Shipyards: Swimming In Asbestos

At the start of World War II, the Allied navies, both commercial and military, were desperately short of ships. Enemy submarines were sinking too many of the ones that were available.

Even before the United States entered the war, the nation’s shipyards and construction tycoons signed up to build commercial ships for Great Britain and her allies. More than four million men and women went to work in the nation’s shipyards as they geared up for the most massive shipbuilding effort the world had ever seen.

The numbers were amazing. Over four million people—all races, all ages, and both sexes—willingly worked ten-hour shifts, seven days per week, to arm the Allied navies. Unions slogged on through weather conditions that would normally halt construction or production, finishing projects months ahead of schedule.

In 1939 at the start of the war, the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California didn’t even exist. There was just a stretch of marshy land on the shore with deep water nearby. Richmond itself was a sleepy little town of 24,000 with almost no industry.

But by November 1942, the shipyard’s employees had become so proficient that they built one ship, the Robert E. Peary, in seven days, 14 hours, and 29 minutes. Six minutes after that ship was launched, the workers laid the next keel. Before the end of the war, they delivered over 1,500 ships, more than any other shipyard in the nation. (Today the former shipyards house the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, commemorating what those workers accomplished.)

During World War I, it took between ten and twelve months to build one ship. In Norfolk, Virginia, they built or overhauled three ships per day between 1940 and 1945.

But no one warned those patriotic workers about the dangers of asbestos or protected them from it.

Conditions Of Employment
They willingly worked in air thick with asbestos dust. They insulated literally miles of piping in the engine and boiler rooms below decks, where the air couldn’t move and the asbestos fibers were thick enough to choke on. They lined the boilers and packed the steam turbines.

Insulators who worked below decks at Kaiser’s shipyards were called “snowbirds” because of the layers of white on their shoulders and ears.

A barber developed asbestosis from cutting the hair of asbestos workers.

Studies show that ship’s insulators are among the most heavily exposed of all insulators. As many as 94% can expect to develop an asbestos-related disease. Many of them will die from it.

Between 1980 and 1995, more people died following exposure to asbestos on the job (about 150,000) than from all other workplace accidents and illnesses combined (about 140,000).

During the shooting of World War II, 18 out of every 1,000 American soldiers and sailors were killed. After the shooting stopped, 14 out of every 1,000 shipyard workers died from exposure to asbestos.

And these people did not need to die. The United States government was fully informed of the dangers of asbestos prior to that date. The Navy had issued occupational hygiene standards for shipyards. But no one enforced them.

The shipyard workers are the unsung victims of World War II.