A very gallant action was that of the keeper and crew of Coast Guard Station No. 179 at Chicamacomico, North Carolina, in rescuing life under extraordinary circumstances following the destruction of the steamship _Mirlo_, on August 16, 1918. At 4:30 p. m. the lookout reported seeing a great mass of water shoot into the air. It seemed to cover the after portion of a steamer that was about seven miles away. At the same time a quantity of smoke rose from the steamer. Fire was seen, and heavy explosions were heard. The Coast Guard boat went to the rescue. Five miles off shore they met one of the ship's boats with the captain and six men in it, who informed them that the ship was a British tank steamer and that she had been torpedoed. Keeper John A. Midgett directed the captain where to go. The Coast Guard boat was headed for the burning mass of wreckage and oil. On arrival the sea was found to be covered with burning oil and blazing gas for a hundred yards, with two masses of flames about a hundred yards apart. In between these, when the smoke would clear away a little, a lifeboat could be seen, bottom up, with six men clinging to it. Heavy seas washed over the boat. The Coast Guardsmen made their way through that inferno of smoke, thrashing wreckage and blazing oil. They evaded the perils of floating debris, fire, and wave. Lifting the six men on board, all that survived of the sixteen who had been in that lifeboat, the Coast Guard rescuers sought the safety of clear water. Thirty-six men of the _Mirlo_ were rescued. The first United States vessel to pass the German fortifications at Heligoland and through the Kiel Canal after the signing of the armistice was the _Aphrodite_, commanded by a Coast Guard officer, Captain F. C. Billard. While passing through the North Sea, the _Aphrodite_ struck a German mine, but escaped destruction and was able to proceed to Germany. The danger to American shipping by a submarine base on our coast, not to speak of the violation of neutrality which such action would involve, necessitated a patrol of the coast to make sure that there was no such base and to prevent U-boat operations. These requirements were admirably met by the coöperation of the Coast Guard. There were on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts 199 stations.