Description

S1E26 — The Shipyards Never Sleep

The Asbestos Podcast · Season 1 · Arc 6: The War Effort, 1942–1945 (consequences to present)

Episode 26 — The Shipyards Never Sleep

“The first time I walked out on the ways, I was walking into a kind of nightmare of sounds, noise, and smells.” Howard Zinn was nineteen years old when he walked through the gates of Brooklyn Navy Yard in December 1941. He’d later become one of America’s most influential historians. But first, he’d spend years crawling into four-by-four-by-four-foot compartments so full of asbestos dust that workers couldn’t see across them.

By December 1943, 1.7 million shipyard workers labored around the clock — three shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Each Iowa-class battleship contained 465 long tons of asbestos insulation. Each destroyer: 85,000 to 90,000 pounds. Over 5,500 ships built between 1939 and 1945. One Navy memo from 1944 called the dust concentrations “a dangerous hazard to personnel.” It never reached the workers on the floor. They thought the dust dissolved when they breathed it in — like sugar in water.

Key Takeaways

• 465 long tons of asbestos insulation per Iowa-class battleship. Eighty-five thousand to ninety thousand pounds per destroyer. Over 5,500 vessels built 1939–1945 — Liberty ships, Victory ships, destroyers, battleships — each one packed with asbestos and built by workers who had no idea what they were breathing.
• Three shifts. Twenty-four hours. Seven days a week. At Brooklyn Navy Yard, 70,000 workers per day at peak production. Forty percent were logging more than 48 hours a week by 1942. The time-weighted averages industrial hygienists later used to define “safe” exposure were meaningless for workers logging 60–70-hour weeks in asbestos dust.
• Every trade was exposed. Pipe coverers handled felt insulation that was 85–95% asbestos by content. Welders wore asbestos gloves, aprons, leggings, and blankets. Boilermakers worked in compartments where insulators had just been. Electricians handled asbestos wire insulation. Carpenters cut Transite board (asbestos-cement). Court records: “Asbestos was essentially everywhere.”
• The 1944 Navy Bureau of Medicine letter. Dust counts during amosite felt insulation application were “well above the accepted maximum of eight million particles of dust per cubic foot.” Conclusion: “a dangerous hazard to personnel.” Written in 1944. Workers on the shipyard floor: never informed.
• Clarence Borel’s testimony. Industrial insulation worker, 33 years (1936–1969). Under oath: “I blowed this dust out of my nostrils by handfuls at the end of the day.” He thought it was “bothersome.” He “never realized it could cause any serious or terminal illness.” He believed the dust “dissolves as it hits your lungs.” He learned the truth in January 1969. He died June 3, 1970 — four months later. His case became Borel v. Fibreboard, the landmark asbestos liability decision.
• The information gap. 1930: British science establishes asbestos causes asbestosis. 1938: U.S. Public Health Service sets a 5-million-particle safe limit. 1941: Stephenson warns Admiral McIntire that “we are not protecting the men as we should.” 1944: Navy documents “dangerous hazard to personnel.” Workers’ knowledge throughout: the dust dissolves.
• 30% of all mesothelioma diagnoses are veterans. Nearly 1,000 shipyard and Navy cases annually. The 20–50-year latency clock meant executives who signed the 1944 memos were retired before workers started dying. Cases from 1940s wartime exposure are still being diagnosed today.

Featured at Danziger & De Llano

Larry Gates, Senior Client Advocate & Military Veteran Specialist at Danziger & De Llano. His father died of mesothelioma after years at the Shell refinery in Pasadena, Texas. Larry is seventy-two and currently fighting his own battle with cancer. When he talks to veteran families, he’s not reading from a script.

Resources

• Mesothelioma help: dandell.com
• Veterans and mesothelioma: dandell.com/mesothelioma/veterans/
• Episode notes and sources: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-26-the-shipyards-never-sleep/
• Full transcript: wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP26_Transcript
• Previous episode: EP25 — The Navy Comes Calling

Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — 52 episodes tracing asbestos from ancient pottery to the 2024 EPA ban. Produced by Danziger & De Llano.

Next: Episode 27 — The Women of the Shipyards. By 1943, women made up 13% of shipyard production workers. They did the same jobs. They breathed the same dust. And when they went home, the dust came with them.

Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is sponsored by Danziger & De Llano Mesothelioma Law Firm, a nationwide practice with over 30 years of experience and nearly $2 billion recovered for asbestos victims. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the exposure happened somewhere—and Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano know how to trace it back. For a free consultation, visit https://dandell.com.

Resources:

→ Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/ 

→ Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/ 

→ Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/ 

→ Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/ 

Sister Podcast - MESO: The Mesothelioma Podcast:

http://mesotheliomapodcast.com/