USS Dennis J. Buckley (DD-808)

USS Dennis J. Buckley (DD/DDR-808) was a Gearing-class destroyer, first laid down on 24 July 1944 by the union steelworkers of the Bath Iron Works Corporation and launched on 20 December 1944 in Bath, Maine. Dennis J. Buckley was commissioned on 2 March 1945.

Dennis J. Buckley sailed to Tokyo Bay for occupation duty, arriving 22 December 1945. She toured the world for the next four and one-half years, stopping at the Marianas, Philippine Islands, China, Singapore, Ceylon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and Turkey. The Buckley returned to New York on 22 February 1949.

On 18 March 1949, Buckley was reclassified DDR-808, a radar picket destroyer. She departed soon thereafter for a tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, making diplomatic calls in Ireland, England, Germany and Belgium en route.

Dennis J. Buckley made completed tours of duty in the Mediterranean between 1952 and 1955. The destroyer then joined the Pacific Fleet for a tour of duty from 9 July until 21 October 1956.

Buckley took part in two Far Eastern tours of duty in 1957 and 1958. After her return to Long Beach, California on 27 February 1959, she went into the yard for an extended period of repairs and overhaul.

Vietnam Era

Over the next few years, Dennis J. Buckley underwent maintenance and repairs in Kobe, Japan, before returning home to Long Beach on 11 March 1960. She received a regular overhaul at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, starting on 16 May 1960. In 1961 the ship spent time in the western Pacific and performed training exercises back in California, as well as in Pearl Harbor.

In 1964 Dennis J. Buckley sailed for Bremerton, Washington, where she spent the next nine months undergoing a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization conversion. The ship reverted to destroyer status and was renumbered DD-808 on 1 April 1964.

After refresher training in early 1965, Buckley was sent for a tour of duty off the Vietnam coast. After seeing action in several shore bombardment missions, the ship returned to Pearl Harbor, eventually reaching San Diego on 10 November 1965. The following year, she returned to Vietnam with the 7th Fleet and took part in a gunfire support mission in South Vietnam. She returned to San Diego on 11 February 1967 and spent six weeks in dry dock at the San Francisco Bay Naval Shipyard undergoing maintenance and voyage repairs.

In 1968, Buckley left for her third tour of Vietnam, which lasted until August 1968. From October to December 1968, Dennis J. Buckley spent time at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory undergoing sonar evaluations.

After completing additional tours of Vietnam in 1969, Buckley went to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, where she underwent more repairs between 10 July and 16 October 1970. Further deployments to Vietnam followed, but the aging destroyer was beginning to experience structural problems common to combat vessels that have seen a great deal of action.

Dennis J. Buckley was decommissioned on 2 July 1973 and sold for scrap on 29 April 1974 to Levin Metals Corporation of Richmond, California.

Asbestos Risks

To protect a ship's crew, along with the vessel itself, from fire and excessive heat, materials with excellent insulating properties are important when building a destroyer. During the period when USS Dennis J. Buckley and other destroyers were constructed, the substance known as asbestos was frequently utilized on ships for its ability to insulate against flames. Though practically every part of destroyers such as the USS Dennis J. Buckley presented a risk of asbestos exposure, a ship's engine room and engineering sections were generally the spaces where crewmen or dockworkers were in the greatest danger of inhaling asbestos fibers. Even greater risk of undergoing high levels of asbestos exposure resulted when a ship was damaged, often through battle or routine operations, since wear and tear to a vessel could cause asbestos-containing materials to release the toxic fibers into the air where anyone nearby could inhale or ingest them into the body.

Asbestos exposure can cause the development of serious asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma, a rare cancer that typically affects the lining of the lungs. Mesothelioma develops when asbestos fibers enter the body and become lodged in organs and body cavities, causing inflammation or infection. Patients with mesothelioma may not present symptoms of the cancer until 20 to 50 years after initial asbestos exposure occurred. Veterans comprise approximately 30 percent of mesothelioma patients and those who served during the middle of the 20th century continue to be diagnosed with the cancer today. If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or served aboard the USS Dennis J. Buckley and wish to learn more, please click here and Asbestos.com will send you a complimentary comprehensive packet.

In addition to those who served aboard ships and vessels, workers who repaired ships or worked on the construction of destroyers may also have been exposed to asbestos. If you served aboard a destroyer like the USS Dennis J. Buckley or worked in a shipyard, you may wish to alert your doctor of your potential exposure to asbestos. Informing your doctor may lead to an earlier diagnosis should an asbestos-related disease be present, which may aid in greater treatment options to combat the illness.

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