The USS Conestoga (pictured in San Diego, California in 1921) has been found off the coast of California – nearly a century after it went missing!
A missing United States Navy tugboat has been rediscovered after its disappearance nearly a century ago. The wreck had originally been found in 2009 located 189 feet underwater just three miles off the Southeast Farallon Island in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. In 2014, a team of government researchers began investigating and nearly a year later in 2015 announced that the wreck was in fact the missing USS Conestoga.
The USS Conestoga did not start its life as part of the US Navy but was originally built to tow coal barges for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company. At 170 feet long and made primarily out of steel apart from the deck and some upper features were made of oak wood. In its time, it was one of the largest seagoing tugboats around.
In 1917, the US Navy purchased the Conestoga after the United States entered World War I where it continued its towing duties down the Atlantic coast. At the end of the war it was attached to Naval Base No 13 in the Azores but was soon reassigned to harbour tug duties at Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1920, it was reclassified as USS Conestoga AT 54 and underwent several ‘classified’ alterations before being ordered for duty as a station ship in the American Samoa. Her Commanding Officer was Lt. Ernest L. Jones of the US Navy.
Shortly after departing San Francisco the USS Conestoga and her crew mysteriously disappeared. They had been heading to Hawaii en-route to their appointed station but no one saw either the ship or the 56-man crew again.
Around the time of the Conestoga’s departure, weather logs show that the wind in San Francisco’s Golden Gate area had risen to 40 miles per hour, whipping up the seas and causing high waves. The USS Conestoga apparently did make contact with another ship via radio but the transmission was heavily garbled and terse! It appears the Conestoga was ‘battling a storm and that the barge she was towing had been torn adrift by heavy seas’.
When the ship failed to arrive in Hawaii, a massive air and sea search was launched by the Navy – the largest of its time, covering hundreds of thousands of square miles without success. One lifeboat was located off Manzanillo, Mexico which had the letter “c” on its bow.
Fast forward to today. NOAA is currently in the middle of a years-long effort to find, map, and investigate about 300 shipwrecks in the waters off San Francisco. The Conestoga was detected during underwater surveys, and it’s location marked by an NOAA bouy.
On the USS Conestoga’s rediscovery, NOAA Deputy Administrator Manson Brown remarked, “After nearly a century of ambiguity and a profound sense of loss, the Conestoga‘s disappearance no longer is a mystery.”
The current theory is that the USS Conestoga had been attempting to reach a protected cove on Southeast Farallon Island to wait out the storm but unfortunately didn’t make it.
The investigators of the wreck have taken many photos and videos that can be viewed online. These show the wreck as largely intact and lying on a seabed. Some damage from time and corrosion is present. The wooden deck has long since collapsed as well as some of the other, more vulnerable, features. Marine life has impacted the ship but so far, no human remains have been found. The fate of her crew (below) remains a mystery.
From the modelling perspective, the only kit that could be sourced was the 1952 Lindberg ‘Ocean Tug’ at 1/90 which was of the same class. There are obvious differences around the main cabin but the hull and overall dimensions are correct! The kit was re-released in 1959 by AMT (Box Art) with its mouldings in ‘Matchbox-style’ coloured spru-parts and often appears on EvilBay…
