BANGKOK — For decades, the United States Navy has served as the foremost symbol of America's power in the Asia-Pacific. With bases from South Korea to Japan to Guam and a fleet of warships bristling with modern weaponry, it has been a physical reminder of the nation’s strength and vigilance in the region to friends and foes alike.

Few images could have been as damaging to that reputation as that of the guided-missile destroyer John S. McCain limping into Singapore on Monday after a predawn collision with an oil tanker punched a hole in the warship’s hull.

Ten sailors were missing, and on Tuesday the Navy said divers had found the remains of some sailors in flooded compartments of the warship. A Navy statement Monday described how water had filled the crew’s sleeping quarters, machinery rooms and communications facilities.

The collision came less than two weeks after the same destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef, a contested atoll that China has built into a de facto military base. The patrol was meant to challenge Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea and underline the United States’ naval dominance of the Pacific Ocean.