Ocean Oddities: Missing Ship Mystery Solved
After being lost at sea for nearly a century, the USS Conestoga is finally found
- Published:March 30, 2016
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Ninety five years ago, on Good Friday, March 25th, 1921, the USS Conestoga and her 56 man crew departed the San Fransisco Bay via the Golden Gate en route to Hawaii. As the newly refurbished, 170' ocean-going tug steamed through that narrow strait which connects San Fransisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, the ship did not pass under any bridge since the Golden Gate Bridge would not be built for another 16 years. Once clear of the strait, the ship started to encounter high winds and large waves as she entered the Gulf of the Farallones. In those rising seas, the captain initially steered on a WSW heading that would take the Conestoga and the coal barge she was towing to the Territory of Hawaii, about 2,400 miles away.
Like the captain, most of the men on board had been born and raised far from the ocean and they joined the Navy to "see the world." For the younger sailors, that adventure had now begun in earnest, and in heavy seas, as they embarked on their first voyage to a distant, exotic island. It was a destination they would never reach.
When over a month had passed, and the Conestoga did not arrive at Pearl Harbor on schedule, the Navy launched one of the most extensive search and rescue missions of the 20th century. Rivaled only by the attempt to find Amelia Earhart when her plane disappeared over the central Pacific in 1937, the endeavor to locate Conestoga involved 60 ships and dozens of airplanes, covering 300,000 square miles. The search area was centered around Hawaii, due to one possible brief sighting of the ship and one garbled radio signal that might have come from the tug. No verifiable trace of the vessel was ever found. In June 1921, the Navy declared the Conestoga lost, along with all 56 souls onboard. The fate of the missing ship would remain a mystery for the rest of the century.
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!
The Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary encompasses 3,295 square miles of ocean just north and west of San Francisco Bay. Besides being one of the most biologically productive parts of the planet, and home to the majority of California's great whites, the sanctuary is also the graveyard of more than 300 shipwrecks.
During a sonar survey of the sanctuary in 2009, the image of a previously undetected wreck was observed in about 200 feet of water, approximately 30 miles off San Fransisco. The effort to identify the unknown ship took six years and several dives of remotely controlled submersible robots, along with countless hours of researching maritime records for any relevant clues to the sunken ship's identity. Positively identifying a shipwreck that's been overgrown with decades of marine growth is not easy. The task is made even more difficult when reports made at the time of the vessel's disappearance had missed its actual location by thousands of miles, which is what the navy had done.
Eventually the evidence pointing to the wreck's true history began to add up. When a shot from a submersible dive showed a 3-inch/50 caliber gun inside the vessel's forward hull that was identical to a photograph taken in early 1921, the mystery of ship's identity was solved. Last Wednesday, on March 23rd, 2016, NOAA and the Navy announced that they had found the USS Conestoga.
Exactly why the Conestoga sunk will never be known. Records indicate that it was considered to be a "wet ship", meaning one that easily took on water. In the strong winds and high waves the vessel ran into soon after leaving San Fransisco Bay, the water could have washed over the ship faster than the crew was able to pump it out. Observations of the wreck indicate that the barge it was towing broke free of the tow line, which may have put the vessel in greater peril. The wreck's orientation on the seabed suggests that the ship might have been trying to reach the relative safety of Southeast Farallon Island, but she sank three miles short of that shelter, probably within 24 hours of leaving San Fransisco Bay.
At rest on the seafloor, the USS Conestoga is now a designated military grave, protected by the National Marine Sanctuary Act and the Sunken Military Craft Act. Covered with vibrant colored anemones on the outside and teeming with fish within, the Conestoga serves as a living memorial to her brave crew who perished together nearly a century ago. May they rest in peace.
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