Last updated 6-Inch Gun M1900, Serial Number 23; made at Watervliet Arsenal in Albany, NY in 1903; mounted on M1900 Barbette Carriage in Emplacement Number 1 of Battery Gunnison / New Peck.
The Army Ground Forces Association hosts monthly Work Weekends, which are open to the public, to support the restoration of the battery, as well as spring and fall living-history programs; the National Park Service also hosts additional tours and educational programs at the battery throughout the year.
Battery John Gunnison, known as Battery New Peck following its modernization in 1943, is a six-inch US Army coast artillery gun emplacement located at Fort Hancock in New Jersey.
Battery John Gunnison was built in 1904 as a rapid fire twin six inch disappearing gun battery. It was named in honor of Captain John Williams Gunnison, a US Army topographical engineer, who was attacked and murdered by Indians during an expedition in Utah on October 26, 1853.[1] The two M1903 six-inch guns, mounted on counter-weight disappearing carriages, were medium caliber weapons that could be fired rapidly at faster moving enemy vessels, such as patrol boats, destroyers, or minesweepers.[2][3]
In 1943, the battery was extensively modified both internally and externally for two M1900 six inch barbette (pedestal mounted) guns, two shell hoists and a modern and expanded Plotting Room. The guns were moved from (old) Battery Fremont Peck to Battery Gunnison's location gaining a better field of fire.[4] The battery was then renamed — Battery "New Peck." Initially, Battery Peck was named for Lieutenant Fremont Pearsons Peck, a US Army Ordnance Corps officer killed at Sandy Hook Proving Ground in a weapons testing explosion on February 19, 1895.[5] The now-vacant Battery Peck emplacement was then modified as well, for .90mm M1 Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat guns.[6]
Following conversion, which was completed by the summer of 1943, Battery New Peck became the Examination battery for the Advanced Harbor Entrance Control Post No. 1, located on the roof of Battery Potter, also at Fort Hancock. This was one of three harbor entrance control posts operating in New York Harbor. The primary command and control post was located within Fort Tompkins, an older masonry coast defense fort dating from the 1840s, located high on the bluffs on the Fort Wadsworth reservation in Staten Island, with vantages overlooking the entire harbor and all sea approaches. The second was the Advanced Harbor Entrance Control Post No. 1 at Fort Hancock, which was responsible for confirming the identification of every last Allied ship within all convoys, as well as other vessels, as they entered into New York Harbor from the open ocean, all as the U-boat War and the Battle of the Atlantic raged off the Jersey Shore. Advanced Harbor Entrance Control Post No. 2 was at Fort Tilden on Long Island, and supervised the out-bound convoys heading out to sea. These were no small feats, as convoys could have an average number of over 100 ships.[7]
Twenty-four hours a day, New York Harbor hummed with hundreds of fully laden ammunition ships, fuel tankers, freighters, and troop ships. These were supplied by a hub of highways and railroads connecting factories and refineries, all leading into massive storage facilities ringing the harbor in New York and New Jersey. With 60% of all Allied war material destined for Africa, the Mediterranean, and the European Theater leaving from New York, Brigadier General Philip S. Gage, Sr, the New York Harbor Defense Commander, testified before Congress, stating, "I am the defender of twenty million people and the industrial heartland of the nation."[8]
The primary threat to all American harbors at this time was commerce raiding and blockships, which could offer a far more devastating attack than that of a conventional warship. With such a high concentration of war material in so dense an area, if a Merchant raider could sneak past the harbor forts disguised as an Allied vessel, they could barrage the harbor infrastructure and supply depots with deck guns in a surprise attack. A blockship attack was also greatly feared. The US Navy reported to the US Army harbor defense command that a scuttled enemy vessel in the outer harbor in deep water would take a minimum of thirty days to raise or clear. With the Ambrose Channel blocked, this would effectively bring the flow of supplies going overseas to a halt for a month.[9] Therefore, maximum effort was taken to ensure that only Allied vessels would gain entrance to the harbors.
As ships approached New York Harbor, they would be flashed a challenge code from the Advanced Harbor Entrance Control Post No. 1 via signal lamp; signal flags could also be used. Vessels that got their challenge code reply wrong, failed to follow protocol, or simply acted suspiciously, would be ordered to halt, pending an immediate investigation and inspection via boarding, conducted by the US Navy and/or US Coast Guard. This order would also be issued in conjunction from the examination vessel, anchored near the mouth of the Ambrose Channel. A US Navy destroyer or a US Coast Guard cutter would often be orbiting the area as a guard ship, supporting the Examination vessel.[10]
If a vessel still failed to stop, and ignored the Guard ship and Examination vessel, Battery Gunnison / New Peck would be been alerted via telephone by the Harbor Entrance Control Post No. 1; a description of the vessel's class, paint scheme, national flag flown, speed, and proximity to the nearest buoy in either the Ambrose or Sandy Hook Ship Channels.
