The alert was a paddle steamer from Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson , a shipyard that designed, built and delivered 24 cable layers. The ship was built for the British General Post Office and was the second cable lay to be named Alert . Its job was to repair and maintain cables along the British south coast and in the English Channel .
During the Second World War , the ship laid fuel lines to supply the Allied forces between the English south coast and Normandy in 1944 . On February 24, 1945 it sank while working on the Dumpton-Gap-La-Penne Cable after a torpedo hit by a German 2-man U-boat U 5330 of the Seehund type under Lieutenant Sparbrodt. All crew members were killed.
Description of the alert
The alert was 60 m long, around 10 m wide and was equipped with two triple expansion machines to drive it . She ran 10.5 (11) kn. It had three cable tanks with a diameter of around 7 m, the cable machine was taken over from the first Alert , which was scrapped in 1915, but was later replaced by a new one by Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company. The Alert had two bow rollers, one for laying and one for taking up the cables, so no stern roller was installed.
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