USAT Liberty Wreck

One of the world’s most accessible wreck dives — a WWII-era US Army cargo ship torpedoed on 11 January 1942, now lying parallel to shore just 25 metres offshore at Tulamben, accessible without a boat.

Overview

The USAT Liberty was a US Army cargo ship launched on 19 June 1918 at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearny, New Jersey. On 11 January 1942, it was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-66 while carrying railway parts and rubber from Australia to the Philippines, approximately 10 nautical miles southwest of the Lombok Strait. Two destroyers (USS Paul Jones and HNLMS Van Ghent) towed the stricken vessel toward Singaraja, but she was taking on too much water and was instead beached on the black-sand shore at Tulamben, Bali. The ship remained on the beach until tremors from the 1963 eruption of Mount Agung caused it to slide off into the sea, where it now lies.

Wikipedia records the vessel’s length as 411 ft 6 in (approximately 125 metres); dive operator descriptions commonly give the figure as 120 metres. Wikipedia additionally records a displacement of approximately 13,130 tons, but this figure could not be independently corroborated by a second source at time of writing, so it is noted here with that caveat rather than stated as a confirmed fact. The wreck lies parallel to shore roughly 25 metres out, spanning 3 to 30 metres depth, with the upper structure at 3–5 metres. The hull is completely encrusted in soft corals, gorgonian fans, and sponges, making this one of the world’s great shore dives and one of Indonesia’s most-visited dive sites.

Site Information

• Location: Tulamben, northeast Bali, Indonesia
• Entry Type: Shore entry
• Site Type: Wreck dive
• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Maximum Depth: 30 meters
• Typical Visibility: 10–30 metres
• Current: Generally mild; can increase with tide
• Best Time: Year-round; April–November for optimal visibility

Marine Life

Species reported at the wreck by multiple operator sources include bigeye trevally, bumphead parrotfish (most reliably seen at night or dawn), Napoleon wrasse, sea turtles, reef sharks, great barracuda, and garden eels on the surrounding sand. The hull’s soft coral and gorgonian growth also hosts a wide range of smaller reef fish. This list reflects species specifically attributed to the Liberty wreck by the sources below, not a generic regional list.

Sources: Wikipedia - USAT Liberty, Let’s Dive Tulamben - USAT Liberty History, Let’s Dive Tulamben - Liberty Wreck Dive Site, Diving Indo - Liberty Shipwreck. Last updated 2026-07-17.