Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company

Facility Overview

Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company was founded in 1916 by J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil Company (Sunoco), on a 200-acre site along the Delaware River in Chester, Pennsylvania. The yard launched its first ship, the SS Chester Sun, on October 30, 1917. By 1931, Sun Ship had built the SS White Flash — the first all-welded ocean-going vessel in the world, a milestone in naval architecture that would define WWII tanker construction.

During World War II, Sun Ship operated four yards on the Chester waterfront — Central, North, South, and Yard #4. At peak production in 1943, the combined workforce reached 35,633 workers, making Sun Ship the largest single shipyard in the world. The yard built 281 T2-SE-A2 tankers during the war — approximately 40% of the entire U.S. wartime oil tanker fleet — plus 75 ships in 1944 alone. The USS Cimarron (AO-22), an oiler built at Sun Ship in 1939, fueled more vessels than any other tanker in the Pacific War.

Yard #4 was operated as a segregated facility with an entirely African American workforce. The first ship built entirely by Black workers — the SS Marine Eagle — was launched from Yard #4. In 1972, Sun Ship built the Hughes Glomar Explorer under CIA contract as part of Project AZORIAN, a covert operation to raise the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor. Sun Ship was sold to Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company in 1982 and finally closed in 1989. The SS El Faro, a ro/ro vessel built at Sun Ship in 1975, was lost in Hurricane Joaquin on October 1, 2015 — the deadliest U.S. maritime disaster in decades.

Lilley v. Johns-Manville Corp., 408 Pa. Super. 83 (1991)

The flagship evidence record for Sun Shipbuilding is Lilley v. Johns-Manville Corp., 408 Pa. Super. 83, 596 A.2d 203 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1991). Fred Lilley worked at Sun Ship from 1959 to 1976, progressing from pipefitter to supervisor to assistant foreman to superintendent. He testified that approximately 90% of his working life was spent in tightly confined areas — engine rooms, boiler spaces, and pipe chases — where asbestos products were cut, fitted, and applied by insulators and pipefitters working alongside him.

Lilley testified that at the end of each workday, his clothes and body were covered with asbestos fibers, and that workers routinely used compressed air lines to blow asbestos dust off their clothing before leaving the yard — a practice that aerosolized fibers and created secondary exposure for bystanders. He identified the following asbestos product brands from labels on materials he personally handled or observed at Sun Ship: Unibestos (Pittsburgh-Corning), Caltemp (Fibreboard Corp.), Careytemp (Philip Carey), Kaylo (Owens-Illinois/Owens-Corning), Manville (Johns-Manville), Portasite, Garlock asbestos gaskets, and Flexitallic gaskets.

Co-worker Samuel Wasson corroborated Lilley's testimony, identifying additional products including Pabco (Fibreboard), Raybestos (Raybestos-Manhattan), Amosite (raw fiber), Calcil/Calcilite, Hy-Temp, Superpowerhouse, Keene Products (Keene Corp.), and Porter Amosite. Together, the Lilley and Wasson testimony provides one of the most comprehensive product identification records in the dataset for any single commercial shipyard.

Lilley developed asbestosis. The case was tried in a "reverse bifurcated" format — damages were determined first, then liability. The jury returned a verdict of $250,000 compensatory damages plus $100,000 loss of consortium. Fibreboard Corporation was found liable for 1/8 of the compensatory damages ($77,076.03) on the Caltemp/Pabco product claims.

Asbestos Products Documented at Sun Shipbuilding

The Lilley record provides the most extensive product identification testimony in the dataset for any single commercial shipyard. The following products were identified by name from labels by Lilley and/or corroborated by co-worker Wasson. Products marked "Verified" were named in the Lilley court record; products marked "Probable" are consistent with the documented product set but were named only in Wasson's corroborating testimony or are inferred from the product profile of comparable Delaware Valley yards.

"Verified" = named from label by Lilley or Wasson in the Lilley v. Johns-Manville court record. "Probable" = named in Wasson corroborating testimony or consistent with documented product use at comparable Delaware Valley yards.

Notable Ships and Historical Context

Sun Ship's production record spans from the first all-welded ocean-going vessel to a CIA spy ship. The SS White Flash (1931) pioneered all-welded hull construction, a technique that became standard for WWII Liberty Ships and T2 tankers. The USS Cimarron (AO-22, 1939) fueled more vessels than any other tanker in the Pacific War, operating continuously from Pearl Harbor to the Japanese surrender. During WWII, Yard #4 — operated entirely by an African American workforce — produced the SS Marine Eagle, the first ship built entirely by Black workers in U.S. shipbuilding history.

In 1972, Sun Ship built the Hughes Glomar Explorer for the Summa Corporation (a Howard Hughes front company) under a classified CIA contract. The ship was designed to recover the sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129, which had sunk in the Pacific in 1968. Project AZORIAN partially succeeded in recovering a section of the submarine in 1974. The Glomar Explorer's construction at Sun Ship required extensive use of asbestos insulation in its specialized deep-sea recovery systems — the same products documented in the Lilley record were in use at the yard during this period.

The SS El Faro, a ro/ro cargo vessel built at Sun Ship in 1975, was lost with all 33 crew members in Hurricane Joaquin on October 1, 2015 — the deadliest U.S. maritime disaster in decades. The NTSB investigation documented the vessel's construction history at Sun Ship as part of its structural analysis. Workers who built the El Faro in 1975 were employed at the yard during the exposure period documented in the Lilley record (1959–1976).

Mid-Atlantic Cluster: Sun Ship vs. Federal Shipbuilding

Sun Shipbuilding and Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Company represent the two major commercial yards in the Mid-Atlantic cluster — both on the Delaware/Hudson waterway system, both operating under federal WWII contracts, and both with court-record-anchored evidence profiles.