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tsimmonds -> RE: Name This...(211) (10/21/2004 5:42:00 PM)
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She was put into drydock at Tjillitjap (or was it Soerabaja?), but because of poor shoring fell over when the water was pumped out. The Japanese salvaged her and used her as a DE/PC/PG/Thing.
Actually, this is an interesting story and deserves a bit more space here. From Hazegray:
quote:
Stewart, as the most severely damaged ship [following the Battle of the Java Sea], was the first to enter the floating drydock at Surabaya on 22 February. However, she was inadequately supported in the dock, and, as the dock rose, the ship fell off the keel blocks onto her side in 12 feet of water bending her propeller shafts and causing further hull damage. With the port under enemy air attack and in danger of falling to the enemy, the ship could not be repaired. Responsibility for the destruction of the ship was given to naval authorities ashore, and Stewart's last crew members left the embattled port on the afternoon of 22 February. Subsequently, demolition charges were set off within the ship, a Japanese bomb hit amidships further damaged her; and, before the port was evacuated on 2 March, the drydock containing her was scuttled. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 25 March 1942 and was Soon assigned to a new destroyer escort.
Later in the war, American pilots began reporting an American warship operating far within enemy waters. The ship had a Japanese bunked funnel but the lines for her four-piper hull were unmistakable. After almost a year under water, Stewart had been raised by the Japanese in February 1943 and commissioned by them on 20 September 1943 as Patrol Boat No. 102. She was armed with two 3" guns and operated with the Japanese Southwest Area Fleet on escort duty until arriving at Kure for repairs in November 1944. There her antiaircraft battery was augmented and she was given a light tripod foremast. She then sailed for the Southwest Pacific, but the American reconquest of the Philippines blocked her way. On 28 April 1945, still under control of the Southwest Area Fleet, she was bombed and damaged by United States Army aircraft at Mokpo, Korea. She was transferred on 30 April to the control of the Kure Navy District; and, in August 1945, was found by American occupation forces laid up in Hiro Bay near Kure.
In an emotional ceremony on 29 October 1945, the old ship was recommissioned in the United States Navy at Kure. Although officially called simply DD-224, she was nicknamed by her crew "RAMP-224," standing for "Recovered Allied Military Personnel." On the trip home, her engines gave out near Guam, and she arrived at San Francisco in early March 1946 at the end of a tow line. DD-224 was struck from the Navy list on 17 April 1946, decommissioned on 23 May 1946, and sunk a day later off San Francisco as a target for aircraft.
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