FOR THOSE WILLING TO GET WET, there are a great number of World War II–era shipwrecks to dive the world over. Depending upon one’s technical skill, US East Coast divers can explore everything from tugs to freighters to U-boats. Those willing to venture to World War II’s former battlefields will also find a great number of shipwrecks, most available through guided diving tours.
In the Florida panhandle waters of the Gulf of Mexico, divers of all skill levels, from snorkelers to professionals, can enjoy the recently created Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail, which was officially announced on June 22, 2012. The Florida Department of State’s Underwater Archaeology Team developed a series of dive sites that stretch along the coast from Pensacola to Destin to Panama City and Port St. Joe.
There are twelve dive sites ranging from the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CV-34), an Essex-class carrier that was constructed during World War II that lies between 80 and 212 feet below the surface, to the World War II Admirable-class minesweeper USS Strength (AM-309), which survived a midget submarine’s torpedo attack and a kamikaze attack that was thwarted when Strength’s gunners shot it out of the sky, to Vamar, one of Admiral Byrd’s ships that participated in his 1928 Antarctic Expedition and was sunk on March 21, 1942, in just twenty-five feet of water.
In addition, the Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail is supported by dive shops in the area and has an interactive website with information and videos about all the sunken ships.
When it’s vacation time and you’re heading west, a stop on Oahu and a visit to the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument is in order. The USS Arizona Memorial and its visitors center are a great place to start. Taking the boat tour to see the Arizona Memorial is a must-see. On the opposite side of Ford Island lies the target ship Utah, although access to this location is restricted.
The aircraft carrier Oriskany (CV-34) was sunk twenty-four miles off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, on May 17, 2006, to form an artificial reef. After twenty-five years of service to the Navy in operations in Korea, Vietnam, and the Mediterranean and eight years on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, Oriskany is providing a recreation diving destination off the coast of the Florida panhandle. Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Jeffrey P. Kraus/US Navy
It took the 888-foot-long Oriskany about thirty-seven minutes to sink below the surface. Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Jeffrey P. Kraus/US Navy
The largest ship on the Florida Shipwreck Trail is the aircraft carrier Oriskany. The carrier’s depth ranges from 80 to 212 feet below the surface. In 2014, Oriskany was named one of the top twenty-five dive sites in the United States by Scuba Diving magazine. Jim Phillips/Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Archaeological Research
There are twelve shipwrecks along the Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail, and dive shops and charter boats will validate a diver’s “passport” with a sticker for each wreck dived. One of the twelve dive sites is the Strength (AM-309), a World War II minesweeper that survived both a midget submarine and a kamikaze attack, seen in a side-scan sonar image. Ana Garcia and Matthew Levey/Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Archaeological Research
Associated with the Valor in the Pacific National Monument is the Battleship Missouri Memorial, berthed facing the Arizona Memorial. The contrast in the size of the two ships is most evident in aerial photos, and it is extremely moving to walk on the Arizona Memorial—the site where the war began—and then tour Missouri and stand in the exact location where Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of the Japanese.
Located adjacent to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center is the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park, home to the restored Balao-class submarine and a fantastic interpretive center. USS Bowfin (SS-287) was launched at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Maine, on December 7, 1942, one year after the war began, and was nicknamed the “Pearl Harbor Avenger.” Bowfin Park also includes a memorial honoring all fifty-two American submarines and their 3,500 crewmen lost during the war.
The remains of Landing Ship Tank 480 (LST-480) stand as a reminder of the more than 130 men and six ships lost during the May 21, 1944, West Loch Disaster. At the time, twenty-nine LSTs were loading stores and equipment for the forthcoming invasion of the Mariana and Palau Islands, known as Operation Forager. It is believed a 110-millimeter mortar shell exploded aboard LST-353, which then set off barrels of gasoline stored nearby. As the conflagration grew, five other LSTs, all in various stages of loading, became involved. Many of the LSTs were able to move to safer waters, either under their own power or with the assistance of tugs. The LSTs destroyed during the disaster were LST-39, LST-43, LST-69, LST-179, LST-353, and LST-480. Along with the LSTs, seventeen tracked landing vehicles (LVTs) were destroyed.
