On March 1, 1942, three months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the aged American destroyer USS Edsall was steaming alone in the Indian Ocean south of Java, loaded with 153 sailors and several dozen Army Air Force pilots and soldiers.

The Edsall was a small ship, only about 300 feet long. It had been damaged in an earlier depth charge accident and was unfit for combat. But it was probably hurrying to the aid of a ship in distress when it blundered into a huge Japanese naval force around 4 p.m.

For more than an hour, the Edsall dodged and swerved as enemy ships fired hundreds of shells. The Edsall fired back, threw up a smokescreen and launched torpedoes. The Japanese later called the Edsall “the dancing mouse.”

Finally, the Japanese sent in dive bombers, and the battered destroyer rolled over and sank as evening fell. A few survivors were picked up and later beheaded in an enemy prison camp, historians found.

On Monday in Australia, when the country observes Remembrance Day, U.S. and Australian officials announced that the wreck of the Edsall has been discovered.

“We will now be able to preserve this important memorial and hope that the families of the heroes who died there will know their loved ones rest in peace,” Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said in a video statement posted on social media.

The wreck was found late last year in 18,000 feet of water south of Australia’s remote Christmas Island, the U.S. Navy said. Australian and U.S. officials worked together to confirm it was the Edsall.

“It is pretty incredible,” said retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Samuel J. Cox, head of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington. “And because there were no surviving American witnesses, there’s no Medals of Honor, no Navy Crosses, nothing for any of these guys.”

Historian Donald M. Kehn Jr. — whose 2008 book, “A Blue Sea of Blood,” tells the Edsall’s story — called the find “absolutely staggering.”

The wreck was found by the Stoker, an Australian naval support ship, which is normally used for hydrographic surveys, Vice Adm. Mark Hammond, chief of the Royal Australian Navy, said in the video.

A spokeswoman for the Australian navy would not say what the Stoker was doing when the Edsall was found, citing “operational security sensitivities.”

The Australian ship found the wreck in the late summer of 2023 and examined it with underwater robots and sonar, Cox said. The Australian navy notified Cox, the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command director, in May that it had found what it believed to be the Edsall wreck.

Admiral Cox said his underwater archaeology team reviewed the Australian data. “There was another ship, the [USS] Pillsbury, that went down” nearby, he said. “It’s the same class of ship. It would have looked virtually identical.”

But the Pillsbury is thought to have been more heavily damaged than the Edsall, and a few weeks ago, Admiral Cox said, his underwater archaeology experts agreed that the wreck was the Edsall.

An eerie underwater image provided by the Australian navy shows the ship largely intact sitting upright on the disturbed bottom where it landed.

“The image actually is amazing,” Admiral Cox said in an email Sunday. “The bow is pointing to the right and stern to the left.”

“Going right to left, the first bright spot is the bridge area,” he said. “The next bright area is where the remnants of the four [smoke] stacks are. The dark spot near the stern is the fatal bomb hit.”

“You can also see two of her triple torpedo tube mounts,” which had fallen off, at the top of the image, he said. “When ships sink, there is a tendency for them to roll upside down, causing turrets and torpedo tube mounts to fall out. After the first couple hundred feet, a ship will usually right itself and impact the bottom right side up.”

“You can see by the disturbance on the bottom around the ship that she hit pretty hard,” he added.

The Edsall was built in Philadelphia and launched in 1920. By 1942, it was considered out of date and under gunned. But it was among the ships that the navies of the United States, Britain, Australia and the Netherlands had to use to counter the Japanese onslaught after Pearl Harbor.

The Edsall’s skipper was Lt. Joshua James Nix, a 33-year-old Naval Academy graduate from Memphis. He had a wife and two children and had been in command only about four months.

“When we asked about him as children, all we would get was, ‘He died in the war,’” Nix’s grandson, Jim Nix, said in a telephone interview Sunday. “Nobody really knew. … It’s bad that I didn’t get to know him. But that’s life.”

Also on board the Edsall was Lt. j.g. Morris Davies Gilmore Jr., 25, of Annapolis, another Academy graduate whose father was a decorated World War I Navy officer and lived in Annapolis.

On board, too, were Fire Controlman Lee Franklin Root, of Southeast Washington; Fireman John Abner Tate, of Richmond; and Boatswains Mate John Clifford Jackson of Mathews, Va.

On March 1, 1942, the Edsall was among the allied ships trying to survive the assault of the powerful Japanese naval force of aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers that was sweeping into the waters around the island of Java, in what today is Indonesia.

The Japanese force was headed by Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, who had led the Dec. 7, 1941, raid on Pearl Harbor. It included four of the six aircraft carriers that had been part of that attack, Kehn wrote in his book. (All four were later sunk at the Battle of Midway.)

By March 1, the Japanese had already sunk or crippled more than a half-dozen allied vessels and forced other allied ships to retreat, according to a history of the engagement that Admiral Cox wrote.

One of the ships trying to get away was the USS Pecos, an oiler that had hundreds of survivors from other damaged vessels on board. At about 10 a.m., the Pecos was attacked by Japanese airplanes and, before sinking several hours later, sent out a distress call.

The Edsall probably heard the distress call and was probably headed to help when it ran into the Japanese task force, Admiral Cox wrote.

“Nix’s position was hopeless,” he wrote. The Edsall was too slow to escape. Its small guns could not reach the wary enemy vessels or penetrate their armor.

But Nix zigged and zagged, sped up and slowed down. Enemy shells plunged into the water around the Edsall but failed to hit home. A Japanese observer likened the ship to a “Japanese Dancing Mouse,” a popular domesticated pet in Japan known for its eccentric movements, Admiral Cox wrote.

At 4:20 p.m., one frustrated Japanese officer ordered his ships to charge. Nix responded by charging back and firing torpedoes, which narrowly missed an enemy cruiser.

After the Japanese had fired more than 1,000 shells, a furious Nagumo ordered his carrier planes to attack. Nix evaded most of the bombs, but at least one was apparently on target.

The Edsall caught fire, slowed to a halt and began to sink. Nix ordered the ship to be abandoned, but as he did he pointed the front of the vessel toward the enemy. “It’s a maritime version of flipping the bird,” Admiral Cox said.