USS Compel (AMC-139)

Evidence

7 evidence entries recorded; each entry has a stable permalink (#ev-1 … #ev-7).

1. [1]NavSource Online, Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive - 'Compel (MSF 162) ex-AM-162 ex-AMc-139' page 11/02162 (navsource.net mirror fetched live HTTP 200 this session; navsource.org DNS unresolvable, same as canonical record) [other_primary]

   Locator

   NavSource 11/02162 - page heading ('ex-AMc-139') + 'Admirable Class Minesweeper' chronology block + specifications/CO/photo-credit blocks

   Finding type

   vessel_history

   Finding

   NavSource designation chronology for this hull: 'Originally planned as Coastal Minesweeper, Compel (AMc 139). Reclassified as a Minesweeper, AM-162, 21 February 1942. Laid down 26 May 1942 by the Willamette Iron and Steel Corp., Portland, OR. Launched 16 January 1943. Commissioned USS Compel (AM 162), 8 April 1944.' The Willamette contract was thus an AMc-designated order redesignated to the Admirable-class fleet-minesweeper program months before keel-laying; the AMc-139 number was never carried by a ship in service. NavSource also carries: decommissioned 12 June 1946 at San Diego; the NVR of 1 January 1949 listing 'out of commission, in reserve' as of December 1945; MSF-162 reclassification 7 February 1955; 'sold for scrap 26 August 1960'; call sign NDOF; COs LT Frederick Norman Egelhoff USNR (8 Apr 1944 - 8 Nov 1945) and LT Gibson Louis Smith USNR; NHHC photo NH 81364 and NARA Swan Island PRF photographs of 3 February 1946.

   Verification

   partial

   Role

   supporting

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1941-1960

   Population

   Willamette Iron & Steel construction trades (1942-44); USN crew 1944-46 (complement 104)

   Limitations

   Volunteer-compiled archival page - the sole primary-grade authority located for the AMc-139 designation and the 21 Feb 1942 redesignation date; the official DANFS entry is silent on the AMc designation entirely (ev-02). Corroborated by the uswarships.jounin.jp AMc index ('Compel | AMc-139 | Willamette Iron & Steel Corp. | ... 1942/2/21 -> AM-162') - secondary reference used for corroboration only, not cited as evidence. Its 26 May 1942 laid-down date conflicts with the official NAVSHIPS 250-011 register (15 Jun 1942) - the register value is carried in the canonical record and the conflict lives in its gaps. Contains no asbestos information.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-01

2. [2]DANFS, 'Compel (AM-162)' entry - verbatim NHHC text via Wayback capture 2021-07-23 of history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/compel.html (live NHHC page returns 404 - standing link rot, same as BATCH-01; fetched HTTP 200 this session) [nhhc_danfs]

   Locator

   DANFS entry 'Compel (AM-162)' - specification block + full service narrative (Wayback capture of history.navy.mil, 2021-07-23)

   Finding type

   vessel_history

   Finding

   The official DANFS entry knows this hull only as AM-162: '(AM-162: displacement 530; length 184'6"; beam 33'; draft 9'9"; speed 14.8 knots; complement 104; armament 1 3-inch; class Admirable)' - 'launched January 1943 by Willamette Iron and Steel Corp., Portland, Oreg.; commissioned 8 April 1944, Lt. F. N. Egelhoff, USNR, in command.' A page-wide check of the entry text returns ZERO mentions of AMc-139, AMc, or any pre-construction designation - the AMc-139 contract identity rests on NavSource (ev-01) and secondary-index corroboration, not on the official DANFS text. Service narrative: San Francisco departure 22 June 1944 escorting a tug group to Pearl Harbor; joined Coral Sea (CVE-57) off Kwajalein 25 July; swept mines off 'French Frigate Schoals' [sic] 6-15 August; Eniwetok arrival 5 September for antisubmarine patrol; Eniwetok-Ulithi-Palaus-Saipan-Guam-Majuro convoy escort/minesweeping/harbor-control/experimental-minesweeping duties from 24 October 1944 to war's end; November 1944 blood-plasma run to Manus for Mount Hood (AE-11) casualties; Wakayama approaches mine clearance from 29 August 1945 and Nagoya duty to 20 November; San Francisco arrival 16 December 1945; out of commission in reserve at San Diego 12 June 1946; MSF-162 7 February 1955; sold 26 August 1960; one battle star.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   supporting

