Ocean Infinity Finds Wreck of WWII Warship Captured By Japan

Subsea search company Ocean Infinity has discovered the wreck of the well-known "Ghost Ship of the Pacific," a U.S. Navy destroyer that was captured by Japanese forces in WWII. 

When Japan attacked the United States in December 1941, the destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224) was deployed to Indonesia, where Japanese forces were advancing. She engaged Japanese Navy vessels several times, and in a nighttime battle in February 1942, she received a crippling blow in her steering compartment. She was drydocked in Surabaya, but suffered further damage when she fell off the keel blocks and could not be repaired in time to prevent her capture by Japanese forces. Stewart's crew set off demolition charges inside, and the floating dock was scuttled underneath her, sending her to the bottom. 

Courtesy USN

USS Stewart remained underwater until February 1943, when the Japanese Navy raised her and put her in drydock for repair. She entered Japanese service as an escort, renamed Patrol Boat 102. Though she never directly engaged U.S. forces herself, she was spotted several times by American pilots, who were surprised to spot a distinctively American warship in Japanese-held areas. She retreated with Japanese forces as the war wore on, and she was damaged in a U.S. Army bombing run in Mokpo, Korea in April 1945. The Japanese Navy transferred her to Kure in the Japanese home islands for layup, where she was found by U.S. troops after the surrender of Japan. 

DD-224 was recommissioned into U.S. Navy service after the war, but not for long. After an engine failure, she was towed to California, and in May 1946 she was sunk for target practice off San Francisco. 

USS Stewart going down after multiple hits (USN)

The Navy did not record the exact position of the sinking, and the destroyer was lost to history for nearly 80 years. The location of the wreck site was believed to be somewhere within the modern-day boundaries of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and Russ Matthews, president of the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, thought he knew where it might be. Using records from the tug that towed DDG-224 to her final resting place, he narrowed the search area to about 40 square nautical miles, he told the New York Times. 

Matthews didn't have the resources to mount an expedition and sweep the area with sonar, but he had the good fortune to meet with an executive from deep ocean search company Ocean Infinity, which specializes in UUV sonar surveys. Ocean Infinity wanted to test a three-robot simultaneous survey method, and agreed to use the opportunity to search for the Stewart. Within hours of beginning the search, the company's team found DD-224 sitting intact on the seabed. 

All images courtesy Ocean Infinity

"The USS Stewart represents a unique opportunity to study a well-preserved example of early twentieth-century destroyer design. Its story, from US Navy service to Japanese capture and back again, makes it a powerful symbol of the Pacific War's complexity," said SEARCH Inc.'s Dr. James Delgado, a member of the expedition team.