The USS Farquhar (DE-139) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort laid down on December 14, 1942, and launched on February 13, the following year. It was commissioned on August 5, 1943, under Lt. Cmdr. L. E. Rosenberg’s command as DE-139 and served in the U.S. Navy for 3 years until it was decommissioned on June 14, 1946. During its activities, the ship carried a complement of 209 people on board and had its main missions in Casablanca, Pearl Harbor, Boston, Bermuda, New York, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Cape Town, Guantanamo, Florida, Bahia, Argentia, and Dakar. After the decommissioning, the ship was struck from the Navy List on October 1, 1972, and sold for scrapping in 1974. Civilians and servicemen who were involved in the building of the USS Farquhar (DE-139) prior to her launch in 1943 were exposed to asbestos. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has compiled a list of how service members were potentially exposed to asbestos, placing them at risk of asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma, or other asbestos-related illnesses, including working in the shipyard after 1930, serving on a Navy vessel built prior to 1983, and renovating asbestos-containing structures and/or removing asbestos materials.
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