Navy Signalmen — SM rating — operated visual signal equipment from the signal bridge, bridge wings, and flag bridge aboard surface combatants, carriers, auxiliaries, and amphibious vessels. Signalmen performed flag hoist signaling, flashing light (blinker) communications, semaphore, and pyrotechnic signaling, and served as visual communications watchstanders during fleet formations and at sea. The SM rating was disestablished in 2003, with visual communications duties absorbed into the Operations Specialist (OS) rating. Signalmen serving aboard WWII-era ships and Cold War-era combatants through the 1970s and 1980s stood watch in the ship’s superstructure spaces — bridge, signal bridge, combat information center passageways — where asbestos-containing construction materials were used throughout the WWII and postwar fleet.

Ship Superstructure Asbestos and Signalman Exposure

Signalmen’s watch stations were in asbestos-containing superstructure spaces:

  • Signal bridge and bridge wing construction — the signal bridge, bridge wings, and pilothouse on WWII-era destroyers, cruisers, and carriers used asbestos-containing construction materials in the overhead, deck, and bulkhead assemblies of the bridge superstructure spaces. Signalmen standing extended watches in these bridge spaces accumulated asbestos exposure from the surrounding asbestos-containing superstructure construction during routine operations
  • Flag bridge and admiral’s bridge spaces — on carriers and flagships, the flag bridge spaces where Signalmen assigned to fleet staff visual communications duties operated used carrier construction with asbestos-containing materials consistent with WWII and early Cold War carrier construction specifications
  • Interior communications spaces adjacent to bridge — Signalmen moving between the signal bridge and interior communications spaces passed through and worked in shipboard passageways and compartments with asbestos-containing overhead insulation, pipe covering, and deck tile throughout the ship’s superstructure

Ship’s Service Space Proximity and Asbestos

Signalmen working within the ship’s superstructure accumulated additional exposure:

  • Combat Information Center (CIC) and communications spaces — Signalmen assigned communications watch duties in CIC and ship’s communications spaces aboard older vessels worked in the ship’s interior spaces adjacent to the bridge, where WWII-era and Cold War-era construction used asbestos-containing insulation throughout the enclosed superstructure spaces
  • Destroyer and cruiser bridge spaces — Signalmen aboard Gearing, Sumner, and Fletcher class destroyers worked in the compact bridge and signal bridge structures of these WWII-era combatants, where the small enclosed spaces had asbestos-containing deck tile, asbestos pipe covering, and asbestos-containing overhead insulation immediately surrounding watch-standing Signalmen throughout their duty watches

VA Claims for SM Rating Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers asbestos exposure aboard Navy surface ships. Signalmen who served aboard WWII-era or early Cold War Navy ships and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits.