The USS Salt Lake City (CA-25) was a Pensacola-class cruiser laid down on June 9, 1927, and launched on January 23, 1929. It was commissioned on December 11, the same year under Capt. Frederick Lansing Oliver’s command as CA-25 and served in the U.S. Navy for 17 years until it was decommissioned on August 29, 1946. During its activities, the ship carried a complement of 663 people during wartime and 4 aircraft onboard and had its main missions in Midway, Ulithi, Pearl Harbor, Eniwetok, Palau Islands, and Okinawa. After decommissioning, the ship was struck from the Navy List on June 18, 1948, and sunk as a target the same year. For the services brought to the country during World War II, the ship received 11 battle stars. Because it was cheap and versatile, asbestos was considered a miraculous, indestructible substance, and therefore, widely used in almost every Navy ship from the 1930s to the early 1980s. Inhaling airborne asbestos particles can cause significant harm to the lining of the lungs such as inflammation and scarring, which can cause genetic and cellular damage over the years.
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