Observers in fire control towers assigned to Battery Gunnison / New Peck would immediately begin tracking the ship, and relaying information to the Battery's plotting room. Once the proper calculations were made, the ship would be brought under fire via "bring to" shots fired by the battery. These were warning shots using inert shells, fired well in front of the vessel, straight into the water, to get its attention with the shell splash. If the vessel still failed to heave-to at this time, Battery Peck would begin "destructive fire" with armor-piercing, high-explosive ammunition to neutralize the threat before it could get close enough to attack the harbor or scuttle in one of channels.[11] The Jersey shore was considered a full war-zone during World War II, and operations at Fort Hancock were on a "Shoot First - Ask Later" mindset in dealing with potential threats.
So tense was the nature of the defense, and so real the threat, that from September 1943, and September 1944, Battery Gunnison / New Peck would open fire on thirteen separate occasions.[12] On each occasion, the vessels turned out to be Allied ships. The battery remained on 24-hour alert status through the end of World War 2.
Battery New Peck was put into caretaker status following the end of World War II in 1945. It fired for the last time in 1948, when a Reserve Officer Training Corps Coast Artillery class came to Fort Hancock and performed annual summer target practice. Although the coastal defense component of Fort Hancock's history ended in 1948, it remained on active duty as an Air Defense Artillery post from the early 1950s to 1974 with anti-aircraft guns, and later on, Nike Ajax and Hercules missiles. In the early 1960s, the two M1900 guns and carriages were removed from the battery and brought down to a government storage facility in Maryland, pending their placement in a military museum that was yet to be built. The roof of now empty Battery Gunnison / New Peck structure was used as a recreational trap-shooting range for the soldiers at Fort Hancock.
In 1974, Fort Hancock closed, and was ceded to the National Park Service as part of Gateway National Recreation Area. The two M1900 rifles and carriages were still in storage in Maryland, where they had been for nearly a decade; the museum where they were to be placed was never built. The National Park Service quickly worked with the US Army to have them returned, and the guns and carriages came home on a bitterly cold day in February 1976.[13] For the next 27 years, and stripped of all its original equipment save for the two shot hoists, sand, grit, salt corrosion, and vandalism took a heavy toll on the battery and the guns.
Restoration and preservation
Restored 6-inch rifled gun on model 1900 pedestal mount at Battery Gunnison/New Peck
In 2003, the Army Ground Forces Association,[14] a non-profit 501(c)3 living history group, began to volunteer at the battery, and transformed the structure from two rusty cannons and a time and nature-worn concrete artillery emplacement to the most extensively preserved and restored seacoast battery in the United States. While other coastal batteries around the nation - Battery 519 at Ft Miles, DE; Battery Osgood-Farley, Ft. MacArthur, CA; Battery Worth, Ft. Casey, WA; as well as several others - have been well preserved, with some form of ordinance in their emplacements (non-correct display weaponry), or offer extensive museum displays of artifacts in the battery's rooms, only Battery Gunnison/New Peck is preserved and restored as a seacoast battery.
Of all former concrete seacoast artillery emplacements in the United States, it is the only battery to offer the full spectrum of ammunition service, correct weaponry, and a working range section. Both guns have been restored so visitors can traverse (turn) the guns, and articulate the breech blocks. Original Army spotting telescopes dating to the 1940s allow visitors to view and track ships on the horizon. Internally, the battery is lit with original 100-year-old Army Corps of Engineers electrical fixtures. The powder and shell magazines are filled with inert (non-functioning) six inch shell bodies and powder canisters. In the Plotting Room, an M3 plotting board has been recreated, as well as other pre-computer devices for tabulating mathematical solutions for the guns. Visitors can talk to one another at all locations, as the telephone network has also been rebuilt, using vintage EE-91 Coast Artillery telephones.[15]
In the spring of 2017, a restoration milestone was achieved when the concrete ammunition bridges leading from the ammunition shot hoists to the gun platforms were reintroduced. In November 2017, the battery commander's station stairs were custom fabricated and installed. Another key project, the reintroduction of period-correct exterior lighting, which was begun in the summer of 2015, and was completed in October 2019. The wooden range display board operator's platform, part of the 1943 modernization, was reconstructed and built from scratch using the original plans, and completed in July and August 2019. The Army Ground Forces Association generally hosts one work weekend a month, which is open to the public. They also host two "living history" events a year, held in May and October. "Coastal Defense Weekend," held on Armed Forces Day Weekend (the weekend prior to Memorial Day Weekend), and "Fort Hancock Day," in October, which commemorates the founding of the Fort Hancock on October 30, 1895. All work days and living history events are posted by the National Park Service with the program guides getting updated quarterly for the spring, summer, fall and winter time periods.[16] Army Ground Forces Association members are uniformed as members of the 245th Coast Artillery Regiment, which manned Battery New Peck in 1943, and give Lantern Tours, historical displays, and gun drills with the M1900s.[17]
See also
Gunnison Beach, which takes its name from Battery Gunnison.