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1942-1960

   Population

   Willamette Iron & Steel construction trades (1942-43); wartime crew (design complement 104), Pacific Fleet 1944-45

   Limitations

   DANFS documents the built hull's identity and service narrative - not the AMc designation chain and not materials or asbestos content; the entry contains no materials statement, no laid-down date, and no stricken date (the canonical record carries both absences in its gaps). 'French Frigate Schoals' is the entry's own spelling, carried verbatim. Live NHHC page 404s; text read via the 2021-07-23 Wayback capture.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-02

3. [3]Atlas canonical record uss-compel-am162.atlas.json (branch batch-1186/uss-compel-am162, Tier 2, researched 2026-09-22) + designation-chain rows ev-01 (NavSource) and ev-02 (DANFS) of this record [other_primary]

   Locator

   uss-compel-am162.atlas.json (canonical, 10 evidence rows, 13 ledger rows); this record's evidence rows ev-01, ev-02; hull-list-verify master-hull-list.json

   Finding type

   vessel_history

   Finding

   All-tier consolidation: AMc-139 and AM-162 are one contract hull, not two vessels. The master-hull-list row 'USS Compel / AMC-139 / Coastal Minesweeper / Admirable / WWII / tier 2' resolves to the canonical record uss-compel-am162 (Tier 2), which carries the full service history (commissioned 8 Apr 1944; Pearl Harbor-Kwajalein escort with Coral Sea CVE-57; French Frigate Shoals mine sweep; Eniwetok-Ulithi-Palaus-Saipan-Guam-Majuro escort/sweep/control/experimental duties; Wakayama and Nagoya post-surrender mine clearance; decommission San Diego 12 Jun 1946; ~14-year Pacific Reserve Fleet layup - photographed at Swan Island, Portland, 3 Feb 1946; MSF-162 7 Feb 1955; sold 26 Aug 1960, scrapped), the NAVSHIPS 250-011 register data, the documented source conflicts (keel-date, spec-drift, NVR-quirk, builder-name-form), the NARA archival leads, and the era/type asbestos inference. Unlike her Project Hula sisters (Willamette block AM-152 through AM-158 transferred to the USSR in 1945), Compel remained U.S. property through disposal - the canonical record flags the reserve-fleet and sale/disposal files as the plausible home of any material records. This record exists so the former designation resolves to the canonical hull rather than reading as a second vessel.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   correction

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1941-1960

   Limitations

   Internal consolidation statement - asserts only the one-hull identity, itself supported by the NavSource/DANFS rows ev-01/ev-02 and the canonical record's evidence chain; the underlying service history and asbestos assessment are the canonical record's and are not duplicated here.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-03

4. [4]NARA, Special List 44 - Named Vessels (finding aid to Vessel and Station Log Books, RG 24; fetched live HTTP 200 this session) + NARA 'Researching Asbestos aboard US Naval Vessels up through 1961' guided-topic page (archives.gov/research/military/navy/guided-topics/asbestos, HTTP 200 this session) [other_primary]

   Locator

   Special List 44 named-vessels table, 'Compel (AM-162) 4/8/1944 6/30/1945' row; archives.gov asbestos guided topic, 'General Information Books' and 'Ship Engineering Drawings' sections

   Finding type

   historical_record

   Finding

   All federal archival records for this hull are indexed under AM-162, not the AMc designation: NARA Special List 44 indexes the hull as 'Compel (AM-162)' with logbook coverage 4/8/1944-6/30/1945 - commissioning through mid-1945, ending about eleven months before the June 1946 decommissioning (partial commission coverage: the post-surrender Wakayama/Nagoya mine-clearance period and the decommissioning itself fall outside the listed span). A page-wide check returns no AMc-139 entry for this hull - though the index does carry AMC designations for other vessels, including a Willamette-block sister ('Bond (AM-152, AMC-129)'), so AMC indexing exists where applicable. NARA's asbestos-research guide identifies the series that would hold hull-level material specifications: RG 19 Entry P-11 'Minesweeper and Minelayer General Information Books [Item S-68], 1940-1962' and the hull-number-arranged Ship Engineering Drawings under the S filing codes - 'S103-Booklets of General Plans, S39-Insulation and Lagging, and sometimes S48-Piping.' Any researcher tracing 'AMc-139' must search the archive as AM-162.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   archival_lead

