USS Alert

“ On October 19, 1998, the Safety Board stated that the primary intent of this recommendation was to ensure that VFR tower controllers who have a visual representation from a distant host radar receive an aural alert when aircraft under their control and with whom they are in radio communication descend below the minimum safe altitude. If the tower controller was engaged in visually scanning for other aircraft, the aural alert would allow the controller to determine the aircraft call sign and transmit the appropriate warning to the pilot. ”

“ Issue a safety alert to an aircraft if you are aware the aircraft is in a position slant altitude which in your judgment places it in unsafe proximity to terrain, obstructions, or other aircraft. Once the pilot informs you action is being taken to resolve the situation, you may discontinue the issuance of further alerts. Do not assume that because someone else has responsibility for the aircraft that the unsafe situation has been observed and the safety alert issued. Inform the appropriate controller. ”

“ Require, under the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System program, that minimum safe altitude warning alerts on instrument flight rules aircraft be duplicated at a position in the operational quarters designated for supervisory personnel and that the supervisor determine the validity of the alert and whether appropriate corrective action has been initiated or is required. ”

“ I should say the Alert was sea-worthy in every respect. The opening spoken of as the pantry window was about fourteen inches by twelve inches square. The glass was about half-an-inch thick, and was in a strong wooden frame. I don’t remember how it was fastened. It would not make the ship unsea-worthy in the slightest degree. The grating was a great height from the main deck, and if any water went down it would only be a splash. The bunker lids fitted into sockets. They rested by their own weight. Unless the ship were upside down no water could go through them. ”

“ These alerts are generated in two forms: a visual alert that will be displayed to the controller as a -- a L -- flashing LA in the data block or -- I should say and an oral alert. The oral alert is much like a smoke detector type of alert.
It must be specifically adapted at each one of our 193 Automated Radar Terminal Systems. Each site around the country and in the Pacific and -- and Caribbean that use the Automated Radar Tracking System has special site tripography that has to be included in the adaptation, a local database. ”

“ The performance of commanders and crews in this engagement is in the highest tradition of the United States Navy. But repeated acts of violence against the Armed Forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with positive reply. ”

“ I have been about twenty-six years at sea, and I hold a chief engineer’s certificate. I know what the dimensions of the Alert were, and I know where her machinery was. It was placed aft. She had only one mast. The grating over the stoke-hole should have had a covering on it of iron, wood, or tarpaulin. In my opinion it is not right to have a window in the front of the poop in a sea-going vessel going outside the Heads. It should be blocked up with a door, or shutter opening outwards. If below the level of the bulwarks, it was not safe to have such an aperture in a vessel like the Alert. ”

“ You said that the fundamental consideration underlying the entire order was the overwhelming danger of air attack. If that is correct, how could you in the same order maintain the directive for the rescue of captains and chief engineers? That can be found under Heading 2.
DÖNITZ: There is, of course, a great difference in risk between rescue measures for which the submarine has to stop, and men have to go on deck, and a brief surfacing to pick up a captain, because while merely surfacing the submarine remains in a state of alert, whereas otherwise that alertness is completely disrupted. ”

“ The British histories say the fight lasted43 fifteen minutes. Doubtless this means from the time the Alert’s crew cheered so vigorously until they hauled down their flag. Farragut says that it was eight minutes from the first broadside of the Essex until the flag came down, and this is not disputed. In eight minutes the Essex had shot the Alert so full of holes that when the American boat’s crew reached the beaten ship the water was seven feet deep in her hold in spite of the utmost efforts of her crew to check the leaks! Not a man was killed on the Alert, and only three were wounded. ”

“ While dealing with weather, I may as well point out that Captain Barrett of the ship Hesperus—although his vessel was not within a hundred miles of where the Alert was—said in his evidence that “it was so bad that he did not think it just to take a pilot for his ship on account of the danger to which he (the pilot) would be exposed in boarding on the afternoon of the Alert’s wreck.” Good, kind, considerate man! he is just the sort of captain I should like to sail with. ”

“ She took the most of the water on board amidships, and about the alleyways. This was between Cape Schanck and Port Phillip Heads, with a fresh, but not a heavy, breeze blowing. The Alert had no mast aft. A boat going outside should have an after mast in case they want to keep her head to wind in a heavy sea. There is no means of getting her head to wind without that. Her coal and engines were in the after part of the ship, and during my time she carried no carpenter. I was not discharged from the Alert. I had a word or two with the Captain, and luckily left her the voyage before she was lost. ”

“ It’s only by constant practice that we can be 25kept always on the alert. You know that at sea they often ring a false fire alarm, just for the sake of keeping the ship’s fire brigade in practice. Now Captain Murphy will show you the tender, or hose wagon as they used to call it.”
Accordingly the captain showed Bruce the two great coils of hose, and the different nozzles fitted for different emergencies, and he told him how the hook and ladder truck served at a fire very much in the same capacity as the sapper and miner corps in the army. ”

“ I reckoned we had all drifted some miles shoreward—from where the Alert had foundered—before the tide began to turn, and take our various rafts hither and thither. The seas, if possible, began to get bigger, and break irregularly in all directions around us. I caught sight of Mattison, the second officer, Thompson, the sailor, Kilpatrick, the second engineer, and Mr. Newton, the saloon passenger, all being carried by a current which I judged would take them round Cape Schanck whilst the rest of our number were going, some towards the shore, and some out seaward. ”

“ The officers of the U. S. Cruiser "Alert," which lay not far distant, had given us a hearty cheer as we passed, while the cheers that greeted us from the dock were almost incessant and told us in an unmistakable manner that we were indeed welcome to the "Paradise of the Pacific."
Looking down from the steamer deck one saw people of almost every clime, the dark complexioned, straight-haired and intelligent-looking natives being in the majority, their white suits and dark faces adding greatly to the color of the scene. ”

