The Pacific Ocean. A mesmerizing dance
of power, beauty,
and unspeakable terror.
Within it, many mysteries of the sea lie in wait.
Some of these mysteries are surrounded by tales of harrowing glory or defeat
like the tale of the USS Conestoga. One of the top 10 maritime mysteries of our age,
when she left San Francisco the Navy tug was bound for American Samoa
via Pearl Harbor. Not long after leaving port the USS Conestoga would vanish
leaving skant evidence of the events that befell her and her crew.
An exhaustive search by the Navy, deploying every available vessel and aircraft, would rescue no souls,
locate no ship, and leave so many questions unanswered.
For nearly a century this mystery has remained unsolved. The loss of the vessel and crew has left
holes in the hearts of families, puzzled maritime historians, and inspired the
public's imagination to wonder: whatever happened to the USS Conestoga?
NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries may have solved the Conestoga riddle.
Two thousand miles from where the tug was suspected to have gone lost
an unexpected discovery
in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is revealing clues as to the
fate of the missing naval vessel. With new hope in solving this mystery the
closure sought for so long by the families of the loved and lost might finally be within reach.
In 1904, the Maryland Steel Company, in Baltimore, Maryland
completed construction on a ship that was likely destined to have an
unremarkable career by maritime standards. Like most vessels of similar
construction the sea going tug was the often overlooked a workforce of seaports
and navies.
At a hundred and seventy feet in length, constructed as a supply mover for the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, Conestoga served her initial owners well
before being purchased by the Navy in 1917.
It was then that she was refitted for mine sweeping and fleet tending in service to her
country at the latter part of the First World War.
From this point on, her fate would be intertwined with that of her crew:
A collection of men from across America
several of whom had never seen a day on the water before meeting her deck with their feet.
They were young men like Seaman Second Class Charles Joseph Balint from Passaic, New Jersey
Who was only 16 when he enlisted in the Navy.
Or or boatswain Harvey Herbert Reinbold of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: a brother to at least six siblings.
And you would also find Mess Attendant First Class Edward Wilson, one of the first
African-Americans to be allowed to serve aboard an American naval vessel.
They would be led by Ernest Larkin Jones of Walnut Grove, Kansas.
He has to take this older fleet tug, and take it across the Pacific, dropping off a few men at Pearl Harbor and then
proceeded to American Samoa where she's going become a station ship. An important
job, basically the floating representation of the United States Navy in those waters.
Jones with sale the Conestoga from Norfolk, Virginia to Mare Island, where
she would undergo final preparations and repairs. And on March 25, 1921,
she would push off toward Pearl Harbor.
by mid afternoon, she would clear the rocky entrance of the San Francisco Bay, likely with a barge in
tow and head out into the open waters of the Pacific. Steaming toward the horizon, and out of
sight of land, the ship and all her crew were never seen or heard from again.
Bob Schwemmer has a list, about as long as this arm, of sonar targets from a variety of surveys.
In particular we were working with a 2009 survey. It had a series of targets, some of which looked like they might
be shipwrecks. We decided we'd go check those out.
One of the targets of interests was certainly a shipwreck as it was revealed with the multibeam survey.
We had no historical record of a ship wreck of a hundred and seventy feet in length so we were very
curious to investigate this site.
One of the most parts of doing the
work that we do in NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, is better
understanding what's in those sanctuaries. Of course when they're designated
and created you do research you know, for example, with the Farallones that there's close
to 400 shipwrecks out there. But knowing that they exist on a list or in a
newspaper story dating back a hundred years is very different than actually
going out there and seeing yes there is a wreck, this is what's left of it, this
is what it can tell us if we do archaeology and this is how it has
interacted with the marine environment and some cases has become habitat.
But this is exciting to actually find a vessel, be able to identify the rig or service of the vessel
and then do our detective work to try to piece together the puzzle
to give her name tell her story.
There's still a sense of excitement a little bit of impatience when you drop
that robot into the water. Working in shallower sites means you can get there faster in the case of the work
in the Farallones, it's a matter of minutes. You're always watching, waiting, hoping that you can
find the target that shows up on the sonar and then suddenly there it is:
Sometimes out of the darkness in the murk it appears, sometimes you drop down
and suddenly you are right there. There's a moment where you just go "wow" for
second, and then you're keenly focused. You want to see exactly what it is, you're trying
to soak up as much as you can,
making observations, trying very hard not to blurt out "it's a this, it's a that!"
Realizing that in many cases you're the first eyes since some of these things went
down to ever see them.
Our first dive to the site we came up on the starboard side of
the bow of the shipwreck it had a very distinct stem. My colleague,
Dr. James Delgado recognized the ship as a tugboat.
Of course Bob says, "are you sure", well let's start looking if it is there going to be other things
that we'll find. That's the top of the engine. Ambient (light).
Cylinder head, see? What we're going to wanna be looking for down below is traces of boilers as we start
to move we should be seeing at some stage a boiler and steam chest... like anytime.
We're going to take a look today at the historic steamship Hercules because I suspect they
date to about the same time period and that'll be an important clue in trying to
identify the tug boat wreck, but it also gives us an opportunity as we do outreach
and education to say "this thing on the bottom once looked like this." Let's go.
