S.S. Little Butte
The S.S. Little Butte was a T-2 tanker constructed at the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company in Mobile (known today as Atlantic Marine Alabama). She was launched in November of 1944 and initially was used as a Navy “oiler,” or fuel ship.
In 1948, she was transferred to the North American Shipping and Trading Company of New York and renamed S.S. Mermaid. The vessel would be transferred two more times; in 1955, she came under control of the U.S. Department of Commerce Maritime Administration, then was transferred to Metro Petroleum Shipping Company two years later.
The former Little Butte was sold to Fuji, Marden & Company Ltd. of Hong Kong in 1963 and ultimately broken up for scrap.
Asbestos would have been integral to a vessel designed to carry several million gallons of flammable petroleum. Such use was in fact mandated by Congress in 1935 following a maritime disaster in which the cruise ship S.S. Morro Castle caught fire off the coast of New Jersey. Nearly 140 passengers and crew lost their lives in the accident.
The asbestos companies that profited handsomely from the regulations over the next four decades were well aware of the health hazards of asbestos, but kept this information under wraps; the conspiracy was industry-wide. This blatantly criminal act was exposed in 1977 with the discovery of the “Sumner Simpson Papers” - correspondence between the CEOs of two major asbestos manufacturers in which it was agreed that information about asbestos would either be suppressed or distorted in order to maintain profitability. While profit was produced, so were mesothelioma navy cases.
Asbestos disease such as lung cancer or mesothelioma is relatively rare, but invariably deadly. Diagnosis is difficult; such forms of cancer usually do not show symptoms for many years, even decades after initial exposure. In addition, the respiratory form of malignant mesothelioma has symptoms that are similar to other lung disorders.
Recently, the FDA approved a new test that enables pathologists to detect the early signs of mesothelioma. Even if you have no symptoms now, if you were one who worked aboard the Little Butte forty or fifty years ago, you should discuss it with your doctor and undergo health monitoring so that if the disease does develop, it can be treated in its early stages.
Sources
Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America. New York: Touchstone, 2003.
T2Tanker.org. “Little Butte.”
http://www.t2tanker.org/lookupt2.php
