In
the late afternoon of August 16, 1918, the British tanker Mirlo
made her way along the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks
with a full load of oil. Without warning, the day erupted into
explosions and flames.
The
Mirlo had been hit by a torpedo fired by a German U-boat.
The
captain and most of the Mirlo's crew made it into the
tanker's lifeboats, but further explosions capsized one of the
boats, and trapped two others behind a wall of flames and debris
that spread over the water.
1874 station next to the ocean
Fortunately
for the crew that day, the men manning the life-saving station
at Chicamacomico on Hatteras Island witnessed the attack and
were soon on the way to the rescue. Launching into heavy seas,
John Midgett and his men succeeded in bringing 42 men who survived
the explosion to shore through the burning oil.
For their efforts that day, they became the most decorated members
ever of the Coast Guard and Life-Saving Service, receiving the
U.S. Treasury's Gold Lifesaving Medal, the Silver Cup from the
British Trade Commission, a special gold medal commissioned
especially for them by King George V of Great Britain, and the
Grand Cross of the American Cross of Honor, the nation's highest
award for valor at the time. Only 11 of these were ever awarded
and the men of Chicamacomico got six of those.
Interior exhibits in 1911 station
Five
of the six lifesavers were local guys named Midgett and the
sixth was married to a Midgett girl.
These
weren't the first Midgett's to win awards for valor, however.
Almost
20 years earlier, on August 19, 1899, with a hurricane raging
off the N.C. coast, Rasmus Midgett singlehandedly pulled ten
sailors from the decks of the wrecked barkantine Priscilla,
when he realized he had no time to summon his fellow surfmen
from the station. This Midgett also received the Gold Lifesaving
Medal.
These
are just two of the daring rescues performed by the men of the
U.S. Lifesaving Service along North Carolina's Outer Banks.
The recently rediscovered logs of the station keepers are revealing
just how many rescues were made and the often life-threatening
conditions the surfmen faced on a daily basis. These men patrolled
the beaches on foot or horseback night and day, in every kind
of weather, and took an oath to attempt a rescue even at the
risk of their own lives.
Surfboat No. 1046 used in the Mirlo rescue.
The
surfman's motto, said to have first been put into words on Hatteras
Island, is still referred to by the Coast Guard today: "The
book says you have to go out. It doesn't say anything about
coming back."
The
men of the Life-Saving Service used two methods in their rescues.
When
the wreck was far off-shore, they launched a boat through the
surf. However, when the wreck was close to the beach, as often
happened on the Banks, the surfmen turned to the breeches buoy
apparatus.
Breeches Buoy apparatus.
Photo above courtesy of James Charlet
A
cannon was fired toward the foundering ship carrying a line
that could be attached to the rigging. Then, the so-called apparatus
resembling a pair of trousers attached to a life preserver was
sent over via this line and the ship's crew and passengers were
brought one-by-one to safety.
Although
the feats performed by the surfmen of the U.S. Life-Saving Service
are nearly forgotten today, as the 19th century turned into
the 20th, they were media darlings.
Loss
of life by shipwreck along the East Coast grabbed headlines
and tales of daring rescues made great copy. North Carolina's
turbulent coast garnered more than its share of wrecks, securing
it a reputation as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
All
up and down the Outer Banks, crews of lifesavers at the 29 official
Life-Saving Stations rescued hundreds of people from a steady
stream of sinking ships. Yet today these men and their feats
are largely unknown.
While
lighthouses and lighthouse keepers have achieved cult status,
the lifesaving surfmen who launched themselves into the ocean
to save lives are forgotten.
Details of 1874 station. Mouse over for more.
"Ninety-nine
percent of Americans have never even heard of the U.S. Life-Saving
Service," said James Charlet (above), site manager of
the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site, the most
complete of the few remaining stations on the East Coast. "The
heroism they displayed on a daily basis, what they endured,
made them international heroes in their day. But somehow America
forgot."
That's
a situation Charlet and other members of the Chicamacomico Historical
Association (CHA) are determined to change. Their mission is
to preserve this unique slice of American history and tell the
stories of the dedicated men who risked their lives so others
might live.
