The ‘Ghost Ship of the Pacific,’ has been rediscovered using underwater drones
An autonomous fleet of drones overseen by Ocean Infinity rediscovered USS Stewart – the only US Navy destroyer captured by Japanese forces in World War II. Three orange underwater robots measuring 20 feet long, operated by the marine robotics firm, found the historic vessel as they mapped the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the California coast. The 314-foot long ship, also known as the Ghost Ship of the Pacific, has been resting 3,500 feet beneath the ocean’s level for the past 78-years. It appears to be almost intact and upright. Credit: Ocean Infinity
The USS Stewart is a unique wreck in US maritime history. It has been sought after for decades. After being sunk, the destroyer was raised, repaired, and used to escort a convoy by Japanese forces. Allied pilots reported seeing what looked like one of their ships in enemy territory during the second life of the Stewart, earning it its nickname “Ghost Ship”. Credit: Ocean Infinity
The US Navy recovered the Stewart after Japan surrendered and planned to tow it to its original location. The engines failed near Guam and the US fleet was forced to tow the ship the remainder of its journey. The “Ghost Ship of the Pacific”, once back in the US was buried at sea by the US Navy on May 24, 1945. It took approximately 2 hours of firing to sink the ship for good. The exact coordinates for its location have been lost over the years. Credit: US Navy / Ocean Infinity
Numerous efforts were made to locate the USS Stewart in the past, but it was reported that the August search success came almost by accident. Ocean Infinity had originally planned to test multiple autonomous underwater robots at the same time. They previously used their drones to rediscover USS Nevada and Endurance. The drones found the Stewart in just a few hours, compared to the weeks it usually takes to map out 37-square-nautical miles of ocean floor. While it usually takes weeks to map out 37-square-nautical-miles of ocean floor, the drones managed to find the Stewart in a few hours.
“We’re in the midst of, I think, a radical change in ocean discovery,” Jim Delgado, senior vice president of SEARCH, Inc, a maritime archeology firm also involved in the project, told The New York Times on Tuesday.
Aside from long-lost shipwrecks, autonomous mapping drones can be used to identify promising ocean floor space for the construction of wind farms, as well as chart routes for underwater cabling.