The LSTs and the LVTs were cleared from West Loch and their remains dumped at sea. Information about the disaster was blacked out during the war, and was finally declassified in 1960. Today, only the bow of LST-480 is visible above the waters of Pearl Harbor.
For those a bit more adventurous, Atlantis Submarines offers the opportunity to see a shipwreck approximately a hundred feet below the surface without ever getting wet. The company acquired the 1940s-vintage yard oiler YO-257 in the late 1980s when it was sold surplus. Atlantis cleaned the ship, loaded it with gravel so it would land upright on the bottom, and scuttled the ship in the waters off Waikiki.
YO-257 is 165 feet long with a thirty-foot beam and sits at the bottom at 110 feet. The oiler’s top deck is eighty feet below the surface and the smokestack reaches up to sixty-five feet. Submarine passengers are able to view the wreck in very clear water and to see a large variety of marine life ranging from eels and turtles to reef fish and sharks.
Water-level view of the chaos that occurred as twenty-nine LSTs were loading in Pearl Harbor’s West Loch for the invasion of the Mariana and Palau Islands. Six LSTs were consumed in the explosion and resulting fires. US Navy
Aerial view of LST-480 as crews try to extinguish the fully loaded ship. The aft section of the ship is completely burned-out. US Navy
The former World War II battlefields in the Aleutian Islands are a shipwreck hunter’s paradise. On June 6, 1942, a Japanese force five hundred strong invaded the island of Kiska. Four months later, on October 14, 1942, the 385-foot-long freighter Borneo Maru arrived in Gertrude Cove, Kiska Island, to offload supplies to the Japanese garrison. The next morning, at 9:00 a.m., more than twenty US Army Air Forces aircraft bombed the ship. Although none were direct hits, the concussion from several near misses split open the ship’s hull. Borneo Maru tried to get underway but was subsequently beached and abandoned. The remainder of the ship’s cargo was offloaded while American aircraft continued to bomb the ship. In the seventy years since the ship went aground, it has slowly deteriorated, its hull caving in as it slides further and further beneath the waves.
The rusted hull of USS LST-480 remains in the water at West Loch, Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam. The remains honor the 163 soldiers, sailors, and Marines who died and the 396 who were wounded when a fuel and ammunition explosion occurred at West Loch during World War II on May 21, 1944. Library of Congress and Mass Communication Spc. Seaman Johans Chavarro/US Navy
If you’d like to combine a snorkel trip with an up-close tour of some World War II–vintage shipwrecks, the Ocean Riders’ circumnavigation of Lanai is highly recommended. The company uses thirty-foot rigid-hull inflatable boats certified to carry twenty-two passengers, but only eighteen are taken. The seven-hour trip covers seventy miles and departs from Lahaina, Maui. The boat crosses the Auau Channel, and the tour starts along Lanai’s north coast. The first site seen is the wreck of the World War II gasoline barge YOGN-42, which gives the area its name: “Shipwreck Beach.”
SPECIFICATIONS: LST 480 (LANDING SHIP TANK)
Length, overall |
328 feet |
Beam |
50 feet |
Draft |
14 feet 1 inch (maximum navigation) |
Displacement |
4,080 tons with 1,675 ton load |
Powerplant |
2 900 hp General Motors 12-567A Diesel engines driving twin screws with dual rudders |
Crew |
13 officers, 104 sailors |
Armament |
2 twin 40mm; 4 single 40mm; 12 single 20mm cannon |
Builder |
Kaiser Cargo |
Launched |
October 29, 1942 |
Commissioned |
May 3, 1943 |
Sunk |
May 21, 1944 |
Location |
West Loch, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii |
Coordinates |
21.357266, -157.997221 |
SPECIFICATIONS: BORNEO MARU (PASSENGER/CARGO SHIP, IMPERIAL JAPANESE ARMY)
Length |
385 feet |
Beam |
51 feet |
Draft |
11 feet |
Displacement |
5,863 tons |
Powerplants |
1 triple-expansion steam engine, 440 hp |
Speed |
12.5 knots cruising |
Builder |
Kawasaki Shipbuilding, Kobe, Japan |
Launched |
October 28, 1917 (as Daifuku Maru No. 14) |
Sunk |
October 21, 1942, by US Army Air Forces aircraft |
Location |
Gertrude Cove, Kiska Island, Alaska |
Coordinates |
51.934631, 177.456124 |
YOGN-42 is a non-self-propelled gasoline barge, one of twenty-four steel-reinforced concrete ships built during World War II by Concrete Ship Constructors of National City, California. These gasoline barges were fitted with four twenty-millimeter antiaircraft guns, two mounted forward and two mounted aft, as well as a deckhouse at the stern that served as quarters for its thirteen crewmen. Launched on March 23, 1943, as YOG-42, it was commissioned into service on May 22, 1943 (later its designation was changed to YOGN-42).
