USS Towers (DD-959/DDG-9)

The USS Towers (DD-959/DDG-9) was a Charles F. Adams-class guided missile destroyer most noted for action in the Vietnam War. The ship was named in honor of Admiral John Henry Towers.

Towers' keel was laid down on 1 April 1958 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, Washington. She was launched on 23 April 1959 and commissioned on 6 June 1961 at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in nearby Bremerton.

Early Years

Initially stationed out of San Diego, California, Towers carried out trials and local operations off the southern California coast into September 1961 before taking her shakedown cruise to South America. She was deployed to the Far East for the first time in the early spring of 1962.

Following a routine schedule of local operations out of San Diego from 1 January to 17 May 1963, Towers got underway for her second Far East deployment on the 18th. She returned to San Diego on 28 November 1963 and operated along the southern California coast through the end of 1964.

Vietnam

Towers departed San Diego on 5 January 1965 for her third Far East deployment - which turned out to the first of five tours of the Vietnam combat zone over the next eight years. During these combat tours, Towers engaged in carrier operations, performed search and rescue missions in the Gulf of Tonkin and provided offshore gunfire in support of ground combat maneuvers. She returned from the last of these tours a month after the United States began its withdrawal from Vietnam in February 1973.

From 1973 through 1976, Towers stayed close to home, pursuing a regular schedule of local operations, training exercises and routine upkeep and overhaul periods.

1970s-80s

Towers sailed from San Diego on 30 July 1976 for her first extended overseas deployment in three years. After several months of battle exercises, practice maneuvers and diplomatic port calls, she returned to San Diego on 21 March 1977. Post-deployment operations off the west coast were highlighted by a port visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the annual Sea Festival that summer. On 23 September, Towers commenced a four-month availability at San Diego that took her into the new year.

After nine months of testing and evaluation of new radar equipment, Tower entered the Naval Shipyard for a regular overhaul that took her into well into 1979.

In July 1980, Towers underwent a special availability at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in preparation to her reassignment to Yokosuka, Japan. The shift of home port was made official in October of that year. For the next nine years, Towers conducted a wide variety of operations from Yokosuka that took her as far as Karachi, Pakistan.

Towers underwent a major overhaul at Yokosuka that occupied most of 1984.

Fate

The USS Towers continued intermittent local operations until early 1990, when the officers and crew received word of future decommissioning. She got underway for the last time on 18 June, returning to Yokosuka on the 30th.

On 17 July the ship moved to dry dock for inactivation procedures. The USS Towers was decommissioned on 1 October 1990. Later towed to the Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor, she was eventually scuttled in a target exercise off the coast of California in 2002.

Asbestos Risks

Through the ages, men and women in armies and navies have accepted that they are faced with serious risks. But as well as the obvious risks associated with time in the military, a hidden one faced soldiers and sailors in the 1900s: contact with asbestos.

To protect the people on a ship, along with the ship itself, from fire and excessive heat, materials that prevent the spread of fire are needed when constructing a ship. With asbestos' excellent ability to block flames, it was seen as eminently appropriate for use in ship construction, and when navy ships like USS Towers were built, materials containing asbestos were typical. The problem with is that as well as having fire-blocking properties, asbestos is also linked with serious conditions as lung cancer and mesothelioma. It is now common knowledge that impairment of human health happens in situations where asbestos is broken up into microscopic pieces that can be inhaled or ingested.

During an enemy attack or while hoping to ride out a hurricane, the chance of one day developing pleural mesothelioma was no doubt far from most people's minds. But exposure to asbestos was in fact a significant additional hazard of combat, since large-scale damage to a navy ship frequently uncovered asbestos-containing parts so that the fibers could be inhaled or ingested by those in close proximity. In addition, since almost every area of ships like USS Towers had parts made with asbestos, sailors generally were faced with some level of asbestos exposure even in their everyday tasks. In addition, a sailor working in poorly ventilated areas where asbestos was present, such as mechanical sections or engines, was particularly at risk. Those who worked on Towers or other destroyers like her whenever she spent time in port being serviced were subject to the chance of contact with asbestos as well.

Asbestos-related diseases can be difficult to tell apart from a variety of other illnesses, as they can have similar symptoms to such conditions. In order to accurately diagnose such diseases, a physician needs to have information about a patient's experience with contact with asbestos. All those who worked on or lived aboard USS Towers, therefore, should discuss their service history with their physicians. To learn more about the diagnostic process, available treatment options and financial assistance to help pay for medical costs, please fill out this form to receive a comprehensive packet in the mail.

Sources

Destroyers Index