USS Stewart (DE238)

• Class: Edsall Class Destroyer Escort
• Number of boats in class: 85
• Builder: Brown Shipbuilding, Houston Texas
• Keel Laid: July 15, 1942
• Launched: November 22, 1942
• Commissioned: May 31, 1943
• Decommissioned: January 1947


• Length: 306 feet
• Beam: 36.58 feet
• Draft: 10.42 full load feet
• Armament: three 3in/50 guns; two quad 40mm AA guns; 10 twin 20mm guns; three 21inch torpedo tubes; eight K-guns; 1 hedgehog projector; two depth charge racks


• Maximum speed: 21 knots
• Range: 9,100nautical miles at 12 knots
• Complement: 8 officers, 201 enlisted
• Propulsion: four GM diesel engines; four diesel generators; 6,000shp; 2 screws

USS Stewart began her patrols out of Miami, then as a “school ship” training student officers out of Norfolk, VA. She escorted President Roosevelt in the presidential yacht down the Potomac River to rendezvous with USS Iowa for his mission to Casablanca and Tehran. In 1944, she commenced North Atlantic convoy operations, making 30 crossings with occasional enemy submarine and aircraft encounters. On April 9th, 1945, Stewart rescued the surviving members of the SS Saint Mihiel-SS Nashbulk collision and helped put out fires and salvage the ships. During her many convoys, heavy seas and icing conditions were frequent.

Stewart moved to the Pacific theater in mid 1945, and conducted training exercises out of Pearl Harbor until the end of the war. She was decommissioned in late 1945 and changed berths 3 times before arriving at Seawolf Park In 1974. She is the only ship of her class in the US and the third ship (DD-13, DD-224, and DE-238) named for Rear Admiral Charles Stewart who commanded another ship in the historic naval fleet, USS Constitution, from 1813 to 1815.

USS Stewart was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.