On December 12, 1943, YOGN-42 was servicing ships in the South Pacific area around Espiritu Santo. The gasoline barge was under tow 150 miles from Espiritu Santo by USS Navajo (AT-64) when the two were attacked by the Japanese submarine I-39. Hit by a torpedo, Navajo was sunk. YOGN-42 eventually returned to Pearl Harbor, where it ended its naval career in May 1946. The barge reportedly ended up on the beach when its tow broke during a storm in 1949. The ship sits hard on a reef with its port side to the weather as waves continually break over its bow, making YOGN-42 look as if it is underway.
The wreck of the Japanese transport Borneo Maru is deteriorating quickly. The ship was damaged while unloading supplies during the invasion of Kiska on October 15, 1942; in the following days, the transport was repeatedly bombed by American aircraft and was abandoned in Kiska Island’s Gertrude Cove. The sea is rapidly reclaiming the ship’s remains. Caroline Funk
The World War II gasoline barge YOGN-42 is hard on the reef on the north coast of the island of Lanai. This barge saw combat in the South Pacific and is said to have ended up on the beach while being towed during a storm in 1949. The eight-mile stretch of beach where YOGN-42 rests is named Shipwreck Beach. Nicholas A. Veronico
Depending upon the tide conditions, the remnants of six other shipwrecks of various vintages can be seen along this eight-mile stretch of beach as the boat travels west. The last of the wrecks is the yard oiler YO-21, which sits in the surf line, waves slowly taking their toll on the ship. YO-21 was a 160-foot-long, single-screw, steel hull tanker that was built in 1918 by the Tank Shipbuilding Co. of Newberg, New York. The oiler entered service with the US Navy in 1924, and was on duty at Pearl Harbor during the December 7, 1941, attack. After the war, the ship was stricken from the Navy’s inventory, and the locals say the ship was dumped on the north shore of Lanai with numerous other surplus vessels.
For those who are not scuba divers, there are a number of opportunities to see the ships and shipwrecks of World War II. Depending on your location and your level of adventure, these warships can be seen from shore, ship, or submarine.
At the western end of Lanai’s Shipwreck Beach is YO-21, an oiler built at the end of World War I. The ship was present at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. The ship sits bow-on to the shore and is starting to cave in on itself. Nicholas A. Veronico
SPECIFICATIONS: YOGN-42 (NON-SELF-PROPELLED GASOLINE BARGE)
Length |
375 feet |
Beam |
56 feet |
Draft |
26 feet 6 inches |
Displacement |
5,410 tons; 6,600 tons fully loaded |
Powerplant |
none |
Crew |
13 |
Armament |
4 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns |
Builder |
Concrete Ship Construction |
Launched |
March 23, 1943 |
Commissioned |
May 1943 |
Sunk |
late 1940s |
Location |
North shore, Lanai Island, Hawaii |
Coordinates |
20.921196, -156.910062 |
SPECIFICATIONS: YO-21 (SELF-PROPELLED FUEL OIL BARGE)
Length |
161 feet |
Beam |
25 feet 1 inch |
Draft |
unknown |
Displacement |
335 tons |
Powerplants |
1 triple-expansion steam engine driving 1 propeller |
Crew |
20 |
Armament |
none |
Cargo Capacity |
3,563 barrels |
Builder |
Tank Ship Building, Co. |
Launched |
1918 |
Commissioned |
1924 |
Decommissioned |
August 22, 1946 |
Grounded |
early 1950s |
Location |
North shore, Lanai Island, Hawaii |
Coordinates |
20.929305, -157.000712 |
