Evidence
8 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-8).
-
[1]research packet li-packet.md (2 sources cited) [nhhc_danfs]
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- Identity packet verdict: VERIFIED.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Evidence ID
- uss-gillette-de681-pkt-li-packet-md
-
[2]DANFS, Gillette II (DE-681) (builder, dates, specs, service narrative, striking; verbatim transcription - live NHHC pages serve 404 under gillette.html and gillette-ii.html patterns) [nhhc_danfs]
- Locator
- DANFS entry Gillette II, specifications block + full service narrative
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- DANFS record for this hull, second Navy ship of the name, a Buckley-class (TE turbo-electric) destroyer escort: dp. 1,400; l. 306'; b. 37'; dr. 13'6"; s. 23.6 k.; cpl. 213; a. 3 3", 4 1.1", 4 40mm., 8 20mm., 8 dcp., 1 dcp. (h.h.), 2 dct.; cl. Buckley. Launched 25 September 1943 by the Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Mass., sponsored by Mrs. Pearl M. Gillette, the namesake's mother; commissioned 27 October 1943, Comdr. T. G. Murrell, USNR. Shakedown off Bermuda; departed Boston 2 January 1944 for Balboa, C.Z., submarine exercises and convoy escort to Guantanamo; May 1944 good-will tour Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, and Barranquilla, Colombia; four round-trip transatlantic escort voyages 4 July 1944 - 18 February 1945 (three Hampton Roads, one New York) to Oran and UK ports; submarine training ship at New London to 14 April 1945; sailed for Hollandia via Borabora and Manus; convoy escort to Manila 17 June; patrol and escort duties Philippines and Ulithi to 6 August; Okinawa run; Subic Bay 17 August; Subic-Tokyo round-trip escort; departed Subic Bay 26 November for San Diego, moored 17 December 1945; decommissioned San Diego 2 February 1947 (date conflicted - see gaps); Pacific reserve group. [Stricken from the Navy Register 1 December 1972; sold 11 September 1973.] Namesake: Douglas Wiley Gillette, born 10 September 1918 Wilmington, N.C., commissioned Ensign 12 September 1941, killed in action aboard Hornet at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands 26 October 1942.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 1943-1973
- Population
- Bethlehem Fore River construction trades 1943; wartime and postwar crew (design complement 213)
- Limitations
- DANFS documents identity, builder, service history, and disposal - not materials or asbestos content. Live NHHC DANFS pages return 404 under both URL patterns (documented NHHC link-rot pattern); verbatim ibiblio/HyperWar transcription cited. Bracketed disposal note gives strike and sale dates only; buyer unnamed. DANFS gives no laid-down date for this hull - keel-laying date rests on NavSource (see ev-02).
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-01
-
[3]NavSource Naval History, Destroyer Escort Photo Archive DE-681 (building/operational data, TE spec block, commanding-officer chronology, NHHC photo caption NH 72678) [other_primary]
- Locator
- NavSource DE-681 page: specifications block + 'Building and Operational Data' chronology + CO table + NH 72678 caption; hazegray.org/shipbuilding/quincy/fore2.htm (Fore River production record, hull 1558)
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- NavSource compiled record for this hull: keel laid 24 August 1943 by Bethlehem Steel (Fore River Yard) Shipyard, Inc., Quincy, Mass.; launched and christened 25 September 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Pearl M. Gillette, mother of Lt.(jg) Douglas Wiley Gillette; commissioned 27 October 1943 'at the Boston Navy Yard,' Cmdr. T. G. Murrell, USNR (commissioning-site conflict with the ship's own war history - see ev-03/gaps); decommissioned at San Diego 3 February 1947 after 3 years and 3 months of service (vs DANFS 2 February - gaps); struck from the NVR 1 December 1972; sold for scrapping 11 September 1973. Specs: TE type (turbine-electric drive, 3-inch guns); 2 'D' Express boilers, G.E. turbines with electric drive, 12,000 shp, 2 screws, 24 kts, 6,000 nm at 12 knots; complement 15 officers/198 enlisted. Command chronology: Murrell 27 Oct 1943 - 14 Apr 1944; J. W. Daniel Jr. 14 Apr 1944 - 17 Dec 1945; R. S. Bruns; K. B. Brown. Reserve-fleet photo caption (NH 72678) places the hull at Naval Base San Diego circa 1960. Hazegray's Fore River production record lists this hull as yard hull number 1558, delivered 27 October 1943.
