Evidence
10 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-10).
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[1]DANFS, USS Bear (AG-29) entry - construction, service, and disposal narrative + spec block (verbatim transcription at ibiblio/HyperWar; live NHHC URL 404 - standing link rot) [nhhc_danfs]
- Locator
- DANFS AG-29 entry, full text
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- Documented for this hull (DANFS): 'Bear was built in 1874 by Alexander Stephen and Sons, Ltd., Linthouse, Goven [Govan], Scotland, as a sealing vessel; purchased by the Navy at St. John's, Newfoundland, 28 January 1884; and commissioned 17 March 1884, Lieutenant W. H. Emory in command.' Purchased for the Greely rescue: Bear and Thetis rescued Greely and the six other survivors at Cape Sabine 23 June 1884. Decommissioned April 1885 and transferred to the Revenue Cutter Service; served RCS/Coast Guard until 1928 on 34 Alaskan/Arctic voyages; sold by the Coast Guard 1929 to the City of Oakland as a museum; used as Bear of Oakland by Rear Adm. Byrd on the 1933-35 Antarctic Expedition. Commissioned as Bear (AG-29) 11 September 1939; two Antarctic voyages (22 Nov 1939-5 Jun 1940; 10 Oct 1940-18 May 1941); Northeast Greenland Patrol until returning to Boston 15 November 1943; decommissioned 17 May 1944; transferred to the Maritime Commission 13 February 1948. Spec block (1884-era): ScStr, T. 751, l. 190'4", b. 29'9", dr. 12'.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1874-1948
- Limitations
- DANFS compresses the reacquisition as 'repurchased ... 11 September 1939' - Shipscribe documents a bareboat charter on that date and purchase from Byrd 31 Dec 1941; the MC custody card shows the formal charter chain in Sep 1941 (see correction row). Spec block is 1884-era, not AG-29-era. No asbestos, materials, or insulation content; supports no asbestos claim.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-01
-
[2]Shipscribe (Stephen S. Roberts), USS BEAR (AG-29) class page - compilation from official Navy records (construction/disposition tables, class notes, ship notes) [other_primary]
- Locator
- AG-29 class page: class data block, Construction/Disposition tables, Class Notes, Ship Notes
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- Design/construction and milestone detail beyond DANFS: launched 19 January 1874; displacement 1,267 light / 1,280 std tons; 198.5' oa x 175.5' pp x 29.75' x 17.5'; armament machine guns (1941) then 2-20mm (1943); speed 8 kts; machinery Atlas diesel, 1 screw. Sail barkentine with a 500 hp auxiliary steam engine as built for the sealing trade; 'unusually heavily built wooden hull.' Navy-to-Treasury transfer 3 March 1885; Coast Guard decommissioning 3 May 1929 at Oakland. Byrd renamed her BEAR OF OAKLAND; refitted for his second Antarctic expedition at the Boston Navy Yard (departed Boston 28 Sep 1933, returned 16 May 1935); then converted by Byrd at the Atlantic Shipyard to diesel propulsion, auxiliaries electrified, fitted for a Barkley-Grow seaplane. Navy chartered her 11 Sep 1939; Auxiliary Vessels Board recommended purchase 14 Nov 1941 (CNO implementation 22 Nov 41); purchased from Byrd 31 Dec 1941. Decommissioned Boston Navy Yard 17 May 1944; stricken 9 June 1944; transferred to MC 13 Feb 1948 and delivered same day to buyer Frank W. Shaw, Montreal. Merchant ARCTIC SEALER 1948-1956; renamed BEAR 1959 and engine removed; 1962 drydocked in Nova Scotia, re-rigged three-masted barkentine; foundered 19 Mar 1963 in severe Atlantic storm under tow from Halifax.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1874-1963
- Limitations
- Secondary compilation of official Navy records (not the records themselves) - the house standard for milestone granularity DANFS omits. Variants vs other sources logged in correction row (builder city; 'Halifax to Boston' tow vs Philadelphia destination in NOAA/NavSource; 'Arctic Sealer' vs 'Arctic Bear'). Contains no asbestos, materials, or insulation information; supports no asbestos claim.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-02
-
[3]U.S. Maritime Administration, ShipHistory database - three linked records for this hull: Detail 12734 BEAR (AG-29), Detail 6932 BEAR OF OAKLAND, Detail 12735 USRC/USCGC BEAR; plus digitized custody status card (BEAR OF OAKLAND card) [marad_nrc]
- Locator
- ShipHistory Detail 12734 (AG-29), 6932 (Bear of Oakland - status card + BEAR.pdf / BEAR OF OAKLAND.pdf documents), 12735 (USRC/USCGC Bear); card scan under Status Cards/Documents tabs
