Lightship: LV-071

File Type:
jpg (image/jpeg)
Photo Credit:
US Lighthouse Service
Photo Date:
1913
Type of Vessel:
LV Name/Number:
LV-71
Year Built:
1897
Year Retired:
1918
Existing:
No
Station Assignments
LV Station Name:
Nantucket Shoals
Year Started:
1906
Year Ended:
1906
LV Station Name:
Diamond Shoal
Year Started:
1898
Year Ended:
1918
Remarks

Served temporarily at Nantucket Shoals from Jan 19 - Mar 7, 1906 when it was replaced by a horn buoy "N"

On August 6, 1918 the lightship was on station off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, when her crew sighted the American SS Merak sinking nearby. The Merak had been sailing off Diamond Shoals from New York city to the West Indies when Commander Waldemar Kophamel, of the submarine U-140, attacked her with torpedoes. One of Merak's crewmen spotted the wake of a torpedo, so the ship took to evasive maneuvers and grounded in the process. The Germans then surfaced and began bombarding the Americans with a deck gun, but the ship's crew successfully escaped without being harmed. LV-71 rescued the survivors; her skipper Master Walter L. Barnett then sent out a warning to alert friendly ships in the area of a U-boat's presence in the vicinity of the lightship. The signal was intercepted by U-140, which quickly returned to the scene and sank LV-71 with gunfire after letting her twelve-member crew and the survivors of the Merak row towards shore in a lifeboat.

Entered by:
t.wheeler
Entered Date:
Aug 10, 2017

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