In 2019, divers performed an initial assessment of a wooden-hulled shipwreck located during remote sensing operations in Apra Harbor, Guam. Historical research into the area suggested the site might represent the remains of the whaleship Asia, lost at Guam in 1856. Identified as a potentially significant historic site, initial findings prompted additional documentation of the shipwreck in 2022 by a team of archaeologists with Ships of Discovery. The aim of this diver-based survey was to characterize features on the wreck that might help correlate the site with known historical losses in Apra Harbor. This paper will provide an overall discussion of the shipwreck site with an emphasis on the documentation methodology, observed construction features of the vessel, and evident site formation processes impacting the wreck. Results of the expedition confirmed the significance of the site and provides strong evidence in support of identifying the shipwrecked whaleship, Asia.

A team of archaeologists and marine scientists with Ships of Discovery investigated the remains of a wooden shipwreck off the island of Guam. Identified through a remote sensing survey, preliminary research suggested the site to be the wreck of the whaleship Asia, lost at Guam in 1856. Recent investigations at the site identified overwhelming evidence to support that theory and include industry specific material culture such as harpoons, a try pot, an abundance of brick, a tryworks knee, and other objects associated with the extraction and storage of whale oil. The unique artifact assemblage provides an opportunity to explore the shipboard whaling operations and lives of the ship’s crew. This paper provides an examination of the whaling artifacts recorded at the site and how they help to better understand the context of French whaling in the Pacific region in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 2022, a team of archaeologists investigated a late 18^th- century/early 19^th-century wreck site located in Apra Harbor, Guam. The wreck is thought to represent those of the remains of the whaleship Asia, a French whaler that wrecked off the coast of Guam in 1856 and became famous as the backdrop of Dr. Felix Maynard and Alexandre Dumas’ book Les Baleiniers (The Whalers). Asia was registered in 1829 by Jeremiah Winslow, an American who began whaling out of Le Havre, France in 1817. Encouraged by the French government, Winslow developed a prosperous whaling business, creating the infrastructure for the subsequent growth of French whaling companies. This talk explores the historical context of Asia, considering the French government’s 19^th century efforts to reignite the whaling industry in France, Jeremiah Winslow’s business and influence in Le Havre, and Asia’s role in this endeavour prior to its wrecking.

From the earliest peopling of the Pacific, though the age of European exploration, the colonial exploitation of people and natural resources, two world wars, to the present dynamic resurgence of ancient arts and seafaring knowledge, Guam is home to a rich and enduring maritime history.

Working under a cooperative agreement with the US Navy, in 2019 and 2022 Ships of Discovery conducted a remote sensing inventory of Navy submerged lands including portions of Apra Harbor. This paper will provide a brief overview of Guam’s maritime history, past underwater archaeology research, and the results of surveys in 2019 and 2022.

The National Park Service Submerged Resources Center and Ocean and Coastal Resources Branch conducted a joint archaeological and ecological underwater battlefield survey in 2023 of War in the Pacific National Historical Park, funded by NOAA OER. Data collected during this study was used to conduct archaeological battlefield analyses to identify war materiel, reconstruct the battlescapes using military terrain analyses, characterize cultural changes associated with the invasion, and to assess potential ecosystem impacts caused from blast damage to the reef, which also serves as a coastal protection mechanism. The project consisted of two fieldwork campaigns, one focused primarily on the collection of remote sensing data, including side scan sonar, magnetometer, multi-beam, and coastal elevation data. The second fieldwork campaign focused on diver investigations of potential cultural resources identified during the remote sensing work. This presentation discusses the methodology and results of this battlefield survey.

In February 2023, a research team completed the first comprehensive and systematic marine remote-sensing survey of the WWII invasion beaches on Guam. The Asan and Agat units of War in the Pacific National Historic Park (WAPA) were forever changed in July 1944. The invasion beaches are not only the center of a WWII amphibious battlefield, but part of a broader maritime cultural landscape. As a consequence of international, national, and regional maritime activities and especially warfare, Guam is a high probability area for unexploded ordnance (UXO), military materiel dump sites, and shipwrecks. The team collected side-scan sonar, magnetometer, multibeam bathymetry, and backscatter data to locate and identify cultural material offshore Asan and Agat beaches to aid the NPS in their responsibility to protect and preserve what remains of those battles for future generations.

The CHamoru people of Guam have a long maritime tradition of utilizing the ocean and in particular the local reef systems to support their spiritual and physical health. During World War II, Guam was a strategic location for both sides of the war. When the Japanese seized the island in December 1941, they fortified the island with obstacles in the barrier reefs to reduce the risk of an amphibious invasion. To create navigable channels through these obstacles and the reefs, American forces strategically demolished sections of the reefs. With the use of oral history, this paper examines how the CHamoru people experienced these changes and their perception of the archaeological sites that were created due to the American invasion on July 21, 1944. The oral histories will be combined with the site surveys conducted during the 2023 field season to create a comprehensive maritime landscape of this submerged battlefield.

This study seeks to combine a Levels of War approach and a Geographic Information Systems analysis to better understand the Battle of Roi-Namur that was part of Operation Flintlock of WWII. The Levels of War framework will be utilized to assign all components of the battle to its various levels which establishes a foundation for further analysis. Geographic Information Systems will allow for a visualization of the battlefields through a multiscale approach and provide a platform for each component to be spatially represented. By using these methods, all elements of this conflict can be understood independently and holistically. Utilizing these methodologies together allow for a new understanding of the conflict while furthering the capability the Levels of War framework has in aiding various analytical processes.

During World War II, the Hawaiian island of Maui served as the core of US naval aviation in the Pacific, while its beaches and offshore environment provided the ideal practice setting for amphibious combat. South Maui was transformed into a major military training sphere, succeeding periods of sustained, pre-Contact habitation, post-Contact prosperity, partial abandonment, and conversion to agricultural lands. The military buildup’s effect on the area is perhaps best viewed through the Conflict Landscape approach, which seeks to examine the lasting physical and psychological legacies of conflict. This presentation aims to elucidate the military and civilian perspectives in hopes of understanding how South Maui’s World War II landscape was experienced, and the ways in which this obscured the past, while laying the foundation for today’s controversial, socio-economic situation. Evidence for these interpretations consists of archaeological insights, from both terrestrial and submerged contexts, as well as archival sources and recorded testimonies.

The history of World War II is replete with stories of famous maritime losses. Arizona, Royal Oak, Bismarck, Yamato – these names are etched into collective memory. But the losses of non-naval vessels are often less well known. This is especially true in distant theaters like the Aleutian Islands, which stretch for over 1,000 miles from Alaska almost to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The Aleutian Campaign of WWII is sometimes called the Forgotten War. So it is unsurprising that the identity of a shipwreck in Alcan Harbor, Shemya Island – now the home of Eareckson Air Station – had also been forgotten. Dedicated archival research, particularly at the Alaska State Historic Preservation Office and the UAA/APU Consortium Library in Anchorage, brought to light the harrowing tale of a supply ship that grounded in the rocky harbor just before Christmas 1943 and met its final end during a January 1944 williwaw, or major Aleutian storm.

Green Cove Springs was the site of a WWII naval airfield and housed over 300 ships from the mothballed Atlantic Fleet following the war. At least one F4F Wildcat plane wreck and one landing craft wreck were known to be at the bottom of the river adjacent to the air station. In 2022, the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, conducted a remote sensing and diving survey in an area encompassing most of the mothballed fleet moorings. This paper presents the results of the survey, which succeeded in identifying a previously unknown shipwreck and WWII-era material in the inky black waters of the St. Johns River.