Fletcher-Class Destroyers — Asbestos in the Workhorse WWII Navy Destroyer

The Fletcher class consisted of 175 destroyers commissioned between 1942 and 1944 at Bath Iron Works, Federal Shipbuilding, Puget Sound Navy Yard, Todd Pacific, and other yards — the largest single class of destroyers ever built by the United States. The Fletcher class served as the primary destroyer of the WWII Pacific campaign, escorting carrier task forces, conducting shore bombardment, and screening amphibious landings from Guadalcanal to the final Pacific offensives. Many Fletcher-class ships continued in service through the Korean War and into the Cold War, with the last ships decommissioning in the mid-1970s. The Fletcher class’ WWII-era construction used asbestos throughout the steam engineering plant consistent with wartime construction standards.

WWII-Era Steam Plant Asbestos

Fletcher-class destroyers used steam turbine propulsion with WWII-era asbestos insulation:

• Boiler plant — each Fletcher-class destroyer had two Babcock & Wilcox boilers with asbestos lagging on exterior surfaces, asbestos combustion chamber refractory brick, and asbestos rope and packing at boiler access doors and valve packing throughout the firerooms. BT ratings maintaining the Fletcher-class boiler plant performed lagging and refractory maintenance in the confined single-fireroom design of these 376-foot destroyers
• Main steam piping — the main steam piping from the Fletcher-class firerooms to the engineroom and to auxiliary steam consumers used asbestos magnesia pipe covering on the hot steam distribution piping throughout the engineering spaces. The compact Fletcher-class engineering arrangement concentrated the steam piping — and the asbestos pipe covering — in the limited overhead and bulkhead space of the destroyer hull
• Engineering auxiliaries — boiler feed pumps, steam-driven air ejectors, and ship’s service diesel generators used asbestos gaskets and packing materials in the MM and BT maintenance routines

WWII Combat Operations

Fletcher-class destroyers served in virtually every major WWII Pacific campaign:

• Engineering ratings on Fletcher-class destroyers maintained combat-tempo engineering plants across the Pacific campaign, standing sustained engineering watches in the confined firerooms and enginerooms under elevated operational temperatures that accelerated the deterioration of asbestos pipe covering insulation

VA Claims for Fletcher-Class Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers asbestos exposure aboard WWII-era steam destroyers. BT and MM ratings who served aboard Fletcher-class destroyers and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits.

Source notes: equipment-manifest entries (where shown) are sourced from public-record BUSHIPS (Bureau of Ships) documentation, NARA archives, and the public asbestos litigation record. Manufacturer attributions link to documented asbestos-product histories on AsbestosIndex.com where available. Nothing on this page constitutes medical or legal advice.