Evidence
8 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-8).
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[1]DANFS, Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) (builder, dates, service narrative, striking context, awards; verbatim transcription - live NHHC page serves 404) [nhhc_danfs]
- Locator
- DANFS entry, specification block + full service narrative + namesake biography
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- DANFS record for this hull: launched by Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding Co., San Pedro, Calif., 16 July 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Hugh W. Hadley, widow of the namesake; commissioned 25 November 1944, Comdr. L. C. Chamberlin in command. Shakedown off California; sailed 21 February 1945 with HMS Ranee for Pearl Harbor (arrived 27 February); via Ulithi to the Okinawa invasion, arriving 31 March; led LSTs to the beach on the night approach and downed an attacking plane; antisubmarine patrol until 4 April; Saipan 14 April; returned to Okinawa 27 April; took communication equipment from Brown (DD-546) 7 May and assumed fighter-direction duty; assigned radar picket Station 15 the afternoon of 10 May with Evans (DD-552) and four smaller craft. On 11 May, for nearly two hours, the pair fought raids numbering some 150 planes; after Evans went dead in the water about 0900, Hadley fought on alone and at 0920 destroyed ten simultaneous attackers; the ship took a bomb hit aft, a hit initially reported as a baka bomb, and two kamikaze crashes; engineering spaces flooded and she was badly holed; all but about 50 of the crew were ordered over the side in life rafts while the remainder fought fires and controlled damage. Credited with downing some 23 enemy aircraft. Temporary repairs; Kerama Retto 14 May (repair ship Zaniah); floating drydock to Buckner Bay towed by Avoyel (ATF-150) 15 July; towed to the United States via Pearl Harbor, arriving Hunter's Point, Calif., 26 September 1945; decommissioned 15 December 1945; sold 2 September 1947 to Walter W. Johnson Co., San Francisco, and scrapped. One battle star and the Presidential Unit Citation for 11 May 1945. Spec block: dp. 2,220; l. 376'6"; b. 41'2"; dr. 15'8"; s. 34 k.; cpl. 336; a. 6 5", 10 21" tt., 6 dcp., 2 dct.; cl. Allen M. Sumner. Namesake: Commander Hugh William Hadley (b. 17 February 1901, Moro, Oreg.), killed aboard Little 5 September 1942 off Lunga Point; posthumous Silver Star.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1944-1947
- Population
- Bethlehem San Pedro construction trades 1944; crew November 1944 - December 1945 (design complement 336); salvage/repair personnel aboard at Ie Shima, Kerama Retto, and Buckner Bay 1945; Hunter's Point strip-out workforce 1945; Walter W. Johnson Co. scrapping workforce 1947-48
- Limitations
- DANFS documents service history and specifications, not materials or asbestos content - it establishes construction, service, battle-damage, repair, and disposal windows relevant to exposure research, nothing more. DANFS does not record the laid-down or stricken dates (6 February 1944 and 8 January 1946 carried on secondary-source concurrence - see gaps). Mirror transcription cited because the live NHHC page returns 404 on both tried URL patterns.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-01
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[2]USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) Action Report, 10-11 May 1945, signed by commanding officer B. J. Mullaney (verbatim transcription, HyperWar/ibiblio) [other_primary]
- Locator
- Action report narrative + personnel performance and casualties paragraph (signed B. J. Mullaney)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Contemporaneous ship-generated primary document for this hull: the commanding officer's action report for Radar Picket Station 15, 10-11 May 1945. Records ships in company (Evans DD-552, LCS(L) 84, LCS 82, LCS 83, LSM(4) 193); five raids totaling an estimated 156 aircraft; Evans disabled about 0900; the 0920 coordinated ten-plane attack destroyed by Hadley; hits taken - a bomb aft, a weapon reported as a baka bomb released by a Betty, a suicide plane aft, and a suicide plane in the rigging; fifteen minutes of crew firefighting at the explosions and fire; torpedoes jettisoned; one fireroom bulkhead holding; tow to Ie Shima anchorage. Personnel performance and casualties: twenty-eight killed in action, sixty-seven wounded, none missing. Total enemy planes destroyed by Hadley in 95 minutes: twenty-three, including three suicide hits.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1945-05-10/11
- Population
- Hadley crew, 10-11 May 1945 (28 KIA, 67 WIA of complement ~336); Evans and small-craft crews alongside for firefighting and pumping
- Limitations
- A combat action report, not a materials document - it establishes that the crew fought fires and controlled flooding in and around damaged machinery and fireroom spaces, the kind of event that disturbs insulation, but says nothing about insulation, asbestos, or fiber content. Casualty and aircraft figures are the CO's own accounting and are the figures carried; the baka-bomb identification was later discounted by the Bureau of Ships (see ev-03).
