USS Conestoga

Ninety-five years ago the 56 brave crew members of the USS Conestoga gave their lives in service for their country when this U.S. Navy tug sank in what is now Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Check out our video to learn about the mission to identify the lost wreck of the Conestoga and the importance of this historic ship's final resting place -- and stay tuned for a longer video coming this Memorial Day celebrating this valiant crew. ‪#‎EarthIsBlue‬ Naval History & Heritage Command

Transcript

Every day we would leave Sausalito to go out through the Golden Gate and head out to the Farallones to do our work in usually beautiful weather that belies the fact that this is an area that took ships sometimes not only without warning but without notice.

You head out there over a spot where down below in the depths lies a shipwreck. You launch. You wait. You anticipate. You watch what comes back through the feed from the robot on the bottom. Things begin to appear. You begin to better understand what you're seeing, what it represents.

Then you see something like this gun... which very powerfully tells a story because it's an artifact that has particular importance. It's there. It shows in historic photographs and you see it on the bottom encrusted and changed and yet in your mind's eye, or when you come back and look at historic photograph, there it is... painted with a group of smiling young men around it and it reminds you that what you're looking at was once not only in the land of air and light, but a living ship with a living crew.

You come away with a profound sense that what you're doing, what you see, what you now must share is not just the story of a ship, not just the story of an expedition. There are 56 guys whose story needs to be told and whose families need to know where they are.

And the fact that they are now not only resting in their ship at bottom of the ocean, but in an area of the country that is set aside as a National Marine Sanctuary.