Evidence
7 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-7).
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[1]DANFS, Wadsworth II (DD-516) (builder, dates, specifications, service narrative, German transfer, striking; verbatim transcription - live NHHC page serves 404) [nhhc_danfs]
- Locator
- DANFS entry, specifications block + service narrative
- Finding type
- vessel_history
- Finding
- DANFS record for this hull: laid down 18 August 1942 at Bath, Maine, by Bath Iron Works; launched 10 January 1943 (sponsored by Mrs. Rebecca Wadsworth Peacher); commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard 16 March 1943; Fletcher class, 2,050 tons, 376'6", 37 kt, complement 273. WWII Pacific service 1943-45: South Pacific escort and patrol from Espiritu Santo (depth-charge attack on I-20, 1 September 1943); led minesweepers into Empress Augusta Bay for the Cape Torokina landings, Bougainville, 1 November 1943 (near-miss fragments killed 2, wounded 9); Green Islands landings as fighter-director ship, February 1944; Kavieng/Rabaul antishipping sweep; Emirau landings, March 1944; Marianas - Tinian bombardment 14 June, Battle of the Philippine Sea in TG 58.3, Tinian/Guam bombardments under Rear Admiral C. Turner Joy, July 1944; major overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard 25 October - 6 December 1944; DesRon 45 to DesRon 24; Palaus/Peleliu January 1945; Iwo Jima 19 February - 5 March 1945; Okinawa radar picket 17 April - 24 June 1945 (nine assignments, 22 air attacks repelled, six planes downed plus seven assisted, directed CAP kills of 28; near-kamikaze escapes 22 and 28 April); East China Sea antishipping sweeps July-August 1945; Nagasaki POW evacuation (125 liberated POWs, 18 September 1945); occupation transport duty Sasebo-Wakayama-Yokosuka to mid-November 1945. Arrived Charleston Naval Shipyard 23 December 1945 for inactivation; decommissioned 18 April 1946, Charleston Group Atlantic Reserve Fleet; German transfer crew trained at Charleston summer 1959; turned over and commissioned in the Bundesmarine as Z-3 (D-172) on 6 October 1959; struck from the U.S. Navy list and sold to the Federal Republic of Germany 1 October 1974; remained active with the West German Navy into 1980. Seven battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation for WWII.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1942-1980
- Population
- Bath Iron Works construction trades 1942-43; wartime crew (design complement 273); German transfer crews 1959
- Limitations
- DANFS documents service history and specifications, not materials or asbestos content. The commissioning line reads 'Comdr. John F. Walker' while the same entry later reads 'Comdr. John F Walsh' (31 May 1944 passage) and NavSource/crew-association sources read Walsh - carried in gaps. The narrative phrase 'through the end of 1944' for Bougainville operations is inconsistent with the 8 January 1944 Solomons departure in the same entry - carried in gaps. Mirror transcription cited because the live NHHC page returns 404.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-01
-
[2]Presidential Unit Citation text for USS Wadsworth (DD-516), Destroyer History Foundation transcription (destroyerhistory.org), signed Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy [other_primary]
- Locator
- destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/usswadsworth_puc/ - full PUC citation text
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Official award text for this hull: the Presidential Unit Citation to USS Wadsworth 'for extraordinary heroism in action as a fighter director ship on a radar picket station during the Okinawa campaign, April 17 to June 24 1945' - downed six enemy planes, shared in destruction of seven others, on isolated advance stations as a natural and frequent target for kamikaze and dive-bombing attack. Corroborates the DANFS Okinawa narrative for this hull.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1945
- Population
- Wadsworth crew, Okinawa radar-picket duty 1945
- Limitations
- Unit commendation record only - documents combat service, not materials, asbestos content, or exposure. Transcription site is a secondary host of the official citation text; the citation language itself is official.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-02
-
[3]NavSource Destroyer Photo Index DD-516 (disposition chain) + seaforces.org Type 119 (Z-1 class) page; corroborated by Wikipedia DD-516 article [other_primary]
- Locator
- navsource.org/archives/05/516.htm (photo index, operational/building data block); seaforces.org Type 119 page
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Post-U.S. custody chain for this hull per secondary compilations: commissioned in the Bundesmarine as Z-3 (D-172) on 6 October 1959 (consistent with DANFS); stricken by West Germany in 1980; transferred to the Hellenic Navy in October 1980 (15 October per seaforces/Wikipedia, 30 October per NavSource) and renamed Nearchos (D-65); stricken and scrapped in 1991. A 2001 note to the crew-association site from a Greek correspondent states the hull was intended as a spare-parts source but was instead commissioned about January 1981.
