Lost Lightship Sailors Memorial

The Lost Lightship Sailors Memorial, located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, features the bell that was recovered from the wreck of the Lightship Vineyard (LV-73) in 1963.

Lost Lightship Sailors Memorial. 27 April 2026.

The text on the plaque at left reads:

VINEYARD
LIGHTSHIP
BELL

This bell, mounted aboard the Vineyard Light-
ship, once rang to warn ships of dangerous
reefs located near the entrance to Buzzards
Bay and Vineyard Sound. On September 14,
1944, the Lightship sank at the height of a
hurricane with a loss of all 12 men on board.

Nineteen years later, the ship’s bell was
brought up by the Fairhaven Whalers Diving
Club and presented to the Life Saving
Museum of Cape Cod National Seashore.

For information about the Vineyard and her fate, see the Naval History article “Lost and Nearly Forgotten.”¹Captain W. Russell Webster. “Lost and Nearly Forgotten,” Naval History 14, no. 1 (2000): https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2000/february/lost-and-nearly-forgotten

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  Captain W. Russell Webster. “Lost and Nearly Forgotten,” Naval History 14, no. 1 (2000): https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2000/february/lost-and-nearly-forgotten