A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried telegraphy traffic, establishing the first instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable which became operational on 16 August 1858. Subsequent generations of cables carried telephone traffic, then data communications traffic. Modern cables use optical fibre technology to carry digital data, which includes telephone, Internet and private data traffic.
Room 40, also known as 40 O.B., was the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty during the First World War.
The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was a British telegraph company founded in 1846 by William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo. It was the world's first public telegraph company. The equipment used was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, an electrical telegraph developed a few years earlier in collaboration with Charles Wheatstone. The system had been taken up by several railway companies for signalling purposes, but in forming the company Cooke intended to open up the technology to the public at large.
The All Red Line was a system of electrical telegraphs that linked much of the British Empire. It was inaugurated on 31 October 1902. The informal name derives from the common practice of colouring the territory of the British Empire red or pink on political maps.
A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cable over bow or stern or both. Bow sheaves, some very large, were characteristic of all cable ships in the past, but newer ships are tending toward having stern sheaves only, as seen in the photo of CS Cable Innovator at the Port of Astoria on this page. The names of cable ships are often preceded by "C.S." as in CS Long Lines.
HMS Brilliant was a B-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy (RN) around 1930. Initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, she was transferred to the Home Fleet in 1936. The ship then patrolled Spanish waters enforcing the arms blockade during the first year of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. She spent most of World War II on convoy escort duties in the English Channel, and the North Atlantic, based at Dover, Gibraltar, and Freetown, Sierra Leone. During the war, Brilliant never destroyed a submarine, but did sink a Vichy French minesweeper during Operation Torch. She also intercepted two German supply ships and rescued survivors of two troopships that had been torpedoed by submarines. The ship became a target ship at the end of the war and was scrapped in 1948.
La Combattante was a destroyer of the Forces navales françaises libres (FNFL). A British-built Hunt-class destroyer, she was offered to the Free French in 1942.
USS Kailua (IX-71) was originally CS Dickenson, a civilian supply and personnel transport cable-repair ship of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company that was based in Honolulu serving the island cable stations at Midway and Fanning Island.
CS Telconia was a British cable ship used in the early 20th century to lay and repair submarine communications cables. She was built in 1909 by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson for the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company and remained in service until late 1934.
HMS Bonaventure was a submarine depot ship of the Royal Navy. She was initially built for civilian service with the Clan Line, but on the outbreak of the Second World War she was requisitioned by the Navy and after being launched, was converted for military service.
COMPAC, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System, was an undersea telephone cable system connecting Canada with New Zealand and Australia. It was completed by closing the last gap in Honolulu Harbor, Hawaii, at 6:25 a.m. B.S.T. on October 10, 1963. Public service of the cable commenced early in December 1963.
Z27 was one of fifteen Type 1936A destroyers built for the Kriegsmarine during World War II. Completed in 1941, the ship was transferred to Norwegian waters later that year where she remained for most of the next several years, escorting convoys and laying minefields. She sank a Soviet oil tanker in late 1942 before sailing to Germany for a refit. Upon its completion in mid-1943, Z27 returned to Norway and participated in Operation Zitronella, the raid on the island of Spitsbergen in September.
The SS Espagne was a Belgian cargo ship that was torpedoed by the Imperial German Navy submarine SM UC-71 in the English Channel off St. Catherine's Point, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom while she was travelling from Le Havre, France to Newport, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom.
CS Pacific was a cable ship registered in Copenhagen, Denmark owned by the Great Northern Telegraph Company. The steel vessel was built in 1903 in the shipyards of Burmeister & Wain and delivered that year for the purpose of laying and repairing submarine cable in the Far East networks. Historical records of this cable ship are kept in the National Maritime Museum of Denmark. Pictorial records of the ship are available through the DieselHouse interactive initiative.
Four cable-laying ships have been named CS Alert:
The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company was a London-based company based in Silvertown, East London. It was founded by Stephen William Silver in March 1864 as Silver's Indiarubber Works and Telegraph Cable Company Ltd. However in July that year the name was changed to the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company.
The Submarine Telegraph Company was a British company which laid and operated submarine telegraph cables.
The Gutta Percha Company was an English company formed in 1845 to make a variety of products from the recently introduced natural rubber gutta-percha. Unlike other natural rubbers, this material was thermoplastic allowing it to be easily moulded. Nothing else like it was available to manufacturing until well into the twentieth century when synthetic plastics were developed.
HMTS Monarch, launched on 8 August 1945 and completed during February 1946, was the fourth cable ship with that name. The ship was built for the General Post Office (GPO) for the laying and repair of submarine communications cable and was the largest cable ship in the world when completed and the first cable ship to have all electric cable machinery.
Five cable-laying ships have been named CS Monarch, or, after the nationalisation of British telegraph companies, HMTS Monarch:
