at
Fort Hamilton,
Brooklyn, NY, a typical Endicott period installation. As early as 1882 the need for heavy fixed artillery for seacoast defense was noted in
Chester A. Arthur's Second Annual Message to Congress where he noted: In 1885 the
Endicott Board was convened under the subsequent
Grover Cleveland administration, chaired by
Secretary of War William Crowninshield Endicott. This board recommended a large-scale program of harbor defenses at 29 ports, including
guns,
mortars, and
mine fields. Most of their recommendations were implemented and new defenses were constructed by the
United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1895 and 1905. As the defenses were constructed, each harbor or river's installations were controlled by Artillery Districts, renamed
Coast Defense Commands in 1913 and
Harbor Defense Commands in 1925. With the 1913 renaming, Artillery Districts became regional commands, each including several coast defense commands. An extensive
fire control system was developed and provided for the forts of each Artillery District.
1901 reorganization Army leaders realized that heavy fixed artillery required different training programs and tactics than mobile field artillery. Prior to 1901 each of the seven
Regular Army artillery regiments contained both heavy and light artillery batteries. In February 1901 the
Artillery Corps was divided into two types: field artillery and coast artillery. The previous seven artillery regiments were dissolved, and 30 numbered companies of field artillery (commonly called batteries) and 126 numbered companies of coast artillery (CA) were authorized. 82 existing heavy artillery batteries were designated as coast artillery companies, and 44 new CA companies were created by splitting existing units and filling their ranks with recruits. The company-based organization was for flexibility, as each harbor defense command was differently equipped and a task-based organization was needed. The Coast Artillery would alternate between small unit and regimental organization several times over its history. The head of the Artillery Corps became the Chief of Artillery in the rank of brigadier general with jurisdiction over both types of artillery.
Controlled mine fields the Coast Artillery took responsibility for the installation and operation of the
controlled mine fields from the Corps of Engineers; these were planted to be under observation, remotely detonated electrically, and protected by fixed guns. ashore organized as a "
Submarine Mine Battery" within the installation command, "submarine" meaning "underwater" in this case. The mine component was considered to be among the principal armament of coastal defense works.
Taft Board and the creation of the Coast Artillery Corps In 1905, after the experiences of the
Spanish–American War, President
Theodore Roosevelt appointed a new board on fortifications, under Secretary of War
William Howard Taft. They updated some standards and reviewed the progress of the Endicott board's program. Most of the changes recommended by this board were technical; such as adding more
searchlights, electrification (lighting, communications, and projectile handling), and more sophisticated optical aiming techniques. The board also recommended fortifications in territories acquired from Spain:
Cuba and the
Philippines, as well as
Hawaii and a few other sites. Defenses in
Panama were authorized by the
Spooner Act of 1902. Due to rapid development of the
dreadnought battleship type, a new
gun was introduced in a few locations, including Los Angeles, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Panama. The Japanese were acquiring capital ships with guns of this caliber, beginning with
Kongō in 1913. The Taft program fortifications differed slightly in battery construction and had fewer numbers of guns at a given location than those of the Endicott program. By the beginning of World War I, the United States had a coastal defense system that was equal to any other nation. The rapidity of technological advances and changing techniques increasingly separated coastal defenses (heavy) from field artillery (light). Officers were rarely qualified to command both, requiring specialization. As a result, in 1907, Congress split the
Field Artillery and Coast Artillery into separate branches, creating a separate Coast Artillery Corps (CAC), and authorizing an increase in the Coast Artillery Corps to 170 numbered companies.
