Ghost Ship Of The Pacific ‘USS Stewart’ Discovered After 80 Years Off San Francisco

The wreck of a warship that fought for both the U.S. and its adversary Japan in the Second World War has been discovered in exceptionally good condition, given its almost century-old age.

The wreck of the Destroyer USS Stewart was uncovered in August at a depth of 3500 feet underwater in the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, 80 km northwest of San Francisco.

AUVs sent by Ocean Infinity, a marine robotics company, searched the 127 square km area of the seabed in 24 hours and found it. The ship was sunk here in 1946 during a target practice by rockets and shells from U.S. warplanes and a warship.

USS Stewart was ordered to Borneo in 1941 before the U.S. entered the Second World War and functioned as an escort ship with other warships in the first few months of the Pacific War.

However, it was damaged by gunfire from Japanese warships close to Bali in 1942 during the Battle of Badung Strait.

The ship managed to come to Surabaya on Java island but the port was attacked by the Japanese. Hence, it was sunk deliberately by its crew members, who put explosives in the ship’s hull.

The Japanese raised it a year later and made it into their patrol boat until the end of the war in 1945.

It came under U.S. control again when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. The U.S. Navy shortly recommissioned it as DD-224, but it was in bad shape. Hence, it was decommissioned in 1946 and used for target practice.

USS Stewart was called the Ghost Ship of the Pacific and was seen by American pilots behind enemy lines during the Second World War, per a statement by the archaeology company Search, which was also a part of the discovery.

There were other participants too, including the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration or NOAA Maritime Heritage Program and the U.S. Navy.

The mystery was uncovered only after the war ended when the ship was found afloat in the Japanese port city of Kure, close to Hiroshima.

The wreck has been found well-preserved even though it was underwater for eight decades and gives a glimpse of 20th-century naval architecture and technologies.

Live Science, Times of India