“ The Alert’s covers had no lugs. The weight of her boiler and engines would be about one hundred and fifty tons. The weight of the water in the boiler would be twenty-three to twenty-five tons. Taking into consideration the ship’s cargo, build and trim, I do not think she was fit for a sea voyage. If she had had an after mast with a sail on, it might have helped a bit when efforts were made to bring her to the wind; but as long as she was so light foreward she would be hard to bring up, if not impossible. ”

“ Witness [Pg 158] continuing said, “ninety A1” is simply a distinction to show that it is not “one hundred A1” nor “eighty A1,” but still an “A1” ship. The meaning of “A1” is that the hull of vessel so classed is fit to carry dry and perishable cargo. I knew the Alert mentioned in Lloyd’s certificate, and remember the alterations made in her. I did not see her officially between July, 1893, and the date when she was lost (December, 1893) . My opinion of her was that she was a good little ship. She was sea-worthy in every sense of the word, and was a very nice vessel. ”

“ Tudwell Roads the authorities on shore told us that although we had signed articles we need not go in the ship unless we liked, and Captain Webb, to encourage us, said he was going out himself as a passenger in her to Melbourne. At the last moment he changed his mind and did not come with us. Captain Munn was in command, and the Alert carried eight hands all told. She was very crank, or tender, and every night at sundown, fine or foul, the top-gallant sails were taken in and stowed. At no time during the passage out would the vessel stay. ”

“ Q.—Assuming the Alert started from Wilson’s Promontory with a south-easterly gale and a south-westerly sea, passes Cape Liptrap, and gets to within two miles of Cape Schanck, carrying, on the latter part of the journey, a trysail and a staysail, and shipping no water, would that be an indication to your mind that the vessel making that passage was sea-worthy? ”

“ A.—No, I have often been in a ship with decks flooded. She would shake the water off her decks, and away she would go, as lively as ever. That is a good sea boat.
Q.—I presume you will admit that hundreds of sea-worthy ships have been overwhelmed by the waves? A.—Yes, some of the best ships that ever floated have gone to the bottom. In a heavy gale of wind a ship, even riding at anchor, often founders. She strains herself, and opens out forward.
Q.—Assuming that the Alert was passed in England by Lloyd’s surveyors, would that shake your opinion as to the sea-worthiness of the ship? ”

“ He participated in all the subsequent attacks on Fort Sumter and other works in Charleston harbor, and commanded the “Canandaigua” and four other vessels in the blockade of Charleston, S. C. He was promoted lieutenant-commander on 25 July, 1866, served on the flag-ships of the European and Brazilian stations, was commissioned as commander on 5 April, 1874, circumnavigated the globe in command of the “Ranger” and the “Alert” in 1878-'9, and was retired from active service on 31 Jan., 1883, on account of loss of hearing and failure of health caused by hard service. ”

“ Alabama claims, iv. 430. Albatross, Federal gun-boat, passes the batteries of Port Hudson, iv. 358. Albemarle, Confederate ironclad ram, iv. 456; laid up at Plymouth, N.C., 457; blown up by Lieutenant Cushing, 461. Albemarle Sound, N.C., a Confederate privateer resort, iv. 94. Albert Adams, Federal merchant-ship, captured by the Sumter, iv. 415. Alden, Captain James, iv. 386. Alden, Commander James, iv. 314. Alert, British corvette, surrenders to the Essex, ii. 42; attempt to rescue from Porter, 43, 44. 556Alert, British cutter, captures the Lexington, i. ”

“ The sentry hurries to it and sees a fire-alarm from a certain compartment, and he hastily awakes the Captain. The latter presses a button, perhaps without getting out of bed or up from his chair, and instantly there rings the general fire-alarm throughout the ship, and every man on board is called to quarters. For a few seconds it is time of immense confusion and noise. Great gongs are ringing in various parts of the ship. Men are hurrying half dressed, if it be in the night, here and there, and there is much shouting in the giving and passing of orders. ”

“ The captain broke off suddenly and set the alarm bell going as a lynx-eyed lookout cut in with “Connin’ tower o’ submreen three points on port bow,” and, with much banging of boots on steel decks and ladders, the ship had gone to “Action Stations” before a leisurely mounting recognition rocket revealed the fact that the “enemy” was a friend, doubtless a “co-huntress.”
Although we were still far from where there was yet any chance of encountering the U-boat which had attacked the convoy, there were two or three alarms in the course of the next hour. ”

“ These instruments are used in many buildings on land, but nowhere are they of such importance as when placed in coal-bunkers or on the outside walls of magazines in war-ships.
Another dial on the indicator where the sentry paces also plays an important part in war-ships. It is called the water-alarm. All modern war-ships have what are known as double bottoms. They are built to prevent the ship from sinking or from becoming flooded in the chief compartments of the vessel below the water-line. ”

“ She is capable, we understand, of delivering a surprise atomic attack against any part of the United States, while we have no sure defense against such an attack. Her submarine fleet rapidly is being patterned after Germany’s and this, with her other combat ships will make her the third greatest Naval Power. She has an army of two and one-half million uniformed troops and thousands of undercover agents to act as spies or scouts. We know that she is on a complete war footing, just as England was during the latter days of World War II and as we made an attempt to be. ”

“ It is in torpedo-boats for coast defence, and in commerce-destroying for deep-sea warfare, that the true sphere for naval reserves will be found; for the duties in both cases are comparatively simple, and the organization can be the same.
Every danger of a military character to which the United States is exposed can be met best outside her own territory—at sea. Preparedness for naval war—preparedness against naval attack and for naval offence—is preparedness for anything that is likely to occur. ”