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- MARAD ShipHistory carries this hull under all three names with year built 1874, shipyard 'A. Stephen and Sons,' 198 ft x 30 ft, fate 'Sunk - Storm,' and mission tags 'Arctic Exploration' and 'World War II.' The digitized Maritime Commission custody card documents the formal charter chain: at noon EST 8 September 1941 at New York, N.Y., Richard E. Byrd delivered the vessel to the U.S. Maritime Commission under 'Charter Party Agr.,' and the Maritime Commission delivered her on to the U.S. Navy Department as 'Sub-Charterer' the same entry - corroborating the charter-then-purchase chain Shipscribe documents (charter 11 Sep 1939; purchase 31 Dec 1941) against DANFS's compressed 'repurchased' wording.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1874-1963 (record); charter chain 1941
- Limitations
- Status card is a typed custody document, partially legible (image inspected directly). The card shows the 1941 charter paperwork, not the 1948 sale line; tonnage fields on the record appear transposed (Net 728 / Gross 296) and are not carried. Contains no asbestos, materials, or condition information; supports no asbestos claim.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-03
-
[4]Thiesen, William H., Ph.D. (U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Historian), 'The Bear in World War II and the Venerable Cutter's Final Years Afloat' (2019) and 'Arctic Cutter Bear - A Symbol for All the Service Represents' (2021), U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office content hosted by NOAA Ocean Exploration [other_primary]
- Locator
- oceanexplorer.noaa.gov features 19bear-background-final-years (2019) and 21bear-features-arctic-cutter (2021)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Official Coast Guard historian's narrative: 198-ft, ~700-ton barkentine-rigged steamer built 1874 in Scotland for sealing; wooden hull of six-inch oak planking sheathed in Australian 'ironwood' (ten inches total), steel-plated bow, retractable screw - wood chosen because iron was brittle in Arctic cold. Greely rescue June 1884; RCS transfer spring 1885, Cape Horn voyage to San Francisco, Healy command from April 1886; 1892 Siberian reindeer introduction; 1897-98 Overland Relief Expedition (Jarvis/Bertholf/Call party, 1,500 miles, 382 reindeer to 265 trapped whalers, congressional gold medals); 1906 San Francisco earthquake relief; Coolidge signed Oakland transfer 1927. WWII: Navy cut masts for radio gear, added modern armament, equipped her for a reconnaissance aircraft (1941); 'Bear relied on a Coast Guard crew during World War II'; October 1941 involvement with the German-controlled Norwegian trawler Buskoe ('some consider it the first enemy vessel seized by U.S. forces'). Loss: mid-March 1963 seagoing tug Irving Birch towed her from Halifax toward Philadelphia; parted towline south of Halifax ~200 miles off the Massachusetts coast; took water through her seams; tug evacuated the crew; sank 9:10 a.m. Tuesday 19 March 1963.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1874-1963
- Population
- USCG crew (WWII Greenland Patrol)
- Limitations
- Official-service historian's published narrative, not archival record; the companion 2021 article loosely describes Bear as part of Byrd's 'first' 1928 expedition - inconsistent with the documented record (Coast Guard until May 1929; Byrd's 1933-35 second expedition per DANFS/Shipscribe) and not adopted. Buskoe is described as 'seized' here while other accounts credit USCGC Northland with the boarding; NavSource captions document Bear bringing the prize into Boston 14 Oct 1941 - the transport role is consistent across sources. No asbestos, materials, or insulation content; supports no asbestos claim.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-04
-
[5]NOAA Ocean Exploration, 'Search for U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear' expedition page (2021) + 'Yes Indeed, We Found U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear!' announcement (2021-10-11) + 'Modeling Bear Through the Years' feature (2024) [other_primary]
- Locator
- Expedition overview, 11 Oct 2021 announcement, and 2024 modeling feature
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- NOAA Ocean Exploration, the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries' Maritime Heritage Program, the U.S. Coast Guard, and academic partners located 'with reasonable certainty' the final resting place of U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear: expedition June 10-20, 2021 aboard USCGC Sycamore (single-beam sonar, ROV Pixel), wreck site 90 miles due south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia, announced 11 October 2021. The wooden hull lies keel-up; identification was built against a configuration model constructed from Smithsonian Institution Archives and Mystic Seaport Museum plans documenting the ship's refits across 1874-1963.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 2021 (survey); loss 1963
