The USS McCaffery (DD/DDE-860) was a Gearing-class destroyer laid down in 1944, launched, and commissioned in 1945. Nicknamed "Big Mac", the ship sailed for the western Pacific in 1946, following her west coast fitting out and shakedown period. The destroyer was converted to an escort destroyer (DDE) in 1949, enhancing her anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The ship then operated with the 7th Fleet during the Korean War and received two battle stars for her service. She then alternated operations along the East Coast and in the Caribbean with the 2nd Fleet, and deployed to the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet. After an extensive FRAM overhaul in 1961, the vessel participated in quarantine operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, served as a communications relay ship for the Mercury space shot in May 1963. The destroyer also conducted naval gunfire support missions during the Vietnam War and conducted antisubmarine patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin. The USS McCaffery was decommissioned and stricken from the Register in 1973 and sold for scrap in 1974. Given the extensive use of asbestos on Navy ships built before the 1980s, naval personnel risked inhaling or ingesting the toxic mineral fibers responsible for devastating diseases.
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