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-02
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[3]Bureau of Ships (Preliminary Design Section), 'Destroyer Report: Gunfire, Bomb and Kamikaze Damage, Including Losses in Action, 17 October 1941 to 15 August 1945,' War Damage Report No. 51, Navy Department, 25 January 1947, Section XII (HUGH W. HADLEY, DD-774), pp. 102-111 + plate (verbatim transcription, HyperWar/ibiblio) [other_primary]
- Locator
- WDR-51 Section XII, paragraphs 12-1 through 12-20 + damage plates (photos 12-1 to 12-5)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Official Bureau of Ships engineering analysis of this hull's 11 May 1945 damage: the second kamikaze struck the starboard side at the waterline in way of the after fireroom with a bomb detonating deep below the keel; 'the three after engineering spaces flooded immediately to the waterline'; the keel hogged about 55 inches over nearly 100 feet amidships; both shafts parted; all bearings wiped on the forward main turbines; forward reduction gears stripped; small-diameter piping extensively fractured; a gasoline-fed fire in officers' country and the 40mm clipping rooms burned until about 1030; deckhouse frames 114-170 largely demolished. Repairs: divers' soft patches and pumping at Ie Shima; docked in ARD-28 at Kerama Retto 24 June - 27 July; 'virtually complete restoration of longitudinal strength in the shell and longitudinals from frame 90 to 135' accomplished by the ship repair unit of Zaniah (AG-70); restoration of either propulsion plant estimated at several months of shipyard work - the hull was judged too damaged to repair and was never restored to service.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1945 (damage and repairs); 1947 (report)
- Population
- Hadley crew and attached salvage parties (Tawakoni ATF-114, Deliver ARS-23, LCS(L)83, LSM(R)193); Zaniah AG-70 ship-repair unit personnel; ARD-28 drydock crews, May-July 1945
- Limitations
- An engineering damage analysis, not a materials or environmental survey - it documents in detail which spaces flooded, burned, and were later cut out and repaired (the physical disturbance relevant to exposure research) but contains no insulation, asbestos, or fiber-content findings; 1947 predates Navy asbestos documentation practice. The report's 2200-ton class design figure and casualty context corroborate DANFS and the action report.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-03
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[4]USS Hadley Memorial Website (ship's association): Jack R. Garska contemporaneous crew diary 'My Life on the Hadley' + transcription of the BuShips final report (usshadley.net history pages) [museum_official]
- Locator
- usshadley.net history/17 (Garska log entries for 1945-09-09 through 1945-12-15); history/4 (WDR-51 transcription)
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Crew-diary documentation of this hull's final disposition phase: Garska's log records arrival at Hunter's Point, San Francisco, 26 September 1945 (orders changed en route from Mare Island to Hunter's Point), and on 2 December 1945 'the ship is in the process of being decommissioned here at Hunter's Point. All of the guns, radio and radar gear has been removed. Also all the spares, food, in fact practically everything have been removed. December 15, 1945 is the day the United States Ensign will be lowered from the Hadley's mast for the last time.' Documents a multi-week strip-out of the battle-damaged hull at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard before the 15 December 1945 decommissioning. The association site also hosts the full BuShips War Damage Report No. 51 Section XII transcription (independently verified against the HyperWar text - see ev-03).
