USS Shubrick DD-639

USS Shubrick (DD-639) was a Gleaves-class destroyer, built at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, and launched on 18 April 1942. She was commissioned on 7 February 1943, Lt. Cmdr. Louis A. Bryan in command.

Into the Breach

After her shakedown cruise, Shubrick sailed for North Africa with a large convoy at the beginning of June 1943. Reaching her destination, she prepared for Operation Husky, providing fire support for the landings at Gela, Sicily.

During a night air raid on 4 August, Shubrick was hit amidships by a 500-pound bomb that caused flooding of two main machinery spaces and left the ship dead in the water. Nine crewmen were killed and 20 wounded in the attack. The damaged destroyer was towed to Malta for temporary repairs. She was then able to limp home to New York on one operational screw, arriving two months later.

After completion of repairs and refresher training for her crew in January 1944, Shubrick made two convoy runs to Europe and back before joining the Normandy bombardment group in Belfast. After escorting battleship USS Nevada and five cruisers to the Normandy beaches, Shubrick took up her own fire support station on the morning of 6 June 1944 and opened fire on her assigned targets.

Shubrick remained off the Normandy beaches for the next month on escort duties, fire support missions, and anti-motor-torpedo-boat and antisubmarine patrols. She left Normandy for the last time on 11 July and joined a task group bound for the Mediterranean.

Vichy Invasion

On 12 August, Shubrick sailed from Malta with four escort carriers and five other destroyers to cover troop landings in southern France on 15 August. Three weeks later, Shubrick sailed for home to undergo scheduled maintenance.

After overhaul and one last voyage to Italy, Shubrick sailed for the Pacific on 1 February 1945. After reporting to Pearl Harbor, she sailed for the combat zone on 21 April, escorting the battleship USS Mississippi to Okinawa.

Shubrick completed one radar picket patrol in mid-May, but, on her way to her second, she was attacked just after midnight on 29 May 1945. A bomb carried by a kamikaze plane blew a 30-foot hole in her starboard side; further damage was done when one of the ship's depth charges exploded. The attack cost the lives of 35 crewmen, and another 25 were injured.

Fate

Shubrick underwent emergency repairs until 15 July, then sailed for the States on one engine, arriving at Puget Sound Navy Yard on 10 August. Because of the end of the war, the Bureau of Ships decided not to repair the damage. The destroyer was decommissioned on 16 November 1945; she was eventually sold to the National Metal and Steel Corporation of Los Angeles, California, for scrapping two years later.

Asbestos Risks

On board each U.S. Navy ship during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, the mineral asbestos was routinely installed for pipe insulation and for fireproofing, with ships' engines and mechanical sections usually where seamen or dockworkers were prone to be exposed to fibers of asbestos; however, essentially every part of the Shubrick offered a real danger of asbestos exposure. When a vessel was damaged in battle, by severe weather, or accidentally, it often uncovered asbestos-containing materials to the air or subjected them to flames or water, which meant even more risk of undergoing extensive asbestos exposure.

With asbestos, the most serious risk of exposure is experienced where products made from the mineral are friable, because if the asbestos filaments are released into the air, the particles can then be inhaled by those near the exposure. Studies have proven that major medical conditions such as asbestosis, lung cancer and several types of mesothelioma are linked to extensive asbestos inhalation.

Workers with a history of contact with this mineral, therefore, should make a point to inform their doctors, as most asbestos-caused conditions can be hard to distinguish from other illnesses. To learn more about the diagnostic process, available treatment options and financial assistance to help pay for medical costs, please fill in the form on this page to receive a comprehensive packet in the mail.

Like servicemen on her sister vessels, those who sailed aboard the Shubrick were all too often, along with the expected dangers associated with war, endangered by asbestos fiber inhalation, especially since the ship took severe combat damage and went through extensive redesigns and repair jobs. Besides this large-scale damage and redesign activity, the men who worked on board the Shubrick were often subject to inhalation of asbestos fibers in the daily conduct of their service, as were repair personnel such as pipe fitters and carpenters who worked on the ship whenever she spent time dry-docked.

Considering the Shubrick's record, and based on what we now know about the result of asbestos inhalation, it is imperative that the men who at any time in their career sailed and labored on board this destroyer, as well as those who served on other vessels like her, understand the health hazards raised by former exposure to this deadly mineral.

Sources:

Destroyers Index