USS WATERS (DD-115)

Evidence

3 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-3).

1. [1]DANFS, Waters (Destroyer No. 115) [nhhc_danfs]

   Locator

   DANFS entry, full text (specifications caption block + service narrative)

   Finding type

   vessel_history

   Finding

   DANFS record for this hull: laid down 26 July 1917 at Philadelphia, Pa., by William Cramp & Sons; launched 3 March 1918, sponsored by Miss Mary Borland Thayer; commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard 8 August 1918, Lt. Comdr. Charles F. Russell in command. As built: displacement 1,154 tons, length 314'4", design complement 122, Wickes-class specifications. WWI convoy escort to the British Isles and Azores; NC-4 transatlantic-flight picket duty, May 1919. Became DD-115 on or about 17 July 1920. Asiatic Fleet duty (Cavite, Chinese ports) 1921-22; decommissioned San Diego 28 December 1922; recommissioned 4 June 1930; cooperated with the Submarine Force on early high-frequency sonar development 1936-1939; at San Diego with the Underwater Sound Training School on 7 December 1941; Alaska/Aleutians convoy escort for Task Force 8 (Northwestern Sea Frontier), February-November 1942. Entered Puget Sound Navy Yard 19 December 1942, redesignated APD-8; conversion removed forward boilers and torpedo tubes (added troop berths and landing-craft davits), replaced 4-inch guns with dual-purpose 3-inch guns, added 20mm AA; completed February 1943. Served South Pacific Amphibious Force from 21 March 1943: Segi Point, Rendova, New Georgia, Rice Anchorage, Vella Lavella (rescued 40 USS Helena survivors, July 1943), Treasury Islands, Bougainville/Empress Augusta Bay, Green Islands (Nissan), Emirau Island. Assisted firefighting and rescued 75 sailors after an LST explosion at Pearl Harbor, 21 May 1944, sustaining minor damage. Flagship, TransDiv 12 and TG 52.8, Saipan landings, June 1944; Guam-area screening, August 1944; UDT training, Pearl Harbor, late 1944; Iwo Jima screening, February-March 1945; Okinawa (Operation Iceberg) support March-June 1945, assisting USS Morris (DD-417) after a 6 April 1945 kamikaze strike. Returned San Pedro, Calif., 21 July 1945; began overhaul "at the Western Steel & Pipe Co."; resumed DD-115 classification 2 August 1945; moved to Terminal Island, Calif., September 1945 (overhaul became pre-inactivation preparation); decommissioned Terminal Island 12 October 1945; struck from the Navy list 24 October 1945; sold for scrapping 10 May 1946. Seven battle stars, WWII.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   supporting

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-26

   Study period

   1917-1946

   Population

   William Cramp & Sons construction trades, Philadelphia, 1917-18; wartime and postwar crew (design complement 122; wartime APD-8 complement unverified)

   Limitations

   DANFS documents specifications and service history, not onboard materials - it never uses the word 'asbestos' and does not describe insulation, lagging, gasket, or packing composition. Does not establish presence, quantity, or removal of any asbestos-containing material aboard this hull. The live NHHC page returned HTTP 404 to a plain (non-browser) HTTP client during this research pass and HTTP 200 with a standard browser user-agent - a server-side access-control artifact, not confirmed link rot; content quoted here is taken from the successfully retrieved live page. DANFS's own attribution of the final 1945 overhaul yard as "Western Steel & Pipe Co." (San Pedro) is carried verbatim; whether this maps to the Atlas dataset's 'western-pipe-steel' (Western Pipe & Steel Company) entry is unresolved given that firm's original San Pedro-area yard was reportedly sold to Bethlehem Shipbuilding in 1925 - see gaps.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-waters-dd115-01

2. [2]DANFS specifications block (Wickes-class, 1918 commissioning; Dec. 1942-Feb. 1943 APD-8 conversion at Puget Sound Navy Yard) + Atlas shipyards.json builder/yard records [other_primary]