Gunnison Beach is a beach within the Sandy Hook unit of the Fort Hancock and the Sandy Hook Proving Ground Historic District which is the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, on the Atlantic coast of New Jersey. It is located in Middletown Township, Monmouth County, but is on federal land managed by the National Park Service. It is New Jersey's only legal clothing-optional beach. It takes its name from adjacent Battery Gunnison, which visitors must pass next to in order to get to and from the beach.
Fort Miles was a United States Army World War II installation located on Cape Henlopen near Lewes, Delaware. Although funds to build the fort were approved in 1934, it was 1938 before construction began on the fort. On 3 June 1941 it was named for Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles.
Joint Expeditionary Base-Fort Story, commonly called simply Fort Story is a sub-installation of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story, which is operated by the United States Navy. Located in the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia at Cape Henry at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay, it offers a unique combination of features including dunes, beaches, sand, surf, deep-water anchorage, variable tide conditions, maritime forest and open land. The base is the prime location and training environment for both U.S. Army amphibious operations and Joint Logistics-Over-the-Shore (LOTS) training events.
Fort Worden Historical State Park is located in Port Townsend, Washington, on 433 acres originally known as Fort Worden, a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps base constructed to protect Puget Sound from invasion by sea. Fort Worden was named after U.S. Navy Rear Admiral John Lorimer Worden, commander of USS Monitor during the famous Battle of Hampton Roads during the American Civil War.
Fort Hancock is a former United States Army fort at Sandy Hook in Atlantic Highlands New Jersey. The coastal artillery base defended the Atlantic coast and the entrance to New York Harbor, with its first gun batteries operational in 1896. The fort served from then until 1950 as part of the Harbor Defenses of New York and predecessor organizations. Between 1874 and 1919, the adjacent US Army Sandy Hook Proving Ground was operated in conjunction with Fort Hancock. It is now part of Fort Hancock Memorial Park. It was preceded by the Fort at Sandy Hook, built 1857–1867 and demolished beginning in 1885.
Several boards have been appointed by US presidents or Congress to evaluate the US defensive fortifications, primarily coastal defenses near strategically important harbors on the US shores, its territories, and its protectorates.
Fort Mott, located in Pennsville, Salem County, New Jersey, United States, was part of the Harbor Defenses of the Delaware, a three-fort defense system designed for the Delaware River during the Reconstruction era and Endicott program modernization periods following the American Civil War and in the 1890s. The other two forts in the system were Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, Delaware. It was active for the Spanish American War and World War I. It was closed in 1944, and sold to the state of New Jersey to become Fort Mott State Park.
Fort H. G. Wright was a United States military installation on Fishers Island in the town of Southold, New York, just two miles off the coast of southeastern Connecticut, but technically in New York. It was part of the Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound, along with Fort Terry, Fort Michie, and Camp Hero. These forts defended the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound and thus Connecticut's ports and the north shore of Long Island. The fort was named for Union General Horatio G. Wright, a former Chief of Engineers who was born in Clinton, Connecticut.
Seacoast defense was a major concern for the United States from its independence until World War II. Before airplanes, many of America's enemies could only reach it from the sea, making coastal forts an economical alternative to standing armies or a large navy. After the 1940s, it was recognized that fixed fortifications were obsolete and ineffective against aircraft and missiles. However, in prior eras foreign fleets were a realistic threat, and substantial fortifications were built at key locations, especially protecting major harbors.
Fort Levett was a former U.S. Army fort built on Cushing Island, Maine, beginning in 1898. Located in Cumberland County, Maine, in Casco Bay near Portland, Maine, the fort was heavily fortified with guns for coastal defense. Conceived under the Endicott Program in 1885 and begun in the wake of the Spanish–American War, Fort Levett was manned during both world wars. It was part of the Coast Defenses of Portland, later renamed the Harbor Defenses of Portland, a command which protected Portland's port and naval anchorage from 1904 to 1950. The fort's name is sometimes misspelled "Leavitt".
