'Ghost ship of the Pacific' found in amazing state off California coast
After nearly 80 years, researchers have finally located the sunken wreckage of a World War II-era Navy destroyer off the coast of Northern California.
Covered in mud and sea life, but still remarkably intact, the USS Stewart was discovered using sonar technology and aquatic robots that were dropped from a ship about 70 miles north of San Francisco in the waters of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary . The ship's storied past — which includes being damaged in combat, abandoned, then revamped and used again by the Imperial Japanese Navy before being retaken by the U.S. and ceremonially "buried" at sea — earned it the nickname "the ghost ship of the Pacific."
Jim Delgado, senior vice president at maritime archaeology firm SEARCH Inc., was one of the mission's lead archaeologists. He's had the Stewart on his mind for decades.
"With all the wrecks that I've been involved with, each and every time that we see one of these on the bottom and it goes from being something that's in an historic photograph or in a book to actually being a tangible shipwreck that you're looking at on the bottom — that's a pretty powerful moment," Delgado said. "It makes history come alive."
Until recently, the Stewart's exact location was hidden away in archived logbooks after the U.S. Navy used it as target practice prior to sinking it in 1946. It wasn't the first time the ship had sunk: In 1942, it was abandoned and submerged after being damaged during a battle with the Japanese Navy in the South Pacific. It was then raised by the Japanese Navy, repaired and renamed Patrol Boat No. 102.
Eventually, American pilots began reporting sightings of an American destroyer behind enemy lines.
"But it looked different," Delgado said. "It had more Japanese characteristics. It was a hybrid. So it became known as the ghost ship of the Pacific, because they figured out, 'Oh my god, it's the old Stewart.'"
After it was recovered by American forces, the Stewart was recommissioned into a U.S. ship and towed back to waters near San Francisco, where its "burial" took place in 1946.
"Still bearing blunt battle scars and marks of her Japanese servitude — a slanted forestack marked with Japanese characters and a tripod foremast, the Stewart is coming home for decomissioning and relegation to an undisclosed maritime graveyard," read an in the Californian from the day it was laid to rest.
Last month was the first time it had been seen since then.
On Aug. 1, crews with marine technology firm Ocean Infinity dropped three autonomous robotic vehicles into the water where the ship sunk. The robots spent several hours surveying a large patch of the seabed before data from their voyage was processed, revealing "the unmistakable shape of what sure looked like a destroyer down there," Delgado said.
Delagado and his colleagues viewed the discovery remotely from their own home offices instead of a traditional command center. He said that while he's enjoyed doing work in vessels like submersibles, he prefers remote methods of deep-sea discovery.
"I can sit at home and have a cup of coffee and communicate with my colleagues around the world," he said. "I've got plenty of room to take my notes and pull a book off the shelf when I need to, and my wife doesn't have to worry about stuff getting stuck or running out of power."
The success of the mission, he said, is evidence of the advancements made in underwater robotic technology in recent years.
"It demonstrates that change has happened," Delgado said. "And it's been a quiet thing for those of us who work in the area, whether we're archaeologists, marine biologists, coastal mappers. Technology like this, as it has developed, makes it possible to make these discoveries."
