Editing HMS Alert (1856) (section)

=== Loan to the US Navy (1884) ===
[[Adolphus Greely]] led the [[Lady Franklin Bay Expedition]] to the Arctic in 1881. Two supply ships failed to reach his party, and a relief expedition in 1883 also failed to extract the team. The [[US Navy]] put together a further relief expedition in 1884 under Captain W. S. Schley, and ''Alert'' was offered. She was loaned to the US Navy under the command of Captain George W Coffin on 20 February 1884, and was used to set up supply dumps to support {{USS|Bear|1874|6}} in the extrication of Greely and his men.<ref name=CCG/>

Two members of Greely's expedition, Lieutenant [[James B. Lockwood]] and Sergeant [[David Legge Brainard]] had achieved a new record of 83° 30'N,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.palhbooks.com/arctic.html|title=The Arctic Saga of David Legg Brainard at Pahlbooks.com|access-date=2008-11-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119080303/http://www.palhbooks.com/arctic.html|archive-date=19 November 2008|df=dmy-all}}</ref> just {{convert|4|mi|km}} closer to the Pole than Markham had achieved in 1876. Lockwood and 19 other members of the expedition died; Greely, Brainard and four others survived.