Army and Navy Munitions Board

The Army and Navy Munitions Board (ANMB) was a joint U.S. military planning body that coordinated industrial mobilization and the procurement and stockpiling of strategic raw materials, including asbestos, for national defense. Active from the 1920s through World War II, it designated asbestos as a critical war material and helped direct its supply to shipyards, military construction, and munitions manufacturers.

Origin

The Board was established in 1922 under the National Defense Act of 1920, which directed the Assistant Secretary of War to plan for wartime industrial mobilization. It worked alongside the War and Navy Departments and was a forerunner to the postwar Munitions Board and ultimately the Department of Defense logistics structure created in 1947.

Significance in Asbestos Context

For patients exposed during military service or wartime shipyard work, ANMB records help establish that the federal government knowingly directed massive quantities of asbestos into Navy ships, Army installations, and defense plants during the 1930s and 1940s. This history is central to cases involving Navy veterans, Merchant Marine sailors, and civilian shipyard workers, and it supports product-identification evidence by documenting which manufacturers supplied asbestos materials under government contracts. The ANMB's strategic-materials designations are also frequently cited in litigation involving the "government contractor defense," where manufacturers argue they were merely following military specifications, an argument your legal team will need to address with historical evidence about what the companies themselves knew about asbestos hazards.

Example Sentence

The expert historian's report cited Army and Navy Munitions Board stockpile lists from 1940 to show that the shipyard where the client served as a pipefitter was supplied with asbestos insulation from multiple named manufacturers.

Related Terms

Government Contractor Defense, Navy Shipyard Exposure, MIL-SPEC, Strategic Materials Stockpile, Maritime Commission, War Production Board

Notes

• If you or a loved one served in the Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, or worked in a wartime shipyard, request a complete service record (DD-214 and full personnel file) and ship assignment history. These connect you to vessels whose construction specs are traceable through ANMB-era records.
• Ask your legal team whether they will retain a maritime or military historian to pull ANMB procurement and stockpile documents from the National Archives (Record Groups 80, 107, and 225) to identify specific asbestos suppliers.
• Preserve any family photographs, letters, or discharge papers showing duty stations, rates (such as boiler tender, machinist's mate, or pipefitter), and shipboard assignments; these establish the work environments tied to ANMB-directed asbestos supply.
• If a manufacturer raises the government contractor defense in your case, your attorneys will need to show what the company knew about asbestos disease independent of military specifications, a key issue in many Navy-veteran claims.