- Limitations
- Identification is at 'reasonable certainty' via sonar/ROV visual survey - no physical sampling, and no hazardous-materials or materials survey of any kind was performed or is possible short of wreck intervention; the site is treated as protected maritime heritage and NOAA publishes no precise coordinate. Nothing in this source bears on asbestos presence or absence.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-05
-
[6]Franke, K., and Paustenbach, D. J., 'Government and Navy knowledge regarding health hazards of asbestos: A state of the science evaluation, 1900 to 1970,' Inhalation Toxicology 23 (2011) - plus the peer-reviewed shipbuilding-asbestos history PMC2604477 for the 1922 Navy submarine specification [other_primary]
- Locator
- Inhalation Toxicology 23 (2011), abstract/full text at doi link; PMC2604477 (Corn & Starr-era shipbuilding history)
- Finding type
- asbestos_application
- Finding
- Era-level documentation covering this hull's entire U.S. government service span: peer-reviewed literature records that amosite and chrysotile asbestos were used extensively as insulating materials aboard U.S. naval ships beginning in the 1880s and continuing into the 1950s, with a mandatory Navy asbestos specification for new submarine construction documented by 1922. The span covers Navy service 1884-85, Revenue Cutter/Coast Guard service 1885-1929, and AG-29 service 1939-44 - though this hull's own 1874 construction predates the located mandatory specification by 48 years, and her AG-29-era propulsion was diesel (original steam plant removed post-1935).
- Verification
- inferred
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1880s-1950s era documented; article 2011
- Population
- U.S. naval ship crews and yard workers (era context)
- Limitations
- Era/program-level scholarship - names no individual vessel; establishes period practice, not presence aboard this hull. Does not establish quantity, location, condition, individual exposure, or causation. The diesel-conversion configuration makes the era inference materially weaker than for a steam ship of the same era.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-06
-
[7]GAO, Navy Efforts To Protect Workers From Asbestos Exposure, HRD-80-2 (Oct 18, 1979) - product page description [gao]
- Locator
- GAO product page HRD-80-2 (full text unreachable - HTTP 403 standing)
- Finding type
- gov_survey
- Finding
- GAO documented that the Navy used asbestos insulation extensively aboard ships and did not begin substituting alternative insulation materials until the early 1970s - establishing that no substitution-era pressure existed during this hull's government service, which ended in 1944, and that no postwar abatement cycle ever applied to her (sunk 1963, before the substitution era).
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- program history to 1979; hull relevance ends 1944/1963
- Population
- Navy shipyard workers (program context)
- Limitations
- Program-level documentation; GAO fieldwork yards were Long Beach and Norfolk - not connected to this hull. gao.gov returns HTTP 403 to automated fetch (standing across batches); product-page description used. No ship-specific content.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-07
-
[8]Batch-658 search ledger (this record): DANFS via ibiblio mirror; Shipscribe AG-29; MARAD ShipHistory + custody card; NOAA/USCG historian features; CourtListener API/HTML; web-indexed litigation sweep; NVR coverage check; NHHC photo-catalog mirror; NavSource [other_primary]
- Locator
- search_ledger rows sl-uss-bear-ag29-01 through sl-uss-bear-ag29-14
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- No qualifying ship-specific asbestos record located: no asbestos survey, abatement contract, hazmat disclosure, environmental record, museum-condition report, or qualifying asbestos litigation naming USS Bear, Bear (AG-29), Bear of Oakland, Arctic Sealer, or USRC/USCGC Bear was found in the public sources searched (see search_ledger). CourtListener's opinion index returned zero results for the exact phrase 'USS Bear' (verified via HTML endpoint); remaining API and HTML-variant queries were blocked by rate limiting. The web-indexed sweep surfaced one banned-source name listing (a law-firm marketing auxiliary-ships list carries 'USS Bear (AG-29)' with no case citation behind it - excluded by source-class rule) and unrelated BVA decisions naming other hulls. No survey of the wreck exists - the hull lies keel-up offshore and was identified by sonar/ROV imagery only.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- negative_finding