National Guard coast artillery units were also formed by the states to attempt to bring the CAC up to strength in wartime. Confusingly, many of these units were designated Coast Artillery Corps of their respective state National Guards. In response to the rapid improvements in
dreadnought battleships, approximately 14 two-gun batteries of
12-inch guns on a new M1917 long-range barbette carriage began construction in 1917, but none were completed until 1920. The Coast Artillery was designated to provide the personnel for all US-manned heavy artillery (155 mm gun and larger), almost all
railway artillery, and later
anti-aircraft artillery units. As with most US Army World War I equipment, these units were primarily equipped with French- and British-made weapons, with few American-made heavy weapons arriving in France before the
Armistice. As with other American World War I units, the CAC units operated alongside French forces for the most part. The CAC units sent to France and Britain with the
American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were organized into a total of 11
brigades comprising 33
regiments of 24 guns each, plus a replacement regiment, nine
trench mortar battalions and thirteen anti-aircraft battalions (a.k.a. sectors). Many Coast Artillery companies were withdrawn from stateside coast defenses to provide
cadre for the new artillery regiments. However, only 13 regiments saw action, while the remaining 20 regiments did not complete training before the Armistice, and up to 6 of these never received guns. A total of 61 regiments were organized; however, at least 23 of these were organized in the US shortly before the Armistice and were soon disbanded. The
coast defense commands retained a company-based organization. Ninety-five
6-inch guns were withdrawn from coast defenses, with an additional 46 weapons supplied by the Navy and 30 ex-Navy weapons from arms dealer
Francis Bannerman. Seventy-two of the Army 6-inch guns (possibly with a few additional Navy weapons) and 26
5-inch guns also removed from coast defenses were mounted on M1917 field carriages and equipped four artillery regiments in France, but none of these completed training before the Armistice. After the war, some of the 6-inch guns were returned to coast defenses, but the 5-inch guns were withdrawn from coast defense service. Most of the 6-inch guns were stored and were eventually deployed in World War II. The 40th Artillery Brigade of three regiments was also a railway artillery brigade of the RAR; however, it did not complete training before the Armistice. The 7-inch and 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars used a common carriage, with outriggers and a rotating mount allowing all-around fire. This allowed the weapons to be used in coast defense against moving targets. The 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars were retained on railway mountings after the war, while most of the 10-inch and 12-inch guns were returned to the coastal forts. The 7-inch railway guns most likely became fixed coast artillery, although some were eventually transferred to Brazil as railway guns in 1941. The official birthday of the Army Warrant Officer Corps is 9 July 1918, when an Act of Congress established the Army
Mine Planter Service as part of the Coast Artillery Corps, replacing previous civilian manning of
mine planter vessels. Implementation of the Act by the Army was published in War Department Bulletin 43, dated 22 July 1918. Budget reductions resulted in the disbandment of all but three of the tractor-drawn regiments and all but one railway regiment by late 1921. The anti-aircraft mission continued with three battalions in the Contiguous United States (
CONUS), one battalion in the
Philippines, and a regiment in
Hawaii. Only 22 16-inch and four
14-inch M1920 railway guns were deployed in
CONUS,
Hawaii, and
Panama by 1940. The 16-inch guns were one
16-inch gun M1895 on a disappearing carriage, seven
16-inch M1919 guns (one on a disappearing carriage), four
16-inch M1920 howitzers, and ten
16"/50 caliber Mark 2 guns (including some Mark 3 guns), the last taken from weapons produced for battleships and s cancelled by the Washington Naval Treaty. Twenty of about 70 of these weapons were initially given to the Army, but funding precluded deployment of more than ten until 1940. The remaining 50 or so weapons were retained by the Navy for use on future battleships; but in 1940 a near-fiasco in the design of the s precluded their use on that class, and the guns were released to the Army. A postwar weapon deployed in more reasonable quantities was the
12-inch gun M1895 on the long-range
barbette carriage M1917. These were the same guns found in Endicott period installations, but on a high-angle carriage that increased their range from on a disappearing carriage at 15° elevation to at 35° elevation. Thirty guns were deployed in 16 batteries, including two one-gun batteries in the
Philippines, all completed by 1924. These were the last guns added to the Philippine defenses until 1940, as the Washington Naval Treaty prohibited additional fortifications in the Pacific. In 1922 fifteen companies of
Philippine Scouts coast artillery were established. These units were composed primarily of Filipino enlisted men and US officers, and garrisoned many of the coast defenses in the Philippines until the surrender of US forces there in 1942. Also in 1922, the
Journal of the United States Artillery was renamed the
Coast Artillery Journal. In 1923–1924, the Coast Artillery adopted a regimental system forcewide, which included the Regular Army,
National Guard, and
Organized Reserve components (see "Units" section below). This lasted until the anti-aircraft regiments were broken up into battalions in 1943-44 and the harbor defense regiments were similarly broken up by late 1944. On 9 June 1925 the Coast Defense Commands were redesignated as Harbor Defense Commands via a
War Department order. By the end of the 1920s, eight
Harbor Defense Commands in less-threatened areas were completely disarmed. These included the defenses of the Kennebec River (Maine), Baltimore (Maryland), Potomac River (Maryland and Virginia), Cape Fear River (North Carolina), Savannah (Georgia), Tampa Bay (Florida), Mobile (Alabama), and the Mississippi River (Louisiana). The mine capability may have been retained in reserve at these defenses. Some of these installations were rearmed with "Panama mounts" for towed artillery early in World War II. The new 16-inch and 12-inch batteries of the 1920s were all in open mounts, unprotected against air attack except for
camouflage. Like the Endicott and Taft period emplacements, they were positioned to be hidden from observation from the sea, but were open to the air. This somewhat inexplicable situation was remedied by
casemating most of the newer batteries early in World War II.
