Wreck of US Navy destroyer sunk in World War II found in Indian Ocean

Vessels of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) have located and identified the wreck of a US Navy destroyer that was sunk in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia during the opening months of World War II in the Pacific.

Working in collaboration with the US Navy, the RAN employed advanced robotic and autonomous systems, normally used for hydrographic survey capabilities, to locate the Clemson-class destroyer USS Edsall on the seabed 320 kilometres off the coast of Christmas Island. The robotic systems were deployed from ADV Stoker, a submarine rescue ship.

Commissioned into US Navy service on November 26, 1920, Edsall was operating in the Far East when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The destroyer was sunk by Japanese carrier-based dive bombers some 400 kilometres south-southeast of Christmas Island less than three months later on March 1, 1942.

At the time of her sinking, Edsall was ferrying US Army Air Forces pilots who were to operate P-40 fighter aircraft in the defence of Java. The destroyer never arrived there, and all 185 navy sailors and 31 army air forces pilots who were on board went down with the ship as she sank.

US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti said the wreck of Edsall is now a hallowed site, serving as a marker for the 216 crewmen and pilots who perished as the ship succumbed to battle damage.