The USS Cabana (DE-260) was an Evarts-class destroyer escort laid down on January 27, 1943, and launched on March 10, 1943. It was commissioned on July 9, the same year under Lt. Cmdr. R. L. Bence’s command as DE-260, and served in the U.S. Navy for 3 years until it was decommissioned on January 6, 1946. During its activities, the ship carried a complement of 198 people on board and had its main missions in Boston, Pearl Harbor, Norfolk, San Francisco, Saipan, Majuro, the Marshalls, Iwo Jima, Ulithi, and Guam. After the decommissioning, the ship was struck from the Navy List on January 21, 1946, and sold for scrapping the following year. For the services brought to the country during World War II, the USS Cabana received 7 battle stars. Due to its affordability, tensile strength, and the property of being thermally inert, asbestos was widely used in United States shipyards, helping the U.S. Navy tout some of the most indestructible naval vessels in the world during World War II and the early Cold War years. Navy personnel who worked in the confined spaces of the boiler rooms and engine rooms where asbestos was widely used are usually at higher risk for developing asbestos-related diseases.
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