- Verification
- partial
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 1943-1973
- Population
- Bethlehem Fore River construction and fitting-out workforce 1943; wartime crew; Pacific Reserve Fleet caretakers 1947-1973; scrapping workforce 1973
- Limitations
- Secondary compilation citing official records and NHHC photo captions - not itself an official record. Keel-laying date, commissioning-site line, 3 February decommission date, range figure (6,000 nm vs 4,940 nm in secondary infoboxes), and 'Boston Navy Yard' commissioning detail are not verified against a primary record; the ship's contemporaneous war history places commissioning at Bethlehem Fore River (ev-03). Scrapped-buyer name not given.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-02
-
[4]'History of U.S.S. GILLETTE, DE-681' - ship-submitted war history, enclosure A (prepared 5 November 1945) to CO's 19 December 1945 forwarding letter to CinCUS Fleet; scan hosted by NavSource [other_primary]
- Locator
- NavSource image 06681wh.jpg, 6-page enclosure A (pp.1-6): commissioning para.; 'While undergoing overhaul in the Boston Yard, a fire broke out in compartment A-304-AE of the ship on 5 November 1944' (p.3); 'arriving at New York Yard on 22 December 1944, for routine overhaul' (p.3); 'emergency availability at Balboa... for engineering repairs' (p.4)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Contemporaneous ship-authored history (primary document) for this hull: commissioned 'at Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Fore River, Massachusetts' 27 October 1943 (conflicts with NavSource's Boston Navy Yard line - gaps); fitting-out work and tests at the Boston Navy Yard to 21 November 1943; post-shakedown availability at the Boston Navy Yard 21 December 1943 - 2 January 1944; Coco Solo, C.Z. overhaul May 1944; 'routine overhaul' at Boston after the 18 August 1944 return; October-November 1944 overhaul 'in the Boston Yard' during which a welding-attributed fire broke out in compartment A-304-AE on 5 November 1944 (damage est. under $2,500, no disciplinary action); New York Navy Yard 'routine overhaul' from 22 December 1944; New York Navy Yard arrival 18 February 1945; emergency availability at Balboa for engineering repairs late April 1945; Seeadler Harbor, Manus 'overhaul, fueling, and provisioning' late May 1945; routine repairs at Leyte Gulf 22-24 August 1945; routine overhaul at Subic Bay mid-September 1945. Full convoy/escort chronology (UGS/GUS 47, UGS 54, UGS 60, T-3, TU 72.10.8, TU 93.4.53 incl. the Tokyo run, Balabac minesweeper-support duty, YMS-340/Tubbataha Reef towing attempt 22-23 October). Prepared 5 November 1945; 115,000 miles steamed in 24 months, no loss of life aboard, no convoy ship lost or damaged by enemy action, seven Panama Canal passages, eight Atlantic and one Pacific crossing; no awards to personnel.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 1943-1945
- Population
- Boston Navy Yard, New York Navy Yard, Coco Solo, Balboa, Manus, Leyte, and Subic Bay yard/availability workforces 1943-1945; crew (213 design complement)
- Limitations
- Primary record of service and yard availabilities - documents WHERE and WHEN the ship was opened up in yards but says nothing about materials or asbestos; all asbestos relevance is inference (yard-disturbance events at tier-3 yards). Scan legibility adequate; transcription of dates verified against DANFS where they overlap. Cover letter (19 Dec 1945) extends narrative slightly past the 5 Nov 1945 body; disposal events postdate the document.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-03
-
[5]Bureau of Ships, Ships' Data, U.S. Naval Vessels, Vol. 1 (Jan 1945), DE design-group table (shipscribe.com scan) + Atlas shipyard dataset, Fore River Shipyard record (yard tier 3; O'Connor v. Raymark Industries, 401 Mass. 586 (1988); Oliver v. GE, D. Md. 1:16-cv-01057) [other_primary]
- Locator
- SDB1945v1 DE design-group table; shipyards.json records 'fore-river-shipyard', 'boston-naval-shipyard', 'brooklyn-navy-yard' (products_documented + evidence rows); buckley-class.class.json propulsion_summary
- Finding type
- asbestos_application
- Finding
- Class/era and builder-yard inference: BuShips Ships' Data 1945 design groups 2-3 (TE turbo-electric) - two 'D' express-type boilers at 435 psi/750F superheat feeding GE steam turbine-generators and electric motors, 12,000 shp, two shafts, 23.6 kt; the Buckley and John C. Butler (WGT) classes are the only destroyer-escort designs with a full steam plant, the most asbestos-relevant DE group. Builder Bethlehem Steel Fore River, Quincy is documented at yard level (Atlas tier 3) with asbestos products litigation-identified in the 1940s - Raybestos-Manhattan asbestos welding blankets at 'Bethlehem Steel (Fore River) Shipyard' per O'Connor v. Raymark Industries, 401 Mass. 586 (1988); yard product list includes boiler, pipe, and turbine insulation, gaskets, packing, fireproofing, asbestos cement, asbestos wire insulation, asbestos-containing paint; Owens-Illinois products 1948-1952 also yard-documented. Overhaul yards likewise tier-3 documented: Boston Naval Shipyard (John Crane gaskets/sealing, court-identified) and New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn (Kaylo/Owens-Illinois, In re Brooklyn Navy Yard Asbestos Litig., 971 F.2d 831 (2d Cir. 1992)). A 1943 steam-plant escort of this design would have carried period-standard asbestos in boiler and steam-line insulation/lagging, turbine lagging, machinery gaskets and packing, and compartment fire insulation.
- Verification
- inferred
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 1943-1947
- Population
- Bethlehem Fore River construction trades 1943; Boston Navy Yard and New York Navy Yard overhaul workforces 1943-45; crew 1943-47
- Limitations
- Class/era and builder-yard inference only - not a ship-specific finding. Yard litigation records document asbestos products in yard use generally; none names DE-681, establishes which products went aboard this hull, or supports quantities or individual exposure. The per-block boiler-manufacturer map (navypedia assigns Combustion Engineering boilers to the Fore River block) is unverified against contract documents; NavSource's hull page reads 'D' Express boilers without manufacturer.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-04
-
[6]Navy insulation-spec suite identified as controlling era documents in destroyer-escort asbestos litigation: Bureau of Ships Manual ch.39 Thermal Insulation NAVSHIPS 250-000(39) (24 Aug 1945); Navy Department Specification 32F3a 'Felt, Insulating, Asbestos' (Oct 1945); BuEng Manual ch.13 - per Jack v. Borg-Warner Morse Tec (W.D. Wash. 2:17-cv-00537) exhibit-list recital, as cataloged in the Atlas john-c-butler-class class profile [other_primary]
- Locator
- john-c-butler-class.class.json class_notes + evidence rows citing Jack v. Borg-Warner Morse Tec exhibit list
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- The era's controlling Navy insulation specifications - including an explicitly asbestos-named felt spec - are identified in DE-class litigation exhibit lists and cataloged in this dataset's John C. Butler-class profile. These are the correct next-pull targets for class-level asbestos specification documentation applicable to the Buckley (TE) class, a sister steam-escort design of the same build era.