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 2026-09-20
- Limitations
- Absence of a located public record does not prove absence of asbestos aboard - an 1874 hull repeatedly refitted inside the documented naval-asbestos era is era-consistent with era materials, and no surviving-hull survey is possible. CourtListener sweep is incomplete (throttled) - 'Bear of Oakland,' 'USCGC Bear,' 'Arctic Sealer,' and 'AG-29' variant queries remain an open lead. Does not establish presence or absence; does not establish or defeat any exposure claim or legal eligibility.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-08
-
[9]NARA record-group mapping: RG 24 (Navy deck logs, 1884-85 and 1939-44 periods), RG 26 (Revenue Cutter Service/Coast Guard records incl. Bear's logbooks - partially transcribed by the naval-history.net project), RG 178 (Maritime Commission custody/disposal records behind the digitized status card), RG 181 (Boston Navy Yard records - 1933 refit, 1944 decommissioning); plus Smithsonian Institution Archives and Mystic Seaport Museum construction plans (used for the NOAA wreck-identification model) and Byrd/USAS expedition archives [other_primary]
- Locator
- archives.gov Guide to Federal Records RG 24/26/178/181; NOAA modeling feature citing Smithsonian/Mystic Seaport plans
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Archival leads (not retrieved - require research-room work; no spend authorized): RG 24 holds Navy deck logs for both naval periods (Greely relief 1884-85; AG-29 1939-44 incl. Greenland Patrol); RG 26 holds Revenue Cutter Service/Coast Guard records - Bear's 1885-1929 logbooks survive and are partially transcribed (naval-history.net OW-US project); RG 178 holds the Maritime Commission charter/custody paperwork behind the status card plus the 1948 Shaw sale file; RG 181 Boston Navy Yard records may cover the 1933 refit and the 1944 decommissioning. The Smithsonian Institution Archives and Mystic Seaport Museum plan sets (used by NOAA for the 2021 wreck-ID model) are the likeliest surviving technical documentation of hull materials/configuration across refits; Byrd Polar archives (Ohio State) hold USAS expedition records.
- Verification
- unverified
- Role
- archival_lead
- Documentation level
- context_only
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1874-1963 records
- Limitations
- Record-group and repository mapping only - no box-level retrieval performed; existence of asbestos-specific or materials documents for this hull is unknown until surveyed in person. Nothing in this row is an asbestos finding.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-09
-
[10]Cross-source reconciliation (DANFS; Shipscribe AG-29; MARAD custody card; NOAA/USCG historian features; NavSource index snippet) [other_primary]
- Locator
- rows ev-uss-bear-ag29-01/-02/-03/-04 and search_ledger sl-uss-bear-ag29-12 (NavSource snippet)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Source discrepancies resolved or logged: (a) Reacquisition - DANFS 'repurchased by the Navy 11 September 1939' vs the documented chain: Navy bareboat-chartered and commissioned her 11 Sep 1939, MC charter-party card shows Byrd->Maritime Commission->Navy sub-charter executed noon EST 8 Sep 1941 at New York, and purchase from Byrd completed 31 Dec 1941 (Shipscribe). The charter-then-purchase chain controls. (b) Builder - DANFS 'Linthouse, Govan' vs Shipscribe 'Dundee' (Alexander Stephen & Sons' historic home); DANFS carried, variant logged. (c) Greely survivors - DANFS 'Greeley and the six other survivors' (7 total) vs USCG historian's 'five surviving members' phrasing; DANFS carried. (d) Post-1948 name - Shipscribe/NavSource 'Arctic Sealer' vs secondary 'Arctic Bear'; 'Arctic Sealer' carried. (e) Tow destination - Shipscribe 'Halifax to Boston' vs NOAA historian and NavSource 'to Philadelphia'; Philadelphia carried. (f) USCG 2021 article's 'first Antarctic expedition 1928' wording is inconsistent with the documented record (Coast Guard until May 1929; Byrd's second expedition 1933-35) - not adopted.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- correction
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-20
- Study period
- 1884-1963
- Limitations
- Resolves publication-level discrepancies among official and compiled sources; none affects the identity or custody chain materially. No asbestos content in any of these sources.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-bear-ag29-10