ex-Stewart afire and sinking after being hit by aircraft bombs & rockets and 3 inch gunfire from a patrol boat. One bomb scored a direct hit on her bridge, which has collapsed and is burning.
ex-Stewart under tow shortly before being sunk as a target, 24 May 1946. Note the Japanese-style tripod mast, gun platform and bow numbers. She has been disarmed, and a Japanese ensign is painted on the hull for repatriation duty. (National Archive photo)
A little bit more detailed info about her
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" Admiral Doorman’s forces were scattered when the Japanese landed on Bali on 19 February, and he threw his ships against the enemy in three groups on the night of 19 and 20 February.
Stewart was lead ship in the second group; and, in several brief but furious night engagements, came under extremely accurate fire from Japanese destroyers. Her boats were shot away, her torpedo racks and galley were hit, and a crippling shot hit the destroyer aft below her water line, opening her seams and flooding the steering engine room. However, the steering engine continued to operate under two feet of water; and the destroyer was able to maintain her station in column and return to Surabaya the next morning.
Stewart, as the most severely damaged ship, was the first to enter the floating drydock at Surabaya on 22 February. However, she was inadequately supported in the dock; and, as the dock rose, the ship fell off the keel blocks onto her side in 12 feet of water, bending her propeller shafts and causing further hull damage. With the port under enemy air attack and in danger of falling to the enemy, the ship could not be repaired. Responsibility for the destruction of the ship was given to naval authorities ashore, and
Stewart’s last crew members left the embattled port on the afternoon of 22 February. Subsequently, demolition charges were set off within the ship, a Japanese bomb hit amidships further damaged her; and, before the port was evacuated on 2 March, the drydock containing her was scuttled. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 25 March 1942 and was soon assigned to a new destroyer escort.
Later in the war, American pilots began reporting an American warship operating far within enemy waters. The ship had a Japanese trunked funnel but the lines for her four-piper hull were unmistakable. After almost a year under water,
Stewart had been raised by the Japanese in February 1943 and commissioned by them on 20 September 1943 as Patrol Boat No. 102. She was armed with two 3" guns and operated with the Japanese Southwest Area Fleet on escort duty until arriving at Kure for repairs in November 1944. There her antiaircraft battery was augmented, and she was given a light tripod foremast. She then sailed for the Southwest Pacific, but the American reconquest of the Philippines blocked her way. On 28 April 1945, still under control of the Southwest Area Fleet, she was bombed and damaged by United States Army aircraft at Mokpo, Korea. She was transferred on 30 April to the control of the Kure Navy District; and, in August 1945, was found by American occupation forces laid up in Hiro Bay near Kure.
In an emotional ceremony on 29 October 1945, the old ship was recommissioned in the United States Navy at Kure. Although officially called simply
DD-224, she was nicknamed by her crew “RAMP-224,” standing for “Recovered Allied Military Personnel.” On the trip home, her engines gave out near Guam, and she arrived at San Francisco in early March 1946 at the end of a towline.
DD-224 was struck from the Navy list on 17 April 1946, decommissioned on 23 May 1946, and sunk a day later off San Francisco as a target for aircraft.
Stewart (DD-224) received two battle stars for her World War II service."
Stewart