LV 71August 6th, 1918While on the Diamond Shoal station on August 6th, 1918, LV 71 reported by radio the sighting of an Imperial German Navy submarine, the U-140, which had just sunk a passing freighter. The Germans intercepted her message, closed with the lightship, and, after giving the crew time to abandon their lightship in the lifeboats, opened fire with their deck gun and sank LV 71.
Ironically the U-140 submarine (which sunk the Diamond Lightship) was awarded to the US after WWI and was sunk off the same shore of Cape Hatteras that the Diamond Lightship was.