- Verification
- partial
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1959-1991
- Population
- Bundesmarine crew 1959-1980; Hellenic Navy crew/scrappers 1980-1991
- Limitations
- Secondary compilations only - no primary source located for the Greek phase; the two compilations disagree on the October 1980 transfer date (15th vs 30th) - carried in gaps. Nothing in these sources addresses materials, asbestos, or scrapping-yard conditions. NavSource page content obtained via search-result text; direct fetch failed.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-03
-
[4]DANFS specifications block (Fletcher class; 37 kt) + Atlas shipyard dataset, Bath Iron Works record incl. Dr. Philip Drinker 1942 Harvard industrial-hygiene study of BIW pipe-covering shops (PMID 21016030) and OSHA Inspection 101450294 (1987); NARA RG19 General Information Books archival lead [other_primary]
- Locator
- DANFS spec block; shipyards.json record 'bath-iron-works' (ev-bath-iron-works-02, PMID 21016030); NARA RG19 lead
- Finding type
- asbestos_application
- Finding
- Era/yard inference: a WWII Fletcher-class destroyer built at Bath Iron Works in 1942-43 with a four-boiler/60,000-shp steam plant would have carried period-standard asbestos boiler and steam-line insulation, turbine lagging, gaskets, packing, fireproofing, and deck coverings. Builder Bath Iron Works is documented at yard level in the Atlas dataset (tier 2): Dr. Philip Drinker's 1942 Harvard study recorded 'fairly serious dust risk' at roughly ten times the safe threshold in the yard's pipe-covering shops - contemporaneous with this hull's August 1942 - March 1943 construction. NARA RG19 'General Information Books' per-vessel material specifications are an unretrieved archival lead for hull-level specs.
- Verification
- inferred
- Role
- supporting
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1942-1946
- Population
- Bath Iron Works construction trades 1942-43; crew 1943-46
- Limitations
- Class/era and builder-yard inference only - NOT a hull-specific finding. The 1942 yard study documents dust risk in BIW pipe-covering shops, not materials installed aboard DD-516; no hull-level insulation schedule was located. Does not quantify material or establish any individual's exposure.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-04
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[5]GAO, Navy Efforts To Protect Workers From Asbestos Exposure, HRD-80-2 (Oct 18, 1979) [gao]
- Locator
- GAO product page HRD-80-2
- 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 - placing DD-516's construction (1942-43), entire commissioned U.S. service (1943-1946), reserve period, and most of her Bundesmarine service (1959-1980) inside the documented asbestos-use era.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- context
- Documentation level
- class_or_era
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 1979
- Population
- Navy shipyard workers; asbestos program review
- Limitations
- Program-level documentation; supports era context only, not any fact specific to this hull. Full report text not retrieved (gao.gov blocks automated fetch, HTTP 403) - content via product-page description.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-05
-
[6]Batch-3494 search ledger (this record): DANFS mirror; NavSource/destroyerhistory/seaforces secondary compilations; crew-association site; GAO HRD-80-2; CourtListener (partially blocked by fleet pacing); NARA catalog API (unreachable); NWC Archives and USSBS action-report leads [other_primary]
- Locator
- search_ledger rows sl-uss-wadsworth-dd516-01 through sl-uss-wadsworth-dd516-10
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- No hull-specific asbestos survey, abatement record, materials inventory, hazmat disclosure, or qualifying litigation naming this hull was located in the sources searched (see search_ledger). CourtListener returned zero hits for "USS Wadsworth" (opinions and RECAP dockets) and "DD-516" (opinions); the "DD-516" docket query was blocked by fleet-wide pacing limits (logged honestly in the ledger). Name collisions screened: USS Wadsworth DD-60 (WWI) and FFG-9 (in service 1980-2002) share the name, and 'Wadsworth' is a common litigant surname - no hit named any vessel. The ship was stricken and sold abroad in 1974 and scrapped overseas in 1991 - before modern asbestos documentation practice - and never became a museum, so the museum-disclosure channel that produced ship-specific records for preserved hulls does not exist here.
- Verification
- verified
- Role
- negative_finding
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Study period
- 2026-09-27
- Limitations
- Absence of a located public record does not prove absence of asbestos aboard - era-standard applications are documented at class/era level (ev-04, ev-05). The CourtListener sweep is near-complete: both exact-name queries and the hull-number opinion query returned zero; only the long-shot "DD-516" docket query went unrun before the fleet pacing budget was spent - residual litigation risk is minimal but not zero. The hull no longer exists, so present-day ACM status is moot.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-06
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[7]U.S. Naval War College Archives, Thomas N. Burke papers MSC-200 Series II, Box 11 Folder 7 (USS Wadsworth DD-516 item); USSBS Index Section 7 (Wadsworth action reports, TG 95.2 operations July-August 1945); NARA RG19 General Information Books and RG24 deck logs (standard archival leads, retrieval not performed) [other_primary]
- Locator
- usnwcarchives.org repositories/2/archival_objects/204661; cultural.jp USSBS Index Section 7 (reports 2-m(1)); NARA RG19/RG24
- Finding type
- historical_record
- Finding
- Unretrieved archival leads that could hold hull-level material or yard-work documentation: the Naval War College Archives holds a Wadsworth (DD-516) item in the Burke photograph/history papers; USSBS Section 7 indexes Wadsworth action reports for July-August 1945; NARA RG19 'General Information Books' (per-vessel material specifications) and RG24 deck logs are standard repositories for hull-level data. None were retrieved or reviewed.
- Verification
- unverified
- Role
- archival_lead
- Documentation level
- ship_specific
- Accessed
- 2026-09-27
- Limitations
- Leads only - none of these holdings were retrieved, and none is known to contain asbestos-relevant material; the NARA catalog API returned empty responses to automated queries this session, so RG19/RG24 coverage for this hull was not confirmed online.
- Atlas source
- true
- Evidence ID
- ev-uss-wadsworth-dd516-07