Mesothelioma and Asbestos Exposure
for USS Washington Veterans
The USS Washington was built in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, one of the nation’s oldest construction facilities for naval craft. The keel was laid in June of 1938 and the hull was launched on June 1st, 1940. After the ship was outfitted and thoroughly tested, she was commissioned on May 15, 1941 less than five months before the United States would enter World War II. The ship was active throughout the Pacific War, claiming the distinction of single handedly sinking a Japanese battleship off Guadalcanal. She was decommissioned in 1947 and sold for scrap in 1961.
The ship was built to state of the art standards for Navy ships of the line for that era; the USS Washington was one of the first ships fitted with radar equipment. However one of the unfortunate characteristics of Navy ship design and construction for World War II on until about 1970 was the widespread use of asbestos for a variety of structural purposes. Asbestos is a tough, resilient fibrous mineral that has great insulating properties and is highly resistant to fire. Peak use of the material was the 1940s through about 1965.
Every Navy ship commissioned for World War II used asbestos material as insulation for boilers on board the ship, for the engine room, for the miles of pipes that ran throughout the ship, and for innumerable pipes and valves that were part of the ship’s infrastructure. Asbestos sheeting and other materials were used for fire retardant purposes in the ship’s interior, for hatch seals, and for gaskets to seal the pipes, valves and pumps. There were several tons of asbestos materials and products on the USS Washington and every other large Navy vessel that went to war against Japan and Germany.
Asbestos exposure has since been proven to be a major cause of industrial diseases, for workers in plants and mills of all types and for workers in the shipyards that built and repaired ships during the mid-Twentieth century. The same has been true for sailors on those Navy ships and men who served in the Merchant Marine of World War II. Exposure to worn asbestos materials like insulation can result in workers inhaling microscopic asbestos fibers that decades later, cause the development of asbestos lung cancer, asbestosis, or mesothelioma – another lethal form of malignant cancer.
That is exactly what happened to thousands of sailors who served in World War II and to the men who built and refitted those vessels. Tens of thousands of Americans have been diagnosed with asbestos related diseases in the past forty years; thirty percent of those who were diagnosed with mesothelioma were veterans. More of those veterans were from the Navy than from any other military branch.
Mesothelioma typically does not develop as an active disease for forty years or more after the asbestos exposure has occurred. The Navy veterans who served on the USS Washington and who have become mesothelioma victims began to get sick in the 1980s. The average age of a malignant mesothelioma patient upon diagnosis is 65; it is an insidious disease that attacks men and women who have mostly reached their retirement years. After years of denial the VA formally recognized the relationship between military service and asbestos related diseases, leading to treatment programs for veterans with asbestosis and mesothelioma.