USS Stewart (DE-238) (Galveston, Texas)

 museum, military, ship, frigate (ship), NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, United States Navy

Laid down at Houston's Brown Shipbuilding Yard in July 1942 as the 25th member of the Edsall Class of Destroyer Escorts, USS Stewart was commissioned into US Navy service in May 1943, her name honoring the previous USS Stewart (DD-224), a Clemson Class Destroyer extensively damaged in a Surabaya, Java drydock by Japanese aircraft and scuttled by her crew in February 1942.

Joining the US Atlantic Fleet upon her completion of her shakedown cruise, the Stewart and her crew reported to Naval Station Miami and began training duty for Naval officers bound for service on her sisterships, a duty which occupied her through October. Shifting Northward and given the honor of escorting the Presidential Yacht carrying President Roosevelt down the Potomac River to the awaiting USS Iowa (BB-61) for his journey to the Tehran Conference, the Stewart resumed her training duties in the Chesapeake Bay based out of Naval Station Norfolk through March 1944.

Pulled from her training duties and reassigned to her designed mission of convoy escort, the Stewart and her crew reported to Naval Station Argentia and began what would turn into over a year of nonstop North Atlantic convoy escort work. In service that typified the unsung but vital role performed by Stewart and other ships of her type, she guarded over thirty vital merchant ship convoys from points throughout and Central North America to the European Front, screening her charges from enemy Submarine and Air Attack while frequently clashing with the equally dangerous North Atlantic weather.

Pulling into the Brooklyn Navy Yard in early June 1945 for a much-needed period of refit and repairs, the Stewart and her crew were given orders to report for duty with teh US Pacific Fleet, then preparing to stage the invasion of mainland Japan. Departing Atlantic waters on July 16th bound for Pearl Harbor, the Stewart reached her destination on August 4th and promptly began extensive training around the Hawaiian Islands that occupied her through the cessation of hostilities and the end of the Second World War.

Returning stateside with a load of homeward bound servicemen on September 13th, the Stewart subsequently reported to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where she was idled and preparted for inactivation. Making her last voyage to the Reserve Fleet at Green Cove Springs, Florida in January 1947, the Stewart was decommissioned shortly after her arrival and entered the US Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Remaining in inactive reserve for the next 25 years, the Steward was shifted between Reserve Fleet locations before finally ending up at Orange TX where she was formally stricken from the Naval Register and offered for sale in October 1972.

Being one of the few remaining members of her class by that time, the Stewart was offered for historical preservation and was subsequently accepted by the City of Galveston for donation as part of the Seawolf Park memorial museum complex. Towed to her new home in June 1974, the Stewart was placed into a shallow berth that was subsequently backfilled to beach the vessel, allowing the ship to be easily accessed and maintained during its new career as a museum ship and monument to the efforts of Texans during the Second World War.

With the scrapping or disposal of the balance of her 84 sisterships, the Stewart became the sole survivor of her Class and is presently one of three World War Two-era Destroyer Escorts remaining worldwide. As a museum ship she is one of two DE's presently preserved and open to the public, the other vessel being the Cannon Class USS Slater (DE-766) in Albany, NY. Despite this prominence, the Stewart has seen a prolonged period of neglect since her initial restoration at her Texas home, a condition only made worse by several hurricane landfalls that seriously damaged the ship. At one point under threat of reposession by the US Navy for relocation to Pittsburgh, PA, the Stewart has seen a marked increase in restoration and preservation efforts since 2006, and was been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

www.hnsa.org/ships/stewart.htm
www.navsource.org/archives/06/238.htm