Wreck of USS Navajo (AT-64)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, tugboat, United States Navy

Laid down in December 1938 as the lead ship in her Class of Fleet Tugboats at the Bethlehem Staten Island Shipyard in New York, USS Navajo commissioned into US Navy service in January 1940 as a member of the US Atlantic Fleet. Completing her shakedown and training cruises by mid-1940 along the US East Coast, Navajo and her crew departed Atlantic waters and joined the US Pacific Fleet at San Diego in June 1940.

Assigned to Service Force, Pacific Fleet shortly after her arrival, the Navajo and her crews performed towing and salvage duties throughout the Eastern Pacific in the months for the next year and a half, and were roughly 12 miles outside of Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941 when the Pacific Fleet came under surprise attack by Japanese aircraft. With ample salvage and towing requirements now occupying the Navajo and her crew, the next five months were spent in and around Oahu assisting the recovery of damaged ships from the Japanese attack.

Navajo's first wartime sortie came in April 1942 when she was called upon to assist with the salvage of the grounded Troopship SS President Taylor at Canton Island, after which she shaped her course for New Hebrides and Solomon Islands, where the first Allied Invasion was underway at Guadalcanal. With her services once again in high demand, Navajo and her crew operated from Espiritu Santo, Nouméa, Tongatapu, Suva, Tulagi, Guadalcanal, and Rennell through the Spring of 1943 when she was ordered back to the United States for overhaul.

Emerging from the yard and returning to the fray in July 1943, the Navajo made for American Samoa where she resumed her towing and salvage duties in late August at the rear-area American base. Receiving orders shortly after the 1st of September to tow a gasoline barge from Pago Pago to Espiritu Santo, the Navajo picked up the barge YOG-42 and stood out for her destination on the 6th. Steaming alone across the South Pacific, Navajo was less than 200 miles from her destination six days later when she crossed paths with the patrolling Japanese Submarine HIJMS I-39.

Thinking the large Tugboat to be a British Achilles Class Light Cruiser, the I-39's skipper wasted little time in getting his boat into firing position and sent two torpedoes churning towards his target. Aboard Navajo, crew were unaware they were under attack until the impact of one of I-39's torpedoes on her Starboard side midship, where it caused a tremendous explosion and opened up a large hole in Navajo's hull. Unaware of the cause of the explosion, Navajo's dazed crew moved into position to fight the fuel-fed fires now burning on the aft half of the ship, but a rapidly increasing Starboard list prompted her Captain to order the ship abandoned before she capsized and sank. With her surviving crew swimming clear of the rapidly sinking ship, fires aboard Navajo began to set off her deck-mounted depth charges, causing further explosions and damage to the already mortally wounded vessel as she continued to flounder. Barely two minutes had elapsed since the I-39's torpedo impact before the Navajo gave out and sank bow-first at this location on September 12th, 1943, taking seventeen of her crew with her to the bottom.

USS Navajo earned two Battle Stars for her World War II service

www.navsource.org/archives/09/39/39064.htm