BRP Sierra Madre: Shipwreck Map, Location & Facts

Name	BRP Sierra Madre	Wikidata label
Ship type	tank landing ship	Wikidata P31 instance of
Cause of loss	Grounding or wreck on rocks	Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence
Nationality / flag	Philippines	Wikidata P8047 country of registry
Operator	United States Navy	Wikidata P137 operator
Conflict	World War II	Wikidata P607 conflict
Sea / ocean	South China Sea	Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon
Position	9.7910, 115.8567	Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0)

About the wreck

BRP Sierra Madre (LT-57) is an LST-542-class tank landing ship that is an active duty commissioned vessel under the Philippine Navy.

Originally known as USS LST-821, it was renamed to USS Harnett County (LST-821/AGP-821), built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Harnett County, North Carolina and was the only U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name. It served the United States Navy in World War II and the Vietnam War. It was transferred to South Vietnam's Republic of Vietnam Navy, which named her RVNS My Tho (HQ-800).

After the Vietnam War, Harnett County was transferred to the Philippine Navy, which named her BRP Sierra Madre. In 1999, the Philippine government deliberately had her run aground on Ayungin Shoal in the Spratly Islands to serve as an outpost of the Philippine Marine Corps to affirm the Philippines' exclusive economic zone amid its dispute with China over the Spratly Islands, and it still serves such function as of 2025.

Location

Recorded position: 9.7910, 115.8567 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
Sea / ocean: South China Sea

Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.

OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article BRP Sierra Madre (revision 1379216713), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.