USS Jack W. Wilke DE-800
The USS Jack W. Wilke DE-800 was a Buckley-class destroyer/escort ship that served during the World War II era. Named after Navy Cross recipient Ensign Jack W. Wilke, a former naval aviator in the Battle of Midway, the USS Jack W. Wilke was built at Consolidated Steel Corporation in Orange, Texas in 1943.
After she was launched on December 18, 1943 and commissioned in 1944, Lieutenant Commander Robert D. Lowther steered the USS Jack W. Wilke to the West Indies for a shakedown, followed by antisubmarine warfare training in Bermuda. The ship then spent about six months on convoy escort duty and made stops in Algeria, Bizerte, Tunis, Sicily, Oran, and Naples, Italy. In late 1944, the USS Jack W. Wilke headed to Cherbourg, France. All the while, the vessel had to be wary of German U-boats lurking in British waters. After a patrol in the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland area from December 1944-May 1945, the vessel sailed to Norfolk to serve as a weather reporting ship and assist in air-sea rescue missions.
In June of 1945, the USS Jack W. Wilke made her way to Miami to serve as a sonar training ship. After an overhaul in Philadelphia, where the received new equipment and anti-aircraft guns, the USS Jack W. Wilke was ready for a patrol in the Pacific Ocean, but her mission was cancelled upon the end of the war in August. Instead, the ship landed in Port Everglades, Florida for three weeks of ASW exercises and then traveled to the New York Navy Yard for another overhaul. Now serving as an experimental antisubmarine ship, the USS Jack W. Wilke carried out several experimental cruises off of Key West and in the West Indies, during which various types of equipment were tested. Besides a brief stint in Cuba in the waters off of Havana in early January of 1959, the ship stayed in the Key West area to conduct training operations. On May 24, 1960 the USS Jack W. Wilke was decommissioned and struck from the register in 1972. She was sold for scrap to Union Metals & Alloys Corporation in New York in 1974.
Although the crew aboard the USS Jack W. Wilke saw very little conflict during their military service, they did face the danger of asbestos exposure while on board. Asbestos within piping insulation and other products was very common in military ships built in the forties, and if the asbestos fibers became airborne, crewmembers were likely to inhale them. If inhaled, asbestos can remain in the lining of the lungs, heart, or abdomen for as many as fifty years before forming a malignancy and causing shortness of breath, chest pain and other symptoms in exposed individuals. All Navy vets are urged to talk with their physician about the possibility of developing an asbestos-related illness such as mesothelioma or lung cancer.
Last modified: December 28, 2010.