World War II The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 and the
Fall of France in June 1940 greatly accelerated US defense planning and funding. About this time a severe lack of design coordination resulted in the s being unable to use the Mark 2 and Mark 3 16-inch guns, and a new gun design was required for them. The 16-inch guns were only the top end of the World War II program, which eventually replaced almost all previous coast defense weapons with newer (or remounted) weapons. Generally, each harbor defense command was to have two or three 16-inch or 12-inch long-range batteries, plus
6-inch guns on new mountings with protected magazines, and
90 mm Anti Motor Torpedo Boat (AMTB) guns. Activation of the
National Guard and expansion of regular harbor defense regiments to wartime strength resulted in 45,000 troops assigned to this function by fall 1941. Including
field artillery units deployed in coast defense, harbor defense forces peaked at 70,000 troops from spring 1942 until mid-1943. In 1943–44, with most of the new defenses completed, the numerous older weapons of the Endicott and Taft periods were scrapped, with their crews largely reassigned to field artillery units. 's
Warwick Camp, in
Bermuda during the Second World War ;Bermuda In 1939, the North Atlantic
Imperial fortress colony of
Bermuda (originally part of the
Colony of Virginia), was the British naval base and dockyard for the western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans, and vital to the Battle of the Atlantic, but adequately strengthening its military defences would have tied down soldiers and material far from any likely action. Prior to the December, 1941, entry of the United States into the Second World War, the
United States Army and the
United States Marines Corps were permitted to deploy forces to Bermuda under the
Destroyers for Bases Agreement, ostensibly to guard US Navy and US Army Air Forces air base sites to which the United States had been granted leases by the British Government (these leases had been negotiated prior to the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, and Britain received no destroyers or other material in exchange, though, with the US bases in Newfoundland, they were grouped together with the bases granted in exchange for destroyers), but with the intent of also allowing the neutral US to covertly reinforce the
British Army's
Bermuda Garrison. Bermuda had been the headquarters and main base of the Royal Navy's
North America and West Indies Squadron since the independence of the United States, and the location of its
dockyard. The colony was a vital forming-up point for trans-Atlantic convoys in both world wars. There was also
Royal Air Force Bermuda on
Darrell's Island, which was vital to trans-Atlantic aviation, a
Fleet Air Arm air station on
Boaz Island, cable and radio facilities important to trans-Atlantic navigation and communication, and other strategic assets (which would be joined by the US Army air base, the US Naval Operating Base (for flying boats and ships), a US Navy submarine base on
Ordnance Island, and a
Royal Canadian Navy base). These assets made Bermuda's defense imperative to the British Empire and Commonwealth's, and later the Allies', global strategy, but British forces used for its defense were desperately needed elsewhere. Granting the neutral United States base rights and enabling the deployment of American ground forces resulted in the development of assets at American expense which would be used by British forces (notably
Kindley Field air base which was to be used jointly by the US Army and the
Royal Air Force and
Royal Navy), as well as enabling British forces to be redeployed overseas as there was a tacit agreement the American forces would defend the entire British colony, and not just the US bases. Coastal artillery was a critical requirement at the start of the war. Although Bermuda had been heavily fortified over the previous centuries, and hundreds of artillery pieces had been emplaced, most were hopelessly obsolete. Of the newer guns, only two batteries, each of two
6-inch guns, were in serviceable condition (at
St. David's Battery and
Warwick Camp, both manned by the
Bermuda Militia Artillery). Consequently, among the first
American units deployed to Bermuda were batteries of artillery at
Cooper's Island, Fort Albert and Fort Victoria on
St. George's Island, Fort Langton at
Prospect Camp,
Warwick Camp, Tudor Hill, and also Scaur Hill Fort on
Somerset Island. Subunits included "B" Battery, 57th Regiment, United States Army Coast Artillery Corps, deployed to Ackermann's Hill at Warwick Camp in 1941 with two
155 mm GPF artillery guns on wheeled carriages, which were placed on "
Panama mounts" by October 1941. All US Army defenses outside the leased baselands were withdrawn from Bermuda on the end of hostilities. ;After Pearl Harbor The