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1944-1945 (logbook coverage); guide current as of 2026-09-22

   Population

   USN complement aboard the built hull, Apr 1944 - Jun 1945 (indexed coverage)

   Limitations

   Archival lead only - documents which series exist and under which hull number, not that hull-specific material survives in them; the guide itself notes GIB coverage is incomplete per ship (sister-ship volumes may fill gaps) and that S39/S48 drawings are relatively rare in the paper series. No drawing or GIB was retrieved or confirmed. Deck logs are operational records, not materials documentation. The 6/30/1945 coverage end date is the index's own figure - whether later Compel logs exist elsewhere in RG 24 is unverified.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-04

5. [5]CourtListener API v4 (authenticated) + web UI - this-session designation queries: API 'AMC-139' and 'USS Compel' (type=o) both HTTP 429 (shared 2800/day cap, ~9,647s); web UI 'AMC-139'/'AMc-139' (type=o) completed = 0 results each; 'AMC-139' (type=r) = 5 docket hits, all name collisions on inspection; canonical same-day UI pass 'USS Compel' = 0 in opinion and docket indexes [court_record]

   Locator

   search_ledger rows sl-uss-compel-amc139-06 through sl-uss-compel-amc139-08; canonical record search_ledger sl-uss-compel-am162-09 through sl-uss-compel-am162-10

   Finding type

   historical_record

   Finding

   No qualifying asbestos litigation naming this hull under any designation was located in completed searches: (a) CourtListener web UI this session - 'AMC-139' and 'AMc-139' opinion-index queries returned 0 results each (real exact-name negatives); 'AMC-139' in the RECAP docket index returned 5 hits, all name collisions on inspection: Ross v. Robinhood Financial x2 dockets ('trades for GME and AMC. 139.' - AMC Entertainment stock plus paragraph number), W.R. Grace & Co. bankruptcy ('Case 01-01139-AMC 139-AMC Doc 33209-1' - a docket-number string), Brown Water Towing v. ... ('1944 AMC 139' - an American Maritime Cases reporter citation, Burns Bros. v. Cleveland, 52 F. Supp. 937 (E.D.N.Y.)), and Erickson v. Long Beach Mortgage (OCR fragment 'amc 139.30'); (b) the canonical record's same-day UI pass - 'USS Compel' returned 0 results in both the opinion and docket indexes, while hull-number-only 'AM-162' string hits (81 opinion / 139 docket) are name collisions by construction; (c) both this session's authenticated API queries ('AMC-139', 'USS Compel', type=o) returned HTTP 429 - logged blocked, not retried into a ban, and the canonical API pass was likewise quota-blocked; (d) sister-hull precedent: completed sweeps for Admirable AM-136 (batch-1169), Eagle AM-132 (batch-1165), and Bombard AM-151 (batch-1175) returned zero qualifying litigation - consistent with this result but not a substitute for the unrun API pass.

   Verification

   verified

   Role

   negative_finding

   Documentation level

   ship_specific

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   2026-09-22

   Limitations

   Negative finding from index search is not proof no claim was ever filed - CourtListener coverage skews to digitized federal opinions and RECAP dockets; state-court filings and non-digitized dockets are underrepresented. The authenticated API structured pass remains UNRUN at both levels (shared 2,800/day quota exhausted by parallel batch runs; HTTP 429, ~2.7h to reset) - the web-UI designation queries and the canonical's exact-name 'USS Compel' queries did complete with 0 results / all-collision docket hits, but the full structured docket/document search is an open re-run item, recorded honestly rather than rounded up to 'no litigation.'

