The third USS Alert was an iron-hulled screw steamer gunboat in the United States Navy. The lead ship in her class, Alert was destined for a long naval career, serving from 1875 to 1922, a period of 47 years, including service as a submarine tender in World War I. Toward the end of her career she received the designation AS-4.
Alert was laid down in 1873 by John Roach & Sons at the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works shipyard, Chester, Pennsylvania in 1873. Launched on 18 September 1874, Alert was commissioned for the first time on 27 May 1875 with Commander William T. Sampson in command.
Service history
First commission, 1875–82
Training ship
The screw steamer spent the first year of her Navy career attached to the North Atlantic Station. During the summer, she wore the flag of Rear Admiral C. R. Perry Rodgers, Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and hosted cadet-midshipmen on board for practical training in the operation of steam propulsion equipment – all as a part of the Academy's practice cruise for 1875.
Atlantic and Asiatic stations
Alert operated out of ports on the Atlantic coast during the fall and winter of 1875 and 1876 until departing New York on 26 May 1876 on the first leg of a voyage to the Asiatic Station. Proceeding by way of the Mediterranean Sea and the relatively new Suez Canal, she stopped at Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden before reaching Hong Kong on 11 September. For almost three years, the ship cruised the waters around Japan and along the Chinese coast, showing the flag at such places as Yokohama, Nagasaki, Kobe, and Hakodate in Japan, and Hong Kong, Shanghai, Amoy, and Swatow in China. Unlike modern goodwill visits, her port calls frequently could be measured in terms of weeks and months rather than days. When at sea, she charted hydrographic features, investigated maritime disasters, and performed humanitarian services for the victims of those disasters.
On 4 January 1879, Alert departed Yokohama on her way back to the United States. She arrived at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 24 February and began a six-month repair period. On 30 August 1879, the warship set sail from San Francisco on her way back to the Asiatic Station. The steamer arrived in Yokohama on 6 October and commenced 32 months of service in the Far East. In addition to the normal port visits and wreck investigations, she did survey work in the Bonin Islands during the spring and summer of 1881. On 11 January 1882, Alert stood out of Hong Kong and embarked upon a voyage that took her to a number of places in the Orient that she had not previously visited. Her itinerary during that cruise included Saigon, Bangkok, and Singapore in southeast Asia; Batavia (now Djakarta) and Sarawak in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia); and Labuan, Iloilo and Manila in the Philippines.
Collision with Japanese Emperor's yacht
She returned to Japan via Hong Kong, and, on 15 April 1882, while steaming from Kobe to Yokohama, suffered damage as a result of being rammed by the , a side-paddle steamer which served as the Imperial yacht for Emperor Meiji. Although the night was clear and both vessels had their running lights in sight of each other for an hour, Jingei inexplicably turned hard to starboard just as the vessels passed each other, gashing a large hole in the side of the Alert. Jingei suffered only minor damage, but Alert took two months to complete repairs. On 15 June, the ship left Yokohama again for the United States. She arrived in San Francisco on 18 July, and on the 31st she was placed out of commission at Mare Island.
Asiatic station, 1883-86
The warship remained inactive at Mare Island until recommissioned on 8 October 1883 for another tour of duty on the Asiatic Station. On 23 November, she put to sea on the long voyage to the Orient. She arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, on 18 February 1884 and spent the next 20 months operating almost exclusively in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, calling frequently at Nagasaki and at Chemulpo (now Inchon), Korea. Alert widened her horizons in the fall of 1885 with more frequent visits to Chinese ports; and, during the early months of 1886, extended her range still farther to include southeast Asian ports, notably Bangkok and Singapore. In March 1886, she stopped at Hong Kong and Canton. On 19 April, the warship returned to Japan at Yokohama. That port and Hakodate served as the foci of her operations until the first week in August. Alert put to sea from the latter on 5 August, beginning a voyage back to the United States. She entered San Francisco on 10 September and went out of commission there on 23 September.