attack on Pearl Harbor showed that the Coast Artillery, despite the inclusion of the anti-aircraft mission, was ineffective against a mass air attack. Pre-war anti-aircraft planning had been very inadequate, with few weapons allocated, and the coast defense guns had become almost irrelevant. They were positioned to keep enemy ships out of a friendly harbor, but that was all they could accomplish. The
Japanese invaded the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor, bringing the
Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays into the war along with the other US and Filipino forces in the
archipelago. The Japanese initially landed in northern
Luzon, far from the defenses of Manila Bay. Although the Coast Artillery did their best, their weapons were poorly positioned against the direction of enemy attacks and vulnerable to air and high-angle artillery attack. Eight
8-inch railway guns had been deployed to the Philippines in 1940, but six were destroyed by air attack while entrained in response to the initial landings, and the other two were placed in fixed mountings on
Corregidor and
Bataan, but lacked crews and ammunition. The
14-inch turret guns of
Fort Drum and the
12-inch mortars of
Battery Way and
Battery Geary were probably the most effective coast defense weapons in the
Battle of Corregidor, but all but two of the mortars were knocked out before the Japanese landed on the island. The US and Filipino forces surrendered on 6 May 1942, after destroying their weapons. The Coast Artillery faced two priorities during the war: mobilization and modernization. The National Guard was mobilized in 1940 and the Reserve units were mobilized in 1942. Most of the reserve regiments not designated as anti-aircraft in 1925 appear to have been disbanded by World War II. Besides new construction at most harbor defenses, the standard anti-aircraft gun was upgraded from the
3-inch gun M3 to the
90 mm gun M1. Except for the early-war fighting in the Philippines, the anti-aircraft branch was the Coast Artillery's only contribution on the front lines of World War II; almost all mobile heavy artillery overseas was operated by the
Field Artillery. Two times a post-1895 military base in the continental United States came under attack were the
bombardments of Dutch Harbor,
Alaska and
Fort Stevens,
Oregon by the
Imperial Japanese Navy in June 1942. For the former, members of the
206th Coast Artillery Regiment lost seven during the battle in which the Japanese planes inflicted moderate damage to the base. For the latter, battery Russell was attacked with a
deck gun from the
Japanese submarine I-25, but the fort's commander did not return fire, since his fire control equipment indicated the submarine was out of range, and for fear of revealing the battery's position. Other than some severed telephone cables, no significant damage to either side occurred. In late 1942, the
War Department decided that to free up more younger and physically fit troops for frontline duty, harbor defense and anti-aircraft units in the
continental United States would be staffed primarily with "limited service" troops, who generally were not permitted to serve on the front lines due to age or disability. Since Coast Artillery units were allowed to exceed authorized personnel strength while making the transition, understrength batteries were brought up to their authorized manning levels for the duration of the war. Reassigned former Coast Artillery troops usually went to field artillery or anti-aircraft units. The regiments were broken up into battalions in 1943–44, in line with an Army-wide policy for all units except infantry, and a number of former Coast Artillery units were converted into heavy field artillery units. In 1944, with about two-thirds of the initially projected new batteries complete and most naval threats neutralized or destroyed, work was stopped on the remaining new batteries. Except for some 6-inch pedestal guns and 3-inch guns, the Endicott- and Taft-period guns were scrapped and the Coast Artillery Corps drawn down in size. When the war ended it was decided that few (and soon no) gun defenses were needed, and by 1948 almost all of the seacoast defenses had been scrapped. With only the anti-aircraft mission left, the Coast Artillery was disestablished and the anti-aircraft and field artillery branches were merged in 1950. Some of the mine planter vessels were transferred to the Navy and
designated Auxiliary Minelayers (ACM, later MMA). The anti-aircraft and field artillery branches were later separated again and regiments eventually re-appeared. In the 1950s through early 1970s, the Anti-Aircraft Command and its successors operated the
Nike-Ajax and
Nike-Hercules missiles that, along with the
United States Air Force's
BOMARC, were the successors to the Coast Artillery in defending the US continent and friendly countries. Today the
Air Defense Artillery carries the Coast Artillery's lineage, including many regiment numbers and the
Oozlefinch mascot. ==Chiefs of Coast Artillery==