USS Hornet (CV-8)

The Hornet (CV-8) was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier serving the US Navy during WWII. The seventh United States Naval vessel to bear the name, Hornet was commissioned in October 1941 under the command of Captain Marc A. Mitscher. Hornet was the last full-sized United States carrier to be lost as a result of damage sustained in combat.

Construction

The Hornet's keel was laid at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company in Virginia near the end of September 1939. The completed vessel was launched on 14 December 1940.

The Yorktown class was designed based on lessons learned from experience with the previous two classes, the Lexington (converted cruisers) and the Ranger (the first true aircraft carrier built specifically for that purpose). One of those lessons was that size mattered: a large carrier was more useful and apt to survive than a smaller one.

In the late 1930s, the world's navies were constrained under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty as to tonnage when it came to combat vessels. That treaty went out the proverbial window in 1937, allowing for the construction of full-sized carriers for the first time.

Hornet was the last of the three Yorktown-class carriers to be commissioned. Displacing nearly 26,000 tons when fully loaded, she was 809 feet in length with a beam of 109 feet at the flight deck. Propulsion was provided by four steam turbines manufactured by Parsons Marine (now part of German conglomerate Siemens), powered by nine Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Her crew compliment totaled 2,919 officers and seamen.

Repairs and Upgrades

After her initial shakedown and training period, Hornet underwent upgrades to her armaments in January 1942.

After the Battle of Midway in June of 1942, Hornet entered the yard at Pearl Harbor where she received the new RCA-CXAM radar along with additional guns; at the same time, a mid-ship catapult was removed. These were the last modifications performed before she was deployed to the South Pacific and the Guadalcanal Campaign.

Wartime Service

Hornet spent the weeks prior to the Pearl Harbor attack sailing out of NS Norfolk, undergoing shakedown trials and training for the conflict that most of those in the government knew was coming. After a maintenance period in January 1942, the vessel began practice sessions launching the USAAF medium-bomber, the twin-engined B-25, from her flight deck. This aircraft had not been designed for carrier operations, and was far larger and heavier than naval aircraft. Nonetheless, it was the prelude to the historic Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942.

The next significant action in which Hornet played a part was the Battle of Midway. This battle, considered the turning point of the Pacific war, was fought entirely with aircraft; neither side's surface vessels saw the others. Hornet's air wing was able to sink a Japanese cruiser and cause severe damage to another as well as a destroyer.

At the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal campaign on 26 October 1942, the Hornet was targeted by a group of Japanese dive bombers. Over several hours, the carrier was hit repeatedly by bombs and torpedoes, even after the disabled vessel was taken under tow by the USS Northampton. She was finished off in the early morning hours of 27 October by the destroyer IJN Akigumo.

Asbestos Risk on the USS Hornet (CV-8)

Aside from the usual asbestos risks found aboard naval vessels during routine service and maintenance, battle damage could cause asbestos to become friable, releasing fibers into the environment. Hornet took the heaviest damage during her last hours as she was pounded repeatedly off the Santa Cruz Islands. The vessel commander at that time, Captain C.P. Mason, was the last man over the side after the order to abandon ship had been given.

Using asbestos fireproofing in the design of all vessels was ordered by law in the United States in the early 1930s, after a deadly fire on a luxury liner resulted in great loss of life. Although all of the service branches deployed asbestos-containing products in various types of locations and installations, asbestos exposure was much more frequent on ships, and so there are many more mesothelioma navy cases than in the other divisions of the military. Ships like Hornet used asbestos frequently, especially in ship's boilers and engineering spaces, as well as for insulation all over the vessel.

When asbestos-containing material becomes worn it becomes "friable", which means that individual fibers can break off and escape into the air, and then are inhaled or ingested by sailors and shipfitters, increasing the chances of contracting mesothelioma. The damage caused by asbestos fibers occurs when very small particles are inhaled; they can invade the mesothelium of the lungs and sometimes the stomach resulting in mesothelioma cancer. Sadly, the prognosis in mesothelioma cases is rarely optimistic - generally mesothelioma disease victims live for around a year once the disease is detected. Asbestos-caused cancers like malignant mesothelioma are relatively rare, and accordingly mesothelioma clinics are also fairly uncommon.

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Sources

Friedman, Norman. United States Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983)

Mooney, James. Dictionary of American Fighting Ships. (Washington DC; Department of the Navy, 1991).