Standing the watch over the
Graveyard of the Atlantic
By Petty Officer 3rd Class Joshua L. Canup
Beneath the
roiling waters of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, thousands of ships rest in a
salty graveyard. For hundreds of years, mariners have nicknamed the area the
"Graveyard of the Atlantic" based on the history of ships lost in its
waters. Even for experienced Coast Guard members, traversing the area can prove a difficult task.
“It’s an
extremely challenging area,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Hagel, a coxswain
at Station Hatteras Inlet. “You have two major currents colliding right on top
of the shoals, and this causes them to constantly shift. What might have been
navigable water one week has become hazardous the next. Unless you’re familiar
with the area’s recent changes, it can be very difficult to navigate safely.”
Even with
current technology such as radar and GPS, navigating the waters during a storm
can be an intense challenge. The wind and rain and the chaotic swells can
impact the crews’ visibility and communication.
“I’ve had
to yell just to communicate over the wind, which is throwing rain at us almost
sideways,” said Hagel, recalling his experiences carrying out missions in the
rough weather. “Storms come up so quickly; it’ll look sunny at dawn and be a
storm by the end of the day. The waves also are steep and close together,
creating this washing machine effect where they come at you from all
directions.”
Hagel is
just one in a long blue line of service
men and women that have journeyed into stormy conditions along the Outer Banks
to rescue mariners in distress that have run aground.
Members
of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, which merged with the U.S. Revenue Cutter
Service in 1915 to form the modern Coast Guard, battled similar conditions
along the North Carolina coast. With old-fashioned tools at their disposal, LSS
members relied on determination, physical strength and willpower.
On Oct.
11, 1896, Keeper Richard Etheridge and his crew at the Pea Island Life-Saving
Station responded when the schooner E.S. Newman’s crew ran aground in a
hurricane. Etheridge and his crew began to set up a line cannon, a device
that fired a rope to mariners to help them get ashore. Yet every time they tried to set it up, it sank in the soaking wet sand. The waves themselves were
too fierce for Etheridge’s crew to deploy their wooden rescue rowboat.
Forced to
improvise, Etheridge relied on his crew’s training and tied rope to his three
strongest swimmers. Relying on human muscle alone, the surfmen made their way
out to the schooner and saved the entire crew. It took nine trips.
Later, on
Aug. 18, 1899, Surfman Rasmus Midgett, a member of the Gull Shoal Life-Saving
Station, left the station to begin a beach patrol during an approaching
hurricane. After walking 3 miles, Midgett discovered the ship Priscilla, which
had been run aground by winds up to 100 miles per hour and broken apart on the
beach. With the ship split in two, 10 survivors were clinging to the back half
of the shipwreck, shouting for help as violent waves crashed over the wreck.
The
Priscilla wrecked roughly 3 miles from Midgett’s station, so walking back for
assistance would use precious time – time the mariners might not have. Weighing
his options of risking his life or returning to the station for assistance,
Midgett leaped into the swells. Yelling instructions to the victims and
swimming between swells, Midgett managed
to bring them ashore one by one. After saving all 10 men, Midgett ensured that
they were brought back to the station, where warm food and shelter awaited
them.
In time,
many successors of the Outer Banks’ Life-Saving stations would follow in
their predecessors' footsteps, enlisting in the LSS and, later, the
Coast Guard. In 1918, while the world was engaged overseas in World
War I, one such descendant, Keeper John Allen Midgett, was standing watch at
the Chicamacomico station when disaster struck.
The
German submarine U-117 torpedoed the British tanker SS Mirlo near
Chicamacomico. The ensuing explosion could be seen for miles and sent fuel
pouring into the water around the tanker. Midgett and his crew prepped their
wooden motor surf boat and began their journey to the tanker.
Midgett
had not received training on how to respond to fuel spills, nor had any of his
crew. The liquid fuel technology was relatively
new at that time, so no such training even existed.
Midgett
improvised and steered the boat into the flames, smoke and extreme heat,
determined to fulfill his duty of saving
lives. The crew struggled through smoke and heat with one crewmember passing
out from exhaustion. Braving the dangerous conditions, Midgett and his crew
made several trips back and forth, rescuing a total of 42 survivors.
Today,
the history of the Outer Banks’ Life-Saving Service lives on with the Coast
Guard men and women at Stations Oregon Inlet and Hatteras Inlet. They stand the
watch over the Graveyard of the Atlantic, continuing the legacy of maritime
rescue.
On Sept.
16, 2017, crewmembers at Station Oregon Inlet received a report that a 50-foot
charter vessel carrying five people capsized in a fierce storm. The boat crew
quickly launched their 47-foot Motor Life Boat and headed out into the
turbulent seas.
Once they
arrived, they found the five mariners near their capsized boat in heavy seas.
Navigating to the capsized boat between shoals and surf, the Coast Guard crew
rescued the mariners and brought them back to the station.
“What’s
notable wasn’t just the stormy conditions, but the
crew's inexperience,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Mark Dilenge,
officer-in-charge at Station Oregon Inlet. “Our coxswain had only qualified for
heavy weather a few months before, and the rest of the crew were young members.
Together, however, they were able to respond and pull all five mariners from the water in under four minutes.”
The
Graveyard of the Atlantic remains a hazardous environment for mariners,
especially in foul weather. However, Coast Guard men and women stand the watch,
just as the crews before them did.
“I can
say nothing other than ‘wow’ when thinking on the history in this area,” said
Dilenge. “Our service is interwoven into the country’s beginning at every
pivotal point, and that is reflected very strongly here in the Outer Banks.”