The Bureau of Ships (BUSHIPS) and its successor the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) served as the central Navy authority for ship design, construction, outfitting, and maintenance specifications from World War II through the modern era. In that role, BUSHIPS and NAVSEA directly governed the procurement of asbestos-containing materials installed and maintained aboard US Navy vessels.

BUSHIPS: The Predecessor Command

The Bureau of Ships was established in 1940 from the merger of the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Engineering. BUSHIPS had authority over all aspects of ship construction and outfitting, including the specification of insulation materials for boilers, steam lines, engine spaces, and living compartments.

BUSHIPS specifications defined the asbestos-containing products acceptable for use on Navy vessels. These specifications — catalogued in BUSHIPS Technical Manuals and procurement documents — established the institutional framework under which asbestos insulation, gaskets, packing, and pipe lagging were purchased and installed aboard ships from the 1940s through the early 1980s.

Publicly filed litigation records contain extensive testimony about BUSHIPS’s authority. Naval engineering experts who testified in asbestos cases described how BUSHIPS and later NAVSEA controlled “all divisions and levels of authority concerning ship design, construction, maintenance, repair, and inspection.” The Chief of BUSHIPS and later the Commander of NAVSEA, along with the Chief of the Bureau of Supply and Accounts, oversaw the procurement processes through which asbestos-containing materials reached every vessel in the fleet.

In 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reorganized the Navy’s technical bureaus. BUSHIPS was merged into the Naval Ship Systems Command (NAVSHIPS), which was subsequently redesignated as the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in 1974. NAVSEA inherited all of BUSHIPS’s specifications authority and procurement oversight.

NAVSEA continued to govern the use of asbestos-containing materials aboard Navy vessels during the transition period of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. This period — when awareness of asbestos health hazards was documented in the technical literature but the Navy had not yet comprehensively removed ACM from vessel specifications — represents a documented gap in which shipboard personnel continued to be exposed to asbestos under Navy procurement standards that NAVSEA was responsible for maintaining.

Shipboard Personnel and BUSHIPS/NAVSEA Authority

The significance of BUSHIPS and NAVSEA authority for veterans and their families is procedural: because the Navy itself specified, procured, and maintained asbestos-containing materials aboard its vessels, the manufacturers who supplied those materials to Navy specifications have been named in extensive asbestos litigation. Expert testimony in asbestos cases has described how Navy procurement officers, guided by BUSHIPS and NAVSEA specifications, selected asbestos products from qualified manufacturers.

For Navy veterans pursuing VA presumptive claims, BUSHIPS and NAVSEA procurement history provides institutional documentation that asbestos was pervasively used throughout the fleet under official specification — supporting the claim that shipboard exposure was systemic and not incidental.

NAVSEA and its predecessor organizations generated documentation that has become important evidence in asbestos litigation:

  • BUSHIPS Technical Manuals specifying acceptable insulation materials and installation standards
  • Ship outfitting records identifying the manufacturers and specific products installed on individual vessels
  • Maintenance specifications requiring the use of asbestos packing and gasket materials during routine valve and pipe maintenance
  • Correspondence with shipyard superintendents (SUPSHIPS) coordinating asbestos-related procurement

NARA holds substantial BUSHIPS and NAVSEA records. Veterans seeking documentation of their vessel’s asbestos materials should request records through NARA’s military records division in addition to their individual service records.