- Verification
- unverified
- Role
- archival_lead
- Documentation level
- context_only
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 1945 (spec dates)
- Limitations
- Identified secondhand via class-level research and a litigation exhibit list for a different DE class; the underlying spec documents were not retrieved in this session, and nothing in this row is specific to DE-681. Retrieval pending - treat as research lead only.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-05
-
[7]NARA Record Group 24 deck logs for DE-681 (1943-47) - not located in digitized form; RG 19 BuShips General Information Books / per-vessel material specifications unexamined; MARAD vessel status card (scrapping-sale buyer) unexamined - maritime.dot.gov returned HTTP 403 [other_primary]
- Locator
- NARA RG 24 / RG 19 series descriptions (catalog API unreachable in-session); MARAD ship-history program page 403
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Archival leads for hull-level records not yet retrieved: (1) DE-681's wartime deck logs should sit in NARA RG 24 (existence presumed from standard holdings for commissioned vessels, not confirmed per-hull; the NARA catalog API returned its application shell rather than result data this session). (2) Per-hull material and machinery specifications may exist in RG 19 General Information Books or BuShips plan files. (3) The MARAD vessel status card is the expected source for the 11 September 1973 scrapping-sale buyer, unnamed in all located sources. (4) The ship-submitted war history scan (ev-03) is hosted by NavSource; the underlying document should sit in NHHC/NARA ship-history files.
- Verification
- unverified
- Role
- archival_lead
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Limitations
- Leads only - holdings not retrieved or confirmed for this hull. Existence of the record series is documented; presence of DE-681-specific asbestos content within them is not. MARAD site blocked automated access this session.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-06
-
[8]Batch-4458 search ledger (this record): NHHC DANFS live (404) + ibiblio/HyperWar transcription; NavSource DE-681 index + war-history scan 06681wh.jpg; hazegray Fore River production record; CourtListener via cl-auth-search.py - 'USS Gillette' type=o = 0 hits, 'DE-681' type=o = 7 all-noise collisions (verified 2026-09-29); broad-name opinion + RECAP docket sweeps deferred by fleet pacing - see search_ledger; marketing-list sweep (banned sources, presence-only) [other_primary]
- Locator
- search_ledger rows sl-uss-gillette-de681-01 through sl-uss-gillette-de681-12
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- No qualifying ship-specific asbestos record located for DE-681: no hull ACM survey, abatement contract, disposal hazmat disclosure, museum record, or docketed asbestos case naming USS Gillette was found in the public sources searched (see search_ledger). CourtListener exact-phrase opinion search ('USS Gillette', authenticated) returned zero results; 'DE-681' opinion search returned 7 hits, all reviewed as tokenization noise (unrelated prisoner, immigration, tax, and Puerto Rico cases - none naming the vessel or asbestos); the hull was scrapped in 1973 - before the Navy's asbestos-control programs (1975/1979) and modern hazmat documentation - so the negative finding is expected rather than probative. DE-31 (renamed Sederstrom pre-commissioning) and DE-270 (HMS Foley) never commissioned under the Gillette name, so 'USS Gillette' in any post-1943 legal text refers to DE-681 without ambiguity. Law-firm/marketing pages listing 'USS Gillette / DE 681' (elslaw.com, shepardlawfirm.com, mesotheliomahelp.org destroyer-escort list, asbestos-ships.com) exist but are banned sources - presence on marketing lists is not evidence.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- negative_finding
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-29
- Study period
- 2026-09-29
- Limitations
- Absence of a located public record does not prove absence of asbestos aboard - a 1943 steam-plant escort is era-consistent with ACM, and the hull was scrapped in 1973 leaving no surveyable artifact. CourtListener coverage is PARTIAL: 'USS Gillette' opinions ran clean (0 hits) and 'DE-681' opinions ran to 7 all-noise collisions, but the broad 'Gillette' opinion query and all RECAP docket sweeps were deferred when the fleet pacing budget intervened repeatedly this session - residual docket-text hits cannot be excluded. Does not establish or defeat any claim of exposure or legal eligibility.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-gillette-de681-07
