stewart patroled the Philippine Islands and Chinese waters as part of the Asiatic Fleet.
The ship was part of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command when, in 1942, she was severely damaged during the Battle of Badung Strait, near Bali, in what is now Indonesia. USS Stewart was initially placed in a floating drydock at Surabaya for repairs.
However, relentless air attacks – and the risk of her being captured by the enemy – forced US naval authorities to scuttle both the battleship and drydock.
However, she was salvaged, repaired and put back into to service by the enemy. Allied naval intelligence was initially baffled when it received reports of an American warship flying the ‘Rising Sun’ ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
This led to USS Stewart being dubbed the ‘Ghost ship of the Pacific’. She was recaptured by American forces in 1945 and recommissioned into the US Navy as DD-224.
She then finally returned to US waters – only to be sunk by US fighter planes. USS Stewart’s sad fate saw her used for target practice by Navy F6F Hellcat fighters and USS PC-799.
She was sunk off the coast of California – where she has now been rediscovered. Researchers from SEARCH, Ocean Infinity, the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), found the wreck site using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).
A SEARCH spokesperson said: “These state-of-the-art unmanned submersibles, each equipped with high-resolution synthetic aperture sonar (HiSAS) and multibeam echosounder systems, were programmed to simultaneously conduct an extensive and methodical scan of the seafloor that lasted 24 hours.
“When the data was retrieved, it revealed the stunning and unmistakable image of a sunken ship 3,500 feet below the surface.”
A closer inspection of the wreckage has shown that the USS Stewart is still largely intact resting nearly upright on the seafloor. SEARCH told HeritageDaily that this level of preservation is exceptional for a vessel of its age.
It is, potentially, the best-preserved example of a US Navy “fourstacker” destroyer in existence.