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- archival_lead
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1945-09/1945-12
- Population
- Hunter's Point strip-out workforce and reduced Hadley crew, September-December 1945
- Limitations
- Association-site transcription of a crewmember's personal diary - contemporaneous but informal; corroborates DANFS dates but is carried as archival lead, not as a load-bearing source. Documents equipment and stores removal only - nothing about insulation, hull materials, or asbestos. The same site's WDR-51 transcription duplicates the official text and adds no asbestos content.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-04
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[5]NARA guided topic 'Researching Asbestos aboard U.S. Naval Vessels up through 1961' + GAO HRD-80-2, Navy Efforts To Protect Workers From Asbestos Exposure (Oct. 18, 1979) + DANFS spec block (Sumner-class steam plant) + Atlas shipyard dataset (Bethlehem corporate record; NARA RG19 General Information Books archival lead) [other_primary]
- Locator
- NARA guided-topics page (Navy asbestos through 1961); GAO HRD-80-2 product page; DANFS spec block; shipyards.json record 'bethlehem-shipbuilding' (corporate level - San Pedro yard has no dataset slug)
- Finding type
- asbestos_application
- Finding
- Era/design inference: this hull was built in 1944 at Bethlehem San Pedro around the Sumner-class four-boiler Babcock & Wilcox superheated steam plant with geared turbines of 60,000 shp - the peak Navy asbestos era - and NARA's research guide describes asbestos use across U.S. Navy materiel up through 1961, a window covering her entire service. Unlike most of her sisters she received no postwar overhaul or FRAM modernization: her exposure-relevant footprint is confined to 1944 construction, roughly ten months of wartime steaming, the 11 May 1945 battle damage and fire in and around engineering spaces, forward-area salvage and structural repair by Navy repair-ship and floating-drydock crews (May-July 1945), the Hunter's Point strip-out (September-December 1945), and San Francisco scrapping (1947-48) - each an event type that disturbed insulation under era practice.
- Verification
- inferred
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1944-1948
- Population
- Bethlehem San Pedro construction trades 1944; crew 1944-45; salvage/repair crews at Ie Shima, Kerama Retto, ARD-28/Zaniah, Buckner Bay 1945; Hunter's Point workforce 1945; Walter W. Johnson Co. scrappers 1947-48
- Limitations
- Inference only - no ship-specific material document establishes asbestos aboard DD-774. The NARA guide and GAO report are program-level sources; the absence of postwar yard periods removes the usual overhaul-disturbance window but does not remove construction-era and battle-damage-era inference. Establishes no product, quantity, location, or individual exposure. NARA GIB retrieval not performed.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-05
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[6]Goodrich v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp., Omnibus Opinion and Order, ECF No. 171, E.D. Va. No. 4:17-cv-00009 (2018; related published disposition 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 235491) [court_record]
- Locator
- Omnibus Opinion and Order ECF No. 171 (engineering-drawing and tonnage-tally recitals)
- Finding type
- asbestos_application
- Finding
- Class-level litigation recital covering this hull's class: the Goodrich omnibus opinion recites 'an engineering drawing for the insulation and lagging of forced draft blower turbines for the class of destroyers (DD 692, USS Allen M. Sumner class), within which the USS Harlan Dickson fell, specifies the use of amosite felts and asbestos cloths,' and quotes an expert report estimating that 'a partial tally of the weight of the asbestos-containing thermal insulation and lagging products in the fire ... and engine rooms of a ship belonging to the USS Allen M. Sumner (DD 692) and USS Gearing (DD 710) classes of destroyers is 30.3 tons.' USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) is an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer.
