The Chicamacomico Life Saving Station - Rodanthe
Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station
From 1874 until 1915 the predecessor to the US Coast Guard, the US Lifesaving Service (USLSS), manned a number of stations along the Outer Banks.
In 1874 the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station was the first to be fully staffed in North Carolina. It continued as a Coast Guard station after the USLSS became part of the Coast Guard in 1915. The station was decommissioned in 1954.
On August 16 ,1918 the crew of the Chicamacomico Station effected one of the most heroic rescues in the history of the Coast Guard.
When German U-Boat 117 torpedoed the British tanker Mirlo, the ship exploded, spewing burning oil and fuel. Knowing the ship was doomed, Captain Williams ordered the crew into lifeboats. Williams and his lifeboat with 16 aboard were able to row free. The other two lifeboats, overloaded with crew members, were trapped in the fire.
As soon as his crew reported the explosion of the Mirlo, Station Keeper John Allen Midgett ordered their motorized lifeboat launched.
The Coast Guard crew made for the Mirlo, passing Captain Williams’ boat, telling him to wait outside the surf zone for them to lead him in. When they arrived at the site of the Mirlo, the ocean was on fire, but the Lifesaving crew pushed through flames so hot paint peeled off their boat.
Reaching the lifeboats they found one had capsized and they plucked the sailors out of the sea. They then threw a line to the other boat and towed it to shore.
Forty-to of the 52 crew members of the Mirlo were rescued.
For the station’s actions station’s crew were awarded the British government’s Gold Lifesaving Medal. The Coast Guard awarded each member of Chicamocomico the Gold Lifesaving Medals of Honor and the Grand Crosses of the American Cross of Honor.
Tours, demonstrations of USLSS equipment and a small museum are part of the Chicamocomico experience. Every August 16 parts of the Mirlo rescue are reenacted.