What's missing on our wreck on the bottom, is all of the superstructurewhich in the tug on that we've got out
there that's wrecked this would have all have been wood, as opposed to this.
On the other side of the bulkhead will be the engine just as our engine is.
When we were on the wreck and the ROV came in we flew past the tow winch and
we came right over and we stopped and we have hovered right here and we were
looking straight down on the top of the engine of the wreck. And the shape of the
engine is the same as you can see the cylinder placement is about the same...
My guess is, being refreshed with Hercules, that we probably have a triple expansion.
So in comparison, seeing this vessel above water gives you a context of size.
Cause underwater you're only looking at one portion of the wreck at a time.
The more we looked at Hercules I felt Bob, I,
everybody began to better understand and begin to reconstruct in our mind's eye that
tug we saw on the bottom, from a wreck covered with marine growth into the tugboat it once had been.
So our mission ended and Bob and I had to pack up and quickly across the country to maritime heritage conference
which happens every few years, it was in Norfolk, Virginia, there were tables
displays. One of them was the Navy's fleet tug association and as I stood there and
looked at things there was a model of a fleet tug and I thought more and more - Bob and I had discussed:
Maybe it's a military tug.
Ironically the room that I stayed in overlooked the Norfolk Navy Yard.
I recall seeing tugs moving in and out towing
barges in the harbor there.
So the more I looked at this model I said
It's gotta be a military tug.
So I started working through the newspaper accounts of "missing tugboats"
off San Francisco.
And then my phone rang and it was Bob who said "can you come up to my room?"
And I was struck by this article out of the San Diego Union from 1921
about a tugboat, military tugboat, ah, USS Conestoga.
So he'd brought the disks, the hard drives
with all the video footage was going through it bit by bit
and as he did he spotted something and so when I came in he said "what does that look like to you?"
We had an historic image of the gunnery crew next to the three-inch fifty-caliber gun very close
up with the two siting scopes and continue reviewing the video and as we
got closer there was the three in fifty caliber gun we certainly had a
military tug and it matched up perfectly with the image that we had from 1921.
No matter Conestoga's historical significance, whether it captured a headline or not
and what it did during the war
when the ship went missing what made important is that there were 56 guys on board who
had families people who care about them, who wondered what had happened and who never
had an answer. As it became clear to us that this wreck was Conestoga perhaps now
for their families knowing where they were this could provide closure.
Hello, hello!
Hi, there.
What an honor it is to meet you, Dr. Delgado.
"Jim", please. It's so nice to meet you.
Diane. Thank you.
My pleasure. And this is Pam.
Hi, Pam.
Hi Diane, nice to meet you!
Same here!
And that's David.
Hi, David, I have a son named David, I won't forget that.
Yes, stories go back to my earliest recollections.
That's the only one I have, you have to pick that one up to see it, the only one I have
of him holding my mother.
Ohhhh.
So, ah, she made, Aunt Maye made a Christening dress and I have it in my mother's handwriting
that my mother wore it in that picture and then she passed that same hand-made Christening dress
down, which my two children wore, ahh, so...
life goes on and their are traditions and unfortunately a loss cuts so many of those.
What I think happened is that they left the Golden Gate, they sailed into a storm.
the winds will build into gale force
they had 30 to 40 kt winds. So the sea is building up. The wire her towing machine, on her winch is
somewhat loose its not neatly wrapped which suggests that if they were towing that they lost it
and they're starting to take on water. At a certain stage engineers probably called
up to him and said "we are in danger of sinking" and with that he has to make a decision.
He probably figured they couldn't make it all the way back into the Gate into
San Francisco Bay without going down but close by the Farallon Islands and at that time
there's a Navy radio station there. And there's a light house there.
But it was the only chance they had.
The tug is pointed directly at the island, almost directly at the light house as if they just kept going
And they're making for it.
And the sad reality is they were just little better than three miles away
when it looks like they lost the fight.
The sea was just too powerful.
My mother always thought he was a hero, was just a void in our family and for my mother a
bigger void without her father but I'm so thankful that it was found. It can answer the biggest
question our family has ever had. The fact that it's in a marine sanctuary seems more fitting.
It's just... natural, and I know it will not be disturbed.
Thank you!
We'll see you soon.
God bless you.
See you on the 23rd.
"A wreck of some age, festooned with marine life, indeed speaking to the fact that it is in a sanctuary.."
We've been given this great responsibility to share this story with the family members, the American public
So this is my great uncle, Edward Wilson, who was my grandmother's brother.
Because it is a great story, you know, these guys went down with their ship in service to the United States Navy.
Well, it was more of an opening than a closure for me because I found out about my great great grandfather.
Well the ringing of the bells 56 times was quite spiritual.
And so fitting as a dedication at the end of this beautiful day.
You read something in a history book. You dive on a wreck
and there's certain emotions that go with that, but nothing compares to finding something like Conestoga.
It's history as it as it should be. It's about individuals it's about families, it's not
big names, it's not headlines. It's people who, in this case, grew up hearing stories about a
grandfather just simply didn't come home one day.
It's all about people and it's how we can connect with people and why we are, ultimately, no matter what
branch we serve in, we are a government of the people, by the people,
and for the people.
"BELLS RINGING"