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
Swan Hunter, formerly known as Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, is a shipbuilding design, engineering, and management company, based in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England.
At its apex, the company represented the combined forces of three powe ...
for the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (a subsidiary of the
Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed on 6 November 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link.
History
Cyrus Field, American businessman and fi ...
) and remained in service until late 1934.
''Telconia'' is often incorrectly credited with playing a role in cutting German cables in August 1914. In her book ''The Zimmermann Telegram'', American historian
Barbara Tuchman incorrectly asserted this based on an interview with a retired
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...
officer decades later. Scholars have since determined that in fact it was the British
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state mail, postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II of En ...
ship
CS ''Alert'' that carried out these attacks.
The job of ''Alert'' was to locate and cut the five German cables heading into the Atlantic. A similar operation cut the German cables that connected Great Britain to the German coast. Successive missions by ''Telconia'' and other ships later in the war eliminated the remainder of Germany's cable network and, in some instances, pulled the cables up with their grapples and relaid them into British and French ports for use by the Allied powers instead.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telconia
Cable ships of the United Kingdom
World War I auxiliary ships of the United Kingdom
1909 ships
Ships built by Swan Hunter
Ships built on the River Tyne