Denise Lyne is to meet the Royal Naval Association before she lobbies the Ministry of Defence for a change in the current laws.
Father-of-two Jerry Lyne was just 64 when he died last December from mesothelioma – the cancer which develops decades after exposure to the deadly dust.
Mr Lyne spent nine years in the Royal Navy, from 1961 to 1970, as a mechanical engineer on three ships where asbestos was widely used to lag pipes.
A fit man who later worked as an industrial cleaner, Mr Lyne went to a doctor last summer with a pain in his back, which he suspected was a pulled muscle.
Within five months he was dead, passing away days after the birth of his fourth grandson.
Mrs Lyne, from Swindon, said that an autopsy showed her husband had asbestos fibres on a lung which, she said, could only have resulted from his Navy service.
She said: 'He signed up to serve his country gladly and now they don't want anything to do with him. I'm coming to Portsmouth to learn how I can get people in my position together and fight the situation.'
Had Mr Lyne worked in the railway, engineering, shipping or construction industries, where asbestos was widely used, she would have been able to sue his former employers for a six-figure sum. But the MoD is immune from such action, which Mrs Lyne wants to challenge.
She said: 'Of course compensation would help, but this is also about recognition. It's all about showing respect for what happened to Jerry.'
Mrs Lyne, 62, said that forming a support group would also help other people in her situation. 'It would enable people like myself to come into contact, help and support each other,' she said.
At the time Mr Lyne served in the Royal Navy, aboard HMS Virgo, Londonderry and Albion, he, like his comrades, was unaware of the dangers of asbestos.
An MoD spokesman said: 'Members of the Armed Forces exposed to asbestos dust and fibre during service before May 1987 are prevented by law from receiving any other compensation from the MoD.'