Allen Tony08/08/2010The USAT Liberty was a American military cargo ship which was equipped with guns for WWII and was carrying a cargo of railway parts and rubber. She was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine I-66 off Lombok on the 11th of January, 1942. The U.S. destroyer USS Paul Jones (DD-230) and Dutch destroyer HNLMS Van Ghent took the damaged ship in tow attempting to reach Singaraja, the Dutch port and administra tive centre for the Lesser Sunda Islands, on the north coast of Bali.

However she was taking too much water and so was beached on the eastern shore of Bali at Tulamben so that the cargo and fittings could be salvaged. Over the years anything reusable was removed by locals but the ship´s hull and many of the interior structure remained intact. In 1963 the nearby volcano Gunung Agung erupted and the lava flow pushed the ship into its current position just a couple of feet below water. During this process the hull broke into two pieces. Now she is laying only 30 meters from the Tulamben beach on a sandy slope 90° on her side parallel to the shore. It is not only one of the very few WWII wrecks easily accessible in shallow, warm water but also the only one that still looks like a ship.

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Allied Merchant Ship Losses in the Pacific & SE Asia