The USS Sturtevant, hull number DD-240, was a 314 foot destroyer with a 30 foot beam. She was built in 1918, by New York Shipbuilding Company, and commissioned on September 21, 1920, at Philadelphia’s Navy Yard.
Sturtevant’s Missions
Equipped with a three-inch anti-aircraft gun, 20mm machine guns, four 4-inch guns, and twelve torpedo tubes, and with a top cruising speed of 35 knots, the Sturtevant was a powerful addition to the Naval fleet. She carried out many humanitarian missions, delivering food to Russia during the Russian Civil War of 1921-1923, and investigating various Russian ports for the American Relief Administration.
On January 30, 1931, USS Sturtevant was decommissioned and placed with Philadelphia’s reserve fleet. She was placed back in service on March 9th of the following year, and went on to support troops in Latin America for the next two years. From 1935 to 1939, she sailed throughout the Pacific, but by the middle of 1940, she was back in the Atlantic, acting as a convoy escort, and conducting neutrality patrols all along the United States’ eastern seaboard.
In March of 1942, she went back to southern waters and stayed in the Caribbean until late April.
The Fate of the USS Sturtevant
On April 26, 1942, Sturtevant was only two hours from port, escorting a convoy as usual, when an explosion rocked through her hull and tore a massive hole in her stern. Thinking that his ship had been torpedoed by a German U-Boat, the captain quickly dropped depth charges. Minutes later, a second explosion tore through Sturtevant, amidships. The central section had exploded, the aft section sunk quickly, and the bow floated for several hours before finally plunging to her rest on the bottom of the sea.
Luckily, only 15 of her entire crew of 152 officers and enlisted men were lost in the tragedy. Most of the men on board were rescued by the ships she was escorting – a stroke of luck and testament to the quick action of the men on those ships nearby. While initial suppositions held that Sturtevant had struck a German mine, it was later revealed that she was likely the victim of a US mine. Her captain had not been advised of a new minefields laid in the area the day before, and one of those mines could have lost its mooring.
Diving the USS Sturtevant
Today, the wreck of the USS Sturtevant is easily accessible. She lies in just sixty-five feet of water, seven miles north of Key West. Visibility in the area is usually around twenty feet. When you take a charter out to the Sturtevant, expect to encounter her remains, broken in two main pieces, on the sandy bottom.
Conditions at the Sturtevant wreck site can be very good at slack tide, during calm weather. When there is a current the visibility drops dramatically because the sandy bottom here is very soft. There are plenty of artifacts, including broken-open compartments where unexploded shells are stacked against the bulkheads as though they were placed there yesterday. Remember, taking anything from a sunken Navy ship is illegal and even though these shells have been below the surface for decades, they could still explode. Bring your camera, and take away memories of this amazing dive, that will last you for a lifetime.