Asbestos on Destroyers

The U.S. Navy maintains a large and active fleet of ships classified as destroyers, the most common type Navy vessel. These speedy, agile ships work as shields and guards for larger, more vulnerable ships of a battle-group, including aircraft carriers. Destroyers use their speed and armament to defend the larger vessels against powerful attackers like torpedo boats, submarines and enemy aircraft. In the early years of their use, prior to World War II, destroyers were often light ships. As the war progressed, destroyers were larger and more heavily armed to better defend against enemy threats and increase their sea-going capability. The average crew of a Navy destroyer is 200 sailors and officers.

As in every Navy ship constructed from the early 20th century through the 1970s, destroyers were filled with asbestos containing materials. There is virtually no portion of a U.S. Navy ship built before the mid-1970s that is free of asbestos. Asbestos insulation was used most heavily in the engine and boiler rooms, on turbines, around fuel tanks and fueling equipment, among electrical components and ordnance storage areas - anywhere there was a high risk of fire. Used on ships for its fireproof qualities, asbestos insulation and fireproofing often came either in sheets or in the form of a spray, which hardened into a protective shell. Asbestos laden materials were common. Maintenance and operations activities, including repairing pipes, operating the boiler room, and fire control systems further increased the crew's exposure to asbestos.

Being exposed to asbestos is the chief cause of mesothelioma cancer. The largest segment of the population to get mesothelioma is veterans, many of whom are exposed during their military service. Read more about veterans, asbestos and mesothelioma on our veterans page.

Asbestos Exposure during Construction of Destroyers

Shipyard workers and their families were also exposed to dangerous asbestos containing materials during the process of construction and maintenance. At least 298 asbestos-containing products were used on board U.S. Navy ships. U.S. shipyards produced several hundred destroyers during the World War II era. As the most common ship in the US Navy, destroyers were constantly in production or in for repairs in shipyards. Workers at dozens of shipyard were exposed to materials that contained high levels of asbestos, including workers at:

• Boston Naval Shipyard, Charlestown, Massachusetts.
• Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, South Carolina
• Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard, San Francisco, California
• Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Long Beach, California
• Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California
• New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York
• Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia
• Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine
• And Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington

The Long Beach Naval shipyard has the distinction of building a full destroyer from start to finish in only seven-and-a-half days. Destroyers containing hundreds of asbestos-laden materials were also built by private shipbuilding firms around the country during the busy World War II era and beyond. Workers at these yards and dozens of other privately owned shipyards regularly came into contact with asbestos. Thousands of workers and their families were exposed to asbestos through the building and retrofitting work done at these facilities well into the 1970s. The yards included:

• Bath Iron Works Corporation, Maine
• Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, New Jersey
• The Bethlehem Steelworks yards in Maryland and New York
• Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company in Virginia
• And the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut

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