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-05

6. [6]DANFS AM-162 entry (vessel type, builder, 1942-43 construction) + NAVSHIPS 250-011 / NavSource propulsion data (diesel plant) - era/type assessment maintained at uss-compel-am162 ev-05, era-level citations (Corn & Starr 1987; Fleischer et al. 1946, PMID 21016030) at ev-06 [nhhc_danfs]

   Locator

   NAVSHIPS 250-011 propulsion row + NavSource 11/02162 propulsion line ('two 1,710shp ALCO 539 diesel engines, Farrel-Birmingham, single reduction gear, two shafts'); DANFS construction/service dates; canonical rows ev-uss-compel-am162-05, ev-uss-compel-am162-06

   Finding type

   asbestos_application

   Finding

   Era/type inference for the physical hull - built as AM-162, a steel Admirable-class fleet minesweeper at Willamette Iron & Steel, Portland, 1942-43, during the period when asbestos supply was federally reserved for shipbuilding - plausibly carried period-standard asbestos-containing materials in applications typical for the type: exhaust-system and muffler lagging, machinery gaskets and packing, electrical-cable insulation, accommodation/galley joiner insulation, winch/windlass and minesweep-gear brake linings, and deck coverings. Because the plant was diesel direct-drive (two ALCO 539 engines, Farrel-Birmingham single reduction gear, no boilers or steam distribution), the dominant WWII asbestos pathway aboard steam vessels - boiler and steam-line lagging - did not exist on this hull, and the era inference is correspondingly weaker. This inference applies identically here because AMc-139 is the same hull's pre-construction designation.

   Verification

   inferred

   Role

   supporting

   Documentation level

   class_or_era

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1942-1960

   Population

   Willamette construction trades (1942-43); U.S. crew 1944-46; reserve-fleet caretakers 1946-60; scrapping workers 1960

   Limitations

   Inference from documented design, machinery type, and construction era - NOT a hull materials record. No survey, specification, or material schedule naming Compel, AM-162, AMc-139, or MSF-162 was located; establishes no asbestos content, quantity, location, condition, individual exposure, or causation. Applies to the built hull AM-162; the AMc-139 designation itself carried no ship and so has no asbestos history of its own. The hull was scrapped after U.S. sale in 1960 - no present-day survey pathway exists.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-06

7. [7]Atlas shipyard dataset record 'willamette-iron-steel' (shipyards.json): Willamette Iron & Steel Corporation, Portland, OR (aliases WISCO, Willamette Shipyard), WWII peak employment 12,000, evidence_tier 3, asbestos_products_documented 'Pabco (Fibreboard)' [other_primary]

   Locator

   shipyards.json record 'willamette-iron-steel' (evidence row ev-willamette-01, verification_status 'disputed'); Lineaweaver v. Plant Insulation Co., 31 Cal. App. 4th 1409 (1995)

   Finding type

   asbestos_application

   Finding

   Builder-yard context: the Atlas shipyards dataset carries Willamette Iron & Steel - the contract holder for the AMc-139 order and builder of the hull as AM-162 - at evidence_tier 3 with one yard-level asbestos finding: 'Pabco (Fibreboard) used as fill-in insulation on ships at Willamette in the 1960s and 1970s' (Lineaweaver v. Plant Insulation Co., 31 Cal. App. 4th 1409, 1995). WWII peak employment 12,000.

   Verification

   partial

   Role

   context

   Documentation level

   context_only

   Accessed

   2026-09-22

   Study period

   1942-1944 (construction window); finding covers 1960s-1970s

   Population

   Willamette Iron & Steel trades, 1941-1945 peak (this hull's construction window as AM-162)

   Limitations

   Yard-level documentation, not a hull record - and weaker than usual: the documented finding covers 1960s-70s repair work, roughly two decades after this hull's 1942-43 construction, and the dataset itself flags the finding 'disputed' (the opinion names only 'Willamette Shipyard'; identification as Willamette Iron & Steel of Portland is an inference the source does not make). Unlike her Project Hula sisters, this hull did survive into the 1960 U.S. sale/scrapping window, so the yard's postwar repair-era row is at least temporally adjacent to her custodial tail - but it still establishes nothing about materials aboard this hull; carried so the yard link is transparent, not as exposure evidence.

   Atlas source

   true

   Evidence ID

   ev-uss-compel-amc139-07