They
face several challenges, according to Charlet, who with his
wife Linda Molloy, operations director of the society, frequently
presents living history performances based on station history.
"The
first thing I'm asked is how the heck do you say it," he said.
Derived from an Algonquian word that meant "land of sinking
sands," the name is pronounced "chick-a-ma-CO-mico."
Location
is the site's second problem. The name once applied to a long
stretch of what is now Hatteras Island, then called the Chicamacomico
Banks. The U.S. Postal Service couldn't quite make out all those
syllables and in 1874 renamed the village adjacent to the station
Rodanthe, something of a tongue-twister itself ("ro-dan-thee").
No
one's sure where the name came from, but with the release of
the Richard Gere movie, "Nights in Rodanthe,"
filmed partly on location here, it's now more familiar. The
village is now home to the giant vacation cottages of Mirlo
Beach (named for the wreck), and the Chicamacomico Life-Saving
Station is easily overlooked among the much larger buildings
that surround it.
"We've
got about a two-second window to attract people driving by,"
Charlet said. The final challenge, he said, is that old stand-by:
funding.
"Lots
of people assume that we are run by the state or the national
park service, but we aren't on any state or national budget.
We're a private, non-profit 501(c) organization and receive
funds strictly from gifts and grants."
The
society, made up mostly of volunteers, has accomplished a lot.
The 1911 Life-Saving Station as been restored as a museum and
gift store, housing a small portion of the historical society's
collection of period photographs, journals, uniforms and personal
memorabilia recalling the old way of life on this once-isolated
stretch of oceanfront.
1911 station
Exhibits
detail the daily drills of the lifesavers, as well as the many
rescues and wrecks that took place along this coast. At the
top of the station, visitors can look out toward the sea in
the tower where the lifesavers once kept watch.
Other
buildings on the site include a cookhouse, equipped with period
appliances, the 1907 Midgett House, complete with original furnishings,
and a variety of outbuildings.
Chicamacomico's
collection includes much of the unique equipment used by the
lifesavers, including a working set of breeches buoy equipment
with cannon, one of the few metal Life Cars still in existence
and Surfboat No. 1046, used in the Mirlo rescue.
Charlet
works closely with local Coast Guard units which is appropriate
since the Coast Guard was established in 1915 by the merger
of the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service. The
Chicamacomico station remained an active Coast Guard station
until 1954 when it was decommissioned.
Above, Metal life car.
The
Coast Guard's last shore-based rescue using the breeches buoy
apparatus took place here, just a few days before the station
was closed.
Today,
volunteer crews from the Coast Guard Lifeboat Stations at Oregon
and Hatteras inlets reenact the beeches buoy drill weekly during
the summer season. This is one of only two demonstrations of
the drill being performed regularly in the United States, and
the only one involving Coast Guard personnel.
"The Coast Guard is very interested in resurrecting its early
history and this is an important piece of it," Charlet said.
Much
of the pre-1915 history of the service was lost, or rather misplaced,
when the federal government sold off many U.S. Treasury records
dating from 1795 to 1914 back in the 1970s. The records surfaced
recently at a small foundation that is working to make them
available to the public.
1874 station
Chicamacomico's most treasured relict is the original 1874 Life-Saving
Station, the first one built along the N.C. coast. Designed
by architect Frances W. Chandler in an eclectic style with Medieval
and Renaissance influences, the station reminds many people
of a Scandinavian ski lodge.
Using
a board and batten style put together with wooden pegs, the
Chicamacomico Station is the only surviving example retaining
its original form of the stations built in this style up and
down the East Coast.
One
of Chicamacomico's major annual events is American Heroes Day.
"The crews do the breeches buoy demonstration dressed in period
costumes and the Coast Guard Airstation in Elizabeth City sends
a Jayhawk helicopter to do a search and rescue operation just
like you see in the movie The Guardian," Charlet
said. Personnel from Coast Guard stations up and down the coast
participate. "They're really the stars of the show."
Find out more about the Chicamacomico Historical Site at www.chicamacomico.net
or call 252-987-1552. The site is closed from November through
mid-April.
Originally
published in NC Magazine.
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