While the scuttling of the Vichy French fleet at Toulon in 1942, and the self-destruction of the Royal Danish Navy at its docks in Copenhagen in 1943 to keep them out of German hands are well-remembered and often spoken about in maritime lore, the Dutch wrecking crew on Java gets little more than a footnote.
The 120 assorted Allied vessels on Java at Soerabaja, Tanjon Priok, at Tjilatjap that were too broken, under-armed, or small to break through the Japanese blockade after the collapse of the ABDA Command and make it 1,200 miles across dangerous waters to Australia got the wrecking ball on 2 March 1942.
Marine docks in Soerabaja. The photo was taken from the warehouse towards the East. The start of the destruction was 11:30 am on 2 March 1942. The 3,000-ton dry dock with the destroyer Hr.Ms. Banckert is seen sinking. The dock had been torpedoed by Hr.Ms. K XVIII before the submarine was able to submerge and make for Perth. On the right is the 227-ton tug/coastal minelayer Hr.Ms. Soemenep.
One of these scuttled was the abandoned old four-piper Clemson-class destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224).
She had been severely damaged at Badung Strait, only making it to Soerabaja with her engine room still somehow operating while submerged.
Written off, her crew was evacuated to Australia on 22 February and the ship, already stricken from the Navy List, was left to the Dutch to scuttle.
USS Stewart (DD-224) steaming at high speed, circa the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 61898
Ex-Stewart was salvaged by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and entered service as Patrol Boat No. 102 in 1943, rearmed with a variety of Dutch and Japanese weapons and her funnels re-trunked into a more Japanese fashion.
Found at Kure after the war, she was taken over by a U.S. Navy prize crew in October 1945 and steamed under her own power (making 20 knots no less!) across the Pacific to Oakland.
Her old hull number was repainted and a Japanese meatball was placed on her superstructure, she was sunk by the Navy in deep water in May 1946.
Ex-USS Stewart (DD-224) is seen under attack while being sunk as a target on 24 May 1946. Airplanes seen include an F4U Corsair in the lead, followed by two F6F Hellcats, and have likely been added via composites. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-702830.
Well, it seems ex-Stewart/PB102 has been found some 3,500 feet down off the coast of Northern California by a trio of deep water HUGIN 6000 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and side scan sonar.
And she still looks like a four-piper in profile.
High-resolution synthetic aperture sonar image of the former USS Stewart (DD-224), a four-piper ship resting on the seafloor of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Source: Ocean Infinity. Aug. 1, 2024
While livestreaming remotely operated vehicle (ROV) footage of the wreck, Air/Sea Heritage Foundation President and Co-Founder, Russ Matthews, recalled reading in the historical record about a touching tribute from the sailors who brought the Stewart home. The sailors took to calling their charge “RAMP-224,” which is a combination of the vessel’s navy hull number and a period slang term for returning prisoners of war or Recovered Allied Military Personnel. “It’s clear they thought of Stewart more like a shipmate than a ship,” Matthews said, “and I know I speak for the entire expedition team when I say that we’re all very satisfied to have helped honor the legacy and memory of those veterans once again.” SEARCH’s Dr. James Delgado added, “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.”