SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—Live Science reports that the wreckage of the destroyer USS Stewart has been found under 3,500 feet of water in the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary by a team of researchers from the marine robotics company Ocean Infinity; Search, an archaeology company; the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation; the Maritime Heritage Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and the U.S. Navy. Originally designated DD-224, the destroyer was sent to Borneo shortly before the United State entered World War II. In February 1942, DD-224 was damaged during the Battle of Badung Strait, and was eventually scuttled by its crew while in port on the Indonesian island of Java. The Japanese later raised the ship and used it as a patrol boat until the end of the war in 1945. The United States reclaimed the vessel and recommissioned it as DD-224, but found that it was in poor condition and decommissioned it in 1946. The Stewart was then sunk by rockets fired by U.S. airplanes and shells launched by a U.S. warship during target practice. “The USS Stewart represents a unique opportunity to study a well-preserved example of early-twentieth-century destroyer design,” said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of Search. “Its story, from U.S. Navy service to Japanese capture and back again, makes it a powerful symbol of the Pacific War’s complexity,” he added. For more, go to “Wrecks of the Pacific Theater.”
