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Wreck of S/S Guam Bear

Guam / Santa Rita / Apra Harbor /
 ship, shipwreck, cargo transportation

Laid down in April 1944 at the North Carolina Shipbuilding yard in Wilmington, NC as the USS Towner, the fourteenth member of the Tolland Class of Attack Cargo Ships built for the US Navy, the Towner was built on a standard Maritime Commission Type C2-S-AJ3 breakbulk cargo ship design and was refitted for her military role prior to her commissioning as the USS Towner (AKA-77) in December 1944.

Assigned to the US Pacific Fleet following her shakedown cruise in the Atlantic, the Towner and her crew reported to Pearl Harbor in January 1945 and began operations against the empire of Japan. Initially assigned to duty in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea area, the ship carried out regular cargo shuttle runs based out of New Caledonia before being assigned for duty in the Philippines as part of Transport Division 33. Spending the rest of the Second World War making regular round-trips from the New Guinea area to the Philippines carrying both troops and cargo to forward staging areas on Manila, the end of hostilities brought the Towner orders to report to Cebu for duty as part of the Occupation Fleet.

Taking aboard elements of the 23rd Infantry Division and departing in convoy for Japan on September 1st, the Towner arrived at Yokohama and discharged her first contingent of occupation troops and supplies before repeating her voyage again in October 1945,. Shifting thereafter to supporting operations in China, the Towner continued to carry both men and supplies in support of US occupation forces through December of 1945 before receiving orders to return stateside. After calling at several ports to load retrograde cargo, the Towner arrived at Seattle in January of 1946 and entered the Bremerton Naval Shipyard for voyage repairs which lasted through March, after which she reported to Norfolk for decommissioning in June of 1946.

Transferred to the ownership of the Maritime Commission and laid up in the James River National Defense Reserve Fleet through 1947, the ship was one of several members of her class selected for reactivation as a commercial cargo ship, and in February of 1947 she was towed to the Bath Iron Works shipyard and stripped of her military alterations and re-rigged for duty as a commercial breakbulk cargo ship. Sold to the Pacific Far East Lines Inc in September 1947 and christened S/S Philippine Bear, the former Towner began a civilian career in the Pacific Trades which would last more than twenty years.

Operating for a variety of owners and under several names throughout her commercial service life, the ship wound up back in the ownership of the Pacific Far East Lines in September 1961 under the name Guam Bear and was placed into service carrying cargo for US Government installations in the Western Pacific. So engaged for the next six years, the Guam Bear was inbound to Apra Harbor in March of 1967 with her usual load of supplies, mail (including chocolate chip cookies from Mom) and general freight for US servicemen when she was involved in a collision with the outbound tanker S/S Esso Seattle at the mouth of Apra Harbor that resulted in major damage to the Starboard Stern of the Guam Bear. Quick actions by the Bear's crew got the ship onto the shallows and out of the main harbor channel, however the damage inflicted to the ship was too great for her pumps to handle, and within minutes of the collision the ship had settled Stern-first onto the shallow bottom of Apra Harbor.

Remaining aground for several months as both Navy and salvage firm divers attempted to patch up the gaping hole in her hull and remove whatever cargo could be saved from her forward holds and deck, the vessel was declared a constructive total loss by he owners and the entire wreck was ordered removed from the harbor and scuttled. After salvage divers patched up the Guam Bear's hull enough to permit dewatering of several of her after void spaces, the wounded ship floated off the bottom of the harbor just enough to allow her to be moved into the deeper water of the main channel. Wasting little time, US Navy tugs quickly towed the Guam Bear out of Apra Harbor to this location roughly 2 miles outside of the harbor entrance where she was set adrift and sunk by onboard scuttling charges on July 3rd, 1967.

www.navsource.org/archives/10/02/02077.htm
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   13°27'7"N   144°35'7"E

Comments

  • Mr. B. E. Marks (guest)
    I was stationed at nav-sta Guam when the Guam Bear accident accured. I was a tug boat engineer. After the accident with another ship, the bear was pushed-up on a reef. She stayed there for about three months and then she was towed out to sea and sank with explosived
  • Greg McCarty (guest)
    Hmmm. My recollection was the collision occurred in Jan 1967. In any event, I was a a fireman that had been assigned to the USS Proteus AS 19 at that time. The day following the collision the Esso Seattle could be seen from our deck in the center of Apra Harbor pumping water with visible bow damage. The Bear was stern down somewhere nearby. Rumor had it the the Captain's newly ordered automobile was on board the Guam Bear and was lost.
  • Blien43
    So were a box of chocolate chip cookies that I never received.
  • Jim, RM1 (guest)
    I was stationed aboard the USS Coconino county, LST 839 and my wife and I lived in North Tipalao. I had a 1965 Pontiac LA Mans on board the Guam Bear. Luckily, it was on the bow in a dry hole and was salvaged without damage. I sold it when we were transferred back to the states We, the Coconino County, were assigned to LANSHIPRON 3 and were assigned to I Corp, Viet Nam. This was primarily north of Chu Lia. We were mined in the Cua VIet river, the crew was flown back to Guam and except for 8 of us who had to stay aboard and towed back to Guam for repair. We were put in the floating dry-dock, repaired and went back to Viet Nam after a couple of months.
  • Shawn (guest)
    I have just inherited my grandfather's trunk, which bears the markings S.S. Philippine Bear, bound for San Francisco, which I understand is the previous name of the Guam Bear. My grandparents were UK civilians captured by the Japanese in China during WWII, and were interned at the "Shantung Compound" (a book by Langdon Gilkey) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weixian_Internment_Camp). My mother was born in 1943 in the camp, but I don't know specific details of when they left China, except that it must have been in 1947 or later, when the ship became the Philippine Bear. I am currently looking for more information about these early years. Shawn, Canada
  • Jeff Pyatt (guest)
    I was a Navy dependent at the time. My father was the salvage and diving officer tasked with refloating the Guam Bear and removing it. We watched from the ocean garbage dumpsite known as the "shark pit" when it was scuttled. The ship sank stern first in classic fashion.
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This article was last modified 10 years ago