- Verification
- partial
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1944-1945 (this hull's materials era); 2018 (opinion)
- Population
- Class-level: Sumner/Gearing-class engineering-space crews and repair personnel (era)
- Limitations
- Class-level recital only - the opinion quotes drawing and expert-report content for a different plaintiff's vessels and treats related exposure conclusions as speculative; nothing is adjudicated, and DD-774 is not named. Underlying exhibits (the drawing; the 30.3-ton report) were not retrieved from RECAP. This row contextualizes research priority; it is never a ship-specific finding for this hull.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-06
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[7]CourtListener API v4 authenticated sweep, 2026-09-27 (cl-auth-search.py / cl-patient-search.py, fleet-paced): "Hugh W. Hadley" opinions = 0; "Hugh W. Hadley" dockets = 0; "USS Hadley" opinions = 0; "DD-774" opinions = 0; "DD-774" dockets = 1 (collision); "Hugh Hadley" opinions = 2 (collisions) [court_record]
- Locator
- CourtListener API v4 search responses, 2026-09-27 (see search_ledger sl-05 and sl-06)
- Finding type
- litigation_documented
- Finding
- No qualifying asbestos litigation naming this hull was located in CourtListener's indexes. Exact-name queries returned zero hits in both the opinion and docket indexes; "USS Hadley" opinions and "DD-774" opinions likewise returned zero. The three total hits are both name collisions: Allen v. United States, E.D. Mo. 4:07-cv-00027 (a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 death-penalty habeas matter, suitNature 535 - "DD-774" matches a filing reference inside the docket text, not the destroyer), and Resolution Trust Corp. v. Gibson, W.D. Mo. 1993 (two opinions naming defendant Hugh G. Hadley, a person, in RTC savings-and-loan litigation - no vessel, no asbestos). 'Hadley' alone was deliberately not swept (collides with Hadley v. Baxendale contracts-case noise).
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- negative_finding
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 2026-09-27 (search date)
- Limitations
- Coverage limits: CourtListener indexes do not comprehensively cover pre-PACER federal filings, state-court dockets, or MDL-875 consolidation records; absence of a hit does not prove no asbestos claim ever named this hull. All queued exact-name and hull-number queries completed (opinion and docket sides); the 'Hadley' unqualified sweep was intentionally omitted as noise-prone, and misspelling variants (e.g., 'Hadly') were not swept.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-07
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[8]This record's search ledger: NHHC DANFS live page (404 both URL patterns; HyperWar mirror used); CourtListener exact-name and hull-number sweeps; NARA catalog attempt; NavSource (Wayback capture); USS Hadley Memorial Website; asbestos-topic web sweep [other_primary]
- Locator
- search_ledger sl-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-01 through -09
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- No qualifying ship-specific asbestos record located for this hull: no asbestos survey, material specification, sampling result, abatement contract, hazmat disclosure, museum disclosure, or docketed asbestos case naming USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) was found in the sources searched. The hull's unusually short life - commissioned November 1944, battle-damaged May 1945, decommissioned December 1945, scrapped 1947-48 - predates asbestos litigation and Navy asbestos-documentation practice, so contemporaneous ship-specific asbestos documentation is not expected to exist. Asbestos claims about this hull in open sources are confined to law-firm and marketing pages (asbestos-ships.com, simmonsfirm.com ship lists) asserting generic era inference; all were excluded under batch source rules.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- negative_finding
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 2026-09-27 (search date)
- Limitations
- A search-scope finding, not proof of absence: NARA RG 19 Entry P 9 General Information Books (per-hull material specifications), deck logs, the Walter W. Johnson Co. scrapping contract, and Hunter's Point inactivation work packages are unretrieved; CourtListener coverage of MDL-875 and state filings is incomplete (all queued queries completed; only the unqualified 'Hadley' sweep was intentionally omitted as noise-prone). 'No ship-specific record located' is the finding - it does not assert the hull contained no asbestos.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-hugh-w-hadley-dd774-08