   Locator

   DANFS specifications block and service narrative; shipyards.json records 'puget-sound-naval-shipyard', 'philadelphia-naval-shipyard', 'mare-island-naval-shipyard'

   Finding type

   asbestos_application

   Finding

   Era/yard inference: a Wickes-class destroyer commissioned in 1918 with a two-boiler oil-fired steam plant, and modernized through a December 1942-February 1943 high-speed-transport conversion at a Navy yard (Puget Sound Navy Yard), would have carried period-standard asbestos insulation, steam-line lagging, valve/flange gaskets, machinery packing, and fireproofing consistent with WWI-era destroyer construction and WWII-era yard refit practice. Puget Sound Navy Yard, Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Mare Island Naval Shipyard (each documented at yard level in the Atlas shipyards.json dataset) all performed ship-specific work on this hull per DANFS (commissioning; 1920 Bremerton overhaul; 1922 and 1933 repairs; Dec. 1942-Feb. 1943 APD-8 conversion).

   Verification

   inferred

   Role

   supporting

   Documentation level

   class_or_era

   Accessed

   2026-09-26

   Study period

   1917-1945

   Population

   Puget Sound Navy Yard, Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Mare Island Naval Shipyard trades performing ship-specific work on this hull, 1918-1945; crew 1918-1945

   Limitations

   Class/era and yard-level inference only - this hull has no ship-specific asbestos finding (see ev-01, ev-03). Does not establish that any specific material aboard this hull contained asbestos, its quantity, or its condition at any date. Builder William Cramp & Sons (Philadelphia, private yard) is not present in the Atlas shipyards.json dataset and is not included in related_shipyards.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-waters-dd115-02

3. [3]Batch-3123 search ledger (this record): DANFS full-text; Naval Vessel Register (nvr.navy.mil); National Park Service NRHP/NHL search; CourtListener API v4 via authenticated fleet helper script; NARA logbook/records finding aids [other_primary]

   Locator

   search_ledger rows sl-uss-waters-dd115-01 through sl-uss-waters-dd115-07

   Finding type

   litigation_documented

   Finding

   No ship-specific asbestos record located for this hull in DANFS, NARA finding aids (deck logs/General Information Books not retrieved this pass - archival lead only), or NPS NRHP/NHL search (no listing exists; the ship was scrapped in 1946 and never became a museum vessel). The Naval Vessel Register itself states that ships disposed of prior to 1987 are 'currently not included' in its published data, consistent with this hull's 1946 disposal and the absence of an NVR record. CourtListener litigation search via the batch's authenticated helper script returned zero results for exact-phrase opinion searches on "USS Waters" and "\"USS Waters\" DD-115", zero results for a RECAP/docket search on "USS Waters", and zero results for an opinion search on "APD-8" asbestos. A further RECAP/docket search on "APD-8" Waters returned 16 name-collision hits keyed to an unrelated case, Waters v. Advent Product Development Inc. (S.D. Cal. 3:07-cv-02089) - a products-liability/diversity removal naming plaintiff Matthew Waters (surname collision) and defendant 'Advent Product Development Inc.' (whose abbreviation coincidentally matches 'APD'); reviewed and confirmed non-qualifying (no Navy, ship, or asbestos content). No qualifying or archival-lead asbestos litigation naming this hull was located. Commercial mesothelioma-law-firm websites list "USS Waters DD-115" on generic all-ships rosters, but these are non-authoritative sources excluded under the batch's hard rules and offer no ship-specific substantiation (no cited survey, abatement record, or litigation) beyond boilerplate class/era language - no claim from these sources is carried into this record.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   negative_finding

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-26

   Study period

   2026-09-26

   Limitations

   CourtListener coverage, while multi-query, remains a search-index sweep, not an exhaustive PACER review - full-text RECAP search on the bare surname 'Waters' was not attempted (too high a collision rate to be usable within the fleet-wide query budget), and a semantic-search pass was not run. Absence of a located record does not prove asbestos was never present aboard this hull or that no litigation exists - it establishes only that no qualifying public record was found in the sources and queries actually run (see search_ledger).

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-waters-dd115-03