The 8-inch Navy gun Mk.VI M3A2 on railway mount M1A1 was a World War II improved replacement for the World War I-era 8-inch M1888 gun and was used by the US Army's Coast Artillery Corps in US harbor defenses. The guns were also mounted in fixed emplacements on the barbette carriage M1A1. These guns were US Navy surplus 8"/45 caliber guns from battleships scrapped under the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Mark VI was the Navy designation. The Army designation for this gun was "8-inch Navy gun Mk.VI M3A2".
The 8-inch gun M1888 (203 mm) was a U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps gun, initially deployed 1898–1908 in about 75 fixed emplacements, usually on a disappearing carriage. During World War I, 37 or 47 of these weapons were removed from fixed emplacements or from storage to create a railway gun version, the 8-inch Gun M1888MIA1 Barbette carriage M1918 on railway car M1918MI, converted from the fixed coast defense mountings and used during World War I and World War II.
The 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment is an Air Defense Artillery regiment of the United States Army, first formed in 1861 in the Regular Army as the 5th Regiment of Artillery.
The 7th Air Defense Artillery Regiment is an air defense artillery regiment of the United States Army, first constituted in the Regular Army as the 7th Regiment of Artillery on 8 March 1898. The 6th and 7th U.S. Artillery Regiments were constituted on 8 March 1898, three weeks after the explosion of USS Maine in Havana, Cuba on 15 February 1898, as the United States' declaration of war on Spain and commencement of the Spanish–American War seemed imminent.
The 12-inch coastal defense gun M1895 (305 mm) and its variants the M1888 and M1900 were large coastal artillery pieces installed to defend major American seaports between 1895 and 1945. For most of their history they were operated by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps. Most were installed on disappearing carriages, with early installations on low-angle barbette mountings. From 1919, 19 long-range two-gun batteries were built using the M1895 on an M1917 long-range barbette carriage. Almost all of the weapons not in the Philippines were scrapped during and after World War II.
The 6-inch gun M1897 (152 mm) and its variants the M1900, M1903, M1905, M1908, and M1 were coastal artillery pieces installed to defend major American seaports between 1897 and 1945. For most of their history they were operated by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps. They were installed on disappearing carriages or pedestal mountings, and during World War II many were remounted on shielded barbette carriages. Most of the weapons not in the Philippines were scrapped within a few years after World War II.
The 5-inch gun M1897 (127 mm) and its variant the M1900 were coastal artillery pieces installed to defend major American seaports between 1897 and 1920. For most of their history they were operated by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps. They were installed on balanced pillar or pedestal mountings; generally the M1897 was on the balanced pillar mounting and the M1900 was on the pedestal mounting. All of these weapons were scrapped within a few years after World War I.
The Harbor Defenses of New Bedford was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of New Bedford, Massachusetts and the nearby Cape Cod Canal from 1900 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program. These included a coast artillery fort and an underwater minefield. The command originated circa 1900 as the New Bedford Artillery District, was renamed Coast Defenses of New Bedford in 1913, and again renamed Harbor Defenses of New Bedford in 1925.
The Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of Long Island Sound and Connecticut from 1895 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program. These included both coast artillery forts and underwater minefields. The area defended included the approach via the Sound to New York City, the port cities and manufacturing centers of New London, New Haven, and Bridgeport, and eventually included the submarine base and shipyard in Groton. The command originated circa 1900 as an Artillery District, was renamed Coast Defenses of Long Island Sound in 1913, and again renamed Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound in 1925.
The Harbor Defenses of New York was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of New York City from 1895 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program, some of which were located in New Jersey. These included both coast artillery forts and underwater minefields. The command originated c. 1895 as an Artillery District(s) and became the Coast Defenses of Eastern New York and Coast Defenses of Southern New York in 1913. Circa 1915 the Coast Defenses of Sandy Hook separated from the latter command. In 1925 the commands were renamed as Harbor Defense Commands, and in 1935 the Harbor Defenses of Eastern New York was almost entirely disarmed, although possibly retaining the minefield capability. The New York and Sandy Hook commands and the Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound were unified as the Harbor Defenses of New York on 9 May 1942.
↑ Bearss, Edwin C. Historic Resource Study, Fort Hancock 1895-1948, Gateway National Recreation Area, New York/New Jersey. Historic Preservation Division, US Dept. Interior, National Park Service, Denver, CO., 1981.
Gaines, William C. Defending the Narrows: The Harbor Defenses of Southern New York – Part I, The Muzzleloading Era, 1890–1950, Coast Defense Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, Nov. 2008.
Gaines, William C. Defending the Narrows: The Harbor Defenses of Southern New York – Part II, The Breechloading Era, 1890–1950, Coast Defense Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1, Feb. 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
