United States lightship Diamond Shoal (LV-71)
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=Diamond Shoal Light Vessel 71.jpg |Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=United States |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|United States}} |Ship name=Diamond Shoal Lightship No. 71 (LV-71) |Ship namesake= |Ship owner= |Ship operator= |Ship registry= |Ship route= |Ship ordered= |Ship awarded= |Ship builder=Bath Iron Works |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number= |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=1897 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship recommissioned= |Ship maiden voyage= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport=Hatteras, North Carolina |Ship identification= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honours= |Ship honors= |Ship captured= |Ship fate=Sunk by U-140, 6 August 1918 |Ship notes= |Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class= |Ship type=lightship |Ship tonnage= |Ship displacement= |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion= |Ship sail plan= |Ship speed= |Ship range= |Ship endurance= |Ship test depth= |Ship boats= |Ship capacity= |Ship troops= |Ship complement=12 officers and men |Ship crew= |Ship time to activate= |Ship sensors= |Ship EW= |Ship armament= |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox NRHP |embed=yes |name = Light Vessel 71 (shipwreck) |image = |caption = |map_caption = |location = |nearest_city = Buxton, North Carolina | locmapin = |built = |architect = |architecture = | added = August 19, 2015 | area = | refnum = 15000541 |mpsub= |governing_body = }} |
Diamond Shoal Lightship No. 71 (LV-71) was a lightship of the United States Lighthouse Service. She is most remembered for her sinking in 1918 during World War I when a German U-boat attacked her off North Carolina.[https://monitor.noaa.gov/shipwrecks/lv-71.html LV-71 (Diamond Shoals Lightship)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201005242/https://monitor.noaa.gov/shipwrecks/lv-71.html |date=2018-12-01 }}, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, NOAA.{{cite web|title=Daily U.S. Coast Guard Historical Chronology: August|url=https://www.uscg.mil/history/Chron/Chronology_Aug.asp|website=www.uscg.mil|access-date=24 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517095051/https://www.uscg.mil/history/Chron/Chronology_Aug.asp|archive-date=17 May 2017|url-status=live}} Her shipwrecked remains were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}
Design
LV-71 was built in 1897 by Bath Iron Works in Maine with a wooden hull and a steel keel and braces. She also had a cluster of three 100 cp electric lens lanterns mounted in a gallery at each masthead, a twelve-inch steam chime whistle and a hand-operated fog bell weighing 1,000 pounds. The ship's propulsion was supplied by a single surface condensing engine and a Scotch fired boiler, with a four- bladed propeller. She was 122 feet long with a beam width of 28 feet and a draft of 13 feet, weighing 590 tons. LV-71 had a speed of 8.5 knots and was equipped with telegraph in 1904, and an eighteen-inch searchlight in 1905.{{Cite web |url=http://www.outer-banks.com/hatteraskeepers/lightship.asp# |title=Lightship No.71 |access-date=2011-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131030004612/http://www.outer-banks.com/hatteraskeepers/lightship.asp# |archive-date=2013-10-30 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web|url=http://www.uscglightshipsailors.org/diamond_shoal_lightship_station_history2.htm|title=Diamond Shoal Lightship Station History2|website=www.uscglightshipsailors.org|access-date=2011-05-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725100707/http://www.uscglightshipsailors.org/diamond_shoal_lightship_station_history2.htm|archive-date=2011-07-25|url-status=live}}
Career
The ship was assigned to Diamond Shoal Light near Hatteras, North Carolina on March 9, 1898, though she was originally intended to patrol Overfall Shoal in Delaware Bay. For the next twenty years, until her sinking, LV-71 remained at Diamond Shoals, alternating out with LV-69. In 1912 LV-71 was modernized again and was fitted with a two-way radio.[http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?22426 WRECKSITE - MERAK CARGO SHIP 1910-1918]
=World War I=
Upon America's entry into World War I on April 6 of 1917, LV-71 continued to operate as she had for the past several years. On August 6, 1918, exactly one year and four months after the United States' declaration of war on Germany, the lightship was on station off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, when her crew sighted the American cargo ship 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 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. The two sinkings occurred about twelve miles off the coast; residents of the nearby town of Hatteras could hear the sounds of the naval gunfire. LV-71 was the first and only United States lightship sunk by enemy action.{{cite web|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/08/08/97014979.pdf|title=Sinks lightship off Cape Hatteras; U-Boat, After Destroying Diamond Shoals Craft, Appears Off North Carolina Coast. Here to hinder commerce. Naval Officials Believe Raiders Are Under Orders to Avoid Formidable Opponents|work=The New York Times}} August 7, 1918.
See also
References
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{{August 1918 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Maritime incidents in 1918
Category:Shipwrecks of the Carolina coast
Category:Ships of the United States Coast Guard
Category:Ships built in Bath, Maine
Category:National Register of Historic Places in Dare County, North Carolina
Category:Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina