WWII Shipyards & Wartime Shipbuilding — Asbestos Exposure Crosswalk

What This Is

The American wartime shipbuilding effort of 1941–1945 was one of the largest industrial mobilizations in human history. By war’s end, U.S. shipyards had launched more than 5,000 vessels — Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, T2 tankers, escort carriers, destroyers, destroyer escorts, frigates, submarines, amphibious craft, and merchant vessels of every category.

Workforce mobilization matched the production scale: more than 1.5 million Americans worked in shipyards during the war, many of them with no prior industrial experience, drawn from across the country and across demographic groups previously excluded from heavy industry (notably women and racial minorities). The same workforce continued building Navy ships through the Korean and early Vietnam eras.

Every one of those vessels was built with extensive asbestos materials in essentially every shipboard system (see Shipyard Pipe Covering, Naval Boiler Products, Marine Gaskets, Ship Engine Room Insulation, Marine Engines).

Major WWII-Era Shipyards

The wartime shipyard network included Navy-owned and private shipyards:

  • Mare Island Naval Shipyard (California)
  • Long Beach Naval Shipyard (California)
  • Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Washington)
  • Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Virginia)
  • Charleston Naval Shipyard (South Carolina)
  • Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Maine / New Hampshire)
  • Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (Pennsylvania)
  • New York Naval Shipyard / Brooklyn Navy Yard (New York)
  • Boston Naval Shipyard (Massachusetts)
  • Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (Hawaii)
  • Kaiser shipyards (Richmond CA, Portland OR, Vancouver WA) — Liberty Ship production
  • Bethlehem Steel shipyards (Sparrows Point MD, Quincy MA, San Francisco CA)
  • Newport News Shipbuilding (Virginia)
  • Ingalls Shipbuilding (Mississippi)
  • Electric Boat / General Dynamics (Groton CT)
  • Federal Shipbuilding (Kearny NJ)
  • Sun Shipbuilding (Chester PA)
  • Many more smaller and specialty yards across the U.S. coasts and Great Lakes

Why the WWII Shipyard Cohort Is Historically Significant

The scale and demographics of wartime shipyard employment created a uniquely large asbestos-exposure cohort. Many workers received only weeks of training before being placed on production crews. Dust controls were minimal to nonexistent. The pace of construction left little time for the kind of engineering controls that postwar industrial-hygiene practice would eventually require.

Mesothelioma latency periods of 30–60 years meant that diagnoses among the WWII shipyard cohort peaked in the 1980s–2000s and continue into the present day for workers who entered the trades as teenagers and young adults at the end of the war.

The cohort also includes a significant women’s asbestos-exposure subgroup — the “Rosie the Riveter” workforce that performed welding, riveting, electrical, and finishing work in shipyards while men were in uniform.

Trades / Service Roles Most Exposed at WWII Shipyards

Welders, riveters, insulators (Heat & Frost), pipefitters, boilermakers, electricians, sheet-metal workers, machinists, riggers, painters, shipfitters, laborers, supervisors, civilian Navy yard inspectors, contract trades crews — across the full WWII workforce.

Manufacturers Named in WWII-Shipyard Litigation

The shipyards procured asbestos materials from essentially every major manufacturer of the era — see manufacturer lists on Shipyard Pipe Covering, Naval Boiler Products, Marine Gaskets, Ship Engine Room Insulation.

Trust Funds Relevant to WWII Shipyard Exposure

  • Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust
  • Owens-Corning / Fibreboard Asbestos PI Trust
  • Pittsburgh Corning Corporation Asbestos PI Trust
  • Eagle-Picher Industries PI Settlement Trust
  • Babcock & Wilcox Company Asbestos PI Trust
  • Combustion Engineering 524(g) Asbestos PI Trust
  • Garlock Sealing Technologies LLC Asbestos PI Trust
  • Foster Wheeler related trusts

Plus VA disability benefits for veterans whose Navy service or merchant marine service ties to the cohort, and Jones Act remedies for merchant mariners.

Cross-References

Compiled from publicly filed asbestos litigation, U.S. Navy and Maritime Commission wartime production records, NIOSH shipyard-worker exposure studies, and academic asbestos-litigation historiography. Product and company references reflect what has been alleged or documented in publicly filed litigation. This page does not constitute a finding of liability against any company. Not legal advice; consult a licensed attorney about your specific situation. Navy veterans should pursue VA service-connected disability benefits in addition to any civil litigation; merchant mariners may also pursue Jones Act claims.