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Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship)

Mine planter of The US Army

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ2468057 ↗
Source-derived summary

USAMP Major General Wallace F. Randolph, sometimes also known as MG Wallace F. Randolph, was a 188.2-foot (57.4 m) mine planter built by the Marietta Manufacturing Company, and delivered to the United States Army Mine Planter Service in 1942. The ship was transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1951, placed directly into the Atlantic Reserve Fleet without being commissioned classed as the auxiliary minelayer ACM-15, then reclassified minelayer, auxiliary (MMA) and named MMA-15, and finally given the name Nausett without any active naval service. After being stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, the ship was transferred to different owners, and eventually was scuttled off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef and fish aggregating device. The site is currently known as the Thunderbolt Wreck, and is considered to be an excellent and challenging dive site for advanced divers.

Army history

USAMP Major General Wallace F. Randolph was built by Marietta Manufacturing Company in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and launched on 2 June 1942. She was one of 16 Army mine planters built in 1942 and 1943 for the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps, Mine Planter Service. This was the second Army Mine Planter to take the name of Major General Wallace F. Randolph, the first Chief of Artillery for the United States Army; the first being of the 1919 mine planter construction. (The first General W. P. Randolph became the United States Lighthouse Service vessel Lupine.)

Navy and civilian history

In 1949, the United States Navy took over all coastal mine laying operations, and the Randolph was transferred to the Navy in March 1951, classed as a Camanche-class minelayer, a group that with one exception was neither converted from Army design nor saw active naval service, with the name ACM-15 and going directly into inactive reserve where she was redesignated MMA-15 on 7 February 1955 then named Nausett on 1 May 1955.

Subsequently transferred from the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Charleston, South Carolina to reserve at Green Cove Springs, Florida she was struck from the Navy List on 1 July 1960, and was then stripped and sold to Caribbean Enterprises on 17 May 1961. She was subsequently renamed the Sea Searcher, and had a role in oilfield exploration.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship)” as mine planter of The US Army. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1951, 1943, 1919—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Major, General and Wallace can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as mine planter of The US Army. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2468057. Authority coordinates are 24.661, -81.103. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1951, 1943 and 1919.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship) primary sources, Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship) archive and Major research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship)”?
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  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Major General Wallace F. Randolph (ship)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.