The freighter Lake Medford was built for the U.S. Shipping Board in 1918 by the Globe Shipbuilding Company of Superior, Wisconsin and was completed in Sept. of the same year. In 1926 she was sold to the Lawrence Steamship Company of New York and renamed H. J. Lawrence and sold again in 1929 to the Alaska Salmon Company of San Francisco and renamed Elwyn C. Hale. Her last owners, the Alcoa Steamship Company of New York, obtained her in 1940 and she was renamed Alcoa Transport. She was moved back to the east coast and was used for transporting war material.

On October 2, 1942 she was sailing unescorted from Port of Spain, Trinidad to Georgetown, British Guiana in ballast. It is a voyage of about 420 miles (350 in a straight line) between the two ports and they were making 8½ knots on a non-evasive course, the ship was blacked out and three lookouts had been posted. At about 0500 (GCT) on October 2, 1942 they were about 35mi NxE of Faro de Barima, Venezuela when the master, Clement Hunter, observed a flashing red light two miles off his starboard beam. An aircraft dropped several flares, but nothing was seen. Suspecting a submarine, Hunter changed course and steamed for forty minutes. During that time nothing further was seen by Hunter or his crew so he resumed his original course. It is unknown if the red light seen was that of a submarine or not, but there was one in the area.

Twenty-six year old Kapitänleutnant Günther Rosenberg was on his first war patrol in U-201 and was probably keen to sink his teeth into an enemy vessel, he had commanded another U-boat, but only for training. Now Rosenberg had his first victim, the 2,084 ton Alcoa Transport in his sights. At 0635 (GCT) the torpedo struck the ship on the starboard side in the after engine room. The damage was complete and the Alcoa Transport rapidly began to sink. Six men had presumably been killed by the explosion and one man was badly burned. The thirty survivors had to abandon the ship in a single lifeboat. Because the ship settled so quickly there was no time for the Armed Guard to man their gun or to send a distress signal, but the ship's papers and the codes were put over the side in a weighted bag.

About five minutes after the torpedo struck most of the Alcoa Transport sank stern first, temporarily leaving about 100' of the bows above water, she sank some hours later. Twelve hours later USS PC-490 picked the men up and landed them at Port of Spain the next day, sadly the injured man died of his wounds in hospital.

Rosenberg and U-201 did not come the surface, he continued his cruise sinking two other ships before returning to Brest. His next foray into the North Atlantic cost him his boat and his life. U-201 was lost with all hands on Feb. 17, 1943.