Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast (later Harbor) Defenses of Boston,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. Construction began in 1898 and the fort was substantially complete by 1904.Fort Andrews at FortWiki.com
/ref> The fort was named after Major General

George Leonard Andrews George Leonard Andrews (August 31, 1828 – April 4, 1899) was an American professor, civil engineer, and soldier. He was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was awarded the honorary grade of brevet major genera ...

, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of nearby Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. It occupies the entire northeast end of

Peddocks Island Peddocks Island is one of the largest islands in Boston Harbor. Since 1996 it has formed part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the island is home to the now-defunct Fo ...

in Boston Harbor, and was originally called the Peddocks Island Military Reservation. Once an active Coast Artillery post, it was manned by hundreds of soldiers and bristled with mortars and guns that controlled the southern approaches to Boston and Quincy Bay. The fort also served as a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. P ...

for Italian prisoners during World War II, who were employed as laborers following the

Italian surrender The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 and made public on 8 September between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was signed by Major General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Brig ...

to the Allies in 1943. Today, the fort is abandoned, and is managed by the

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission is ...

, as part of the

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is a national recreation area situated among the islands of Boston Harbor of Boston, Massachusetts. The area is made up of a collection of islands, together with a former island and a peninsula, ...

Armament

Fort Andrews' gun and mortar batteries as built were as follows:Berhow, p. 206 In its heyday, the fort's armament was impressive. Fort Andrews was the site of one of Boston Harbor's two

12-inch coast defense mortar The 12-inch coast defense mortar was a weapon of caliber emplaced during the 1890s and early 20th century to defend US harbors from seaborne attack. In 1886, when the Endicott Board set forth its initial plan for upgrading the coast defenses of ...

complexes (the other was Fort Banks), meant to protect the southern approaches to Boston Harbor. The two pits of Battery Whitman at the northwest end of the fort were initially planned to be the first two pits of a four-pit (16-mortar) battery, in a so-called Abbott Quad design. With a range of 7 miles, these batteries could reach both the northern and southern channels into the harbor, interlocking with the fire of Fort Banks' mortars. As it was, only two pits (in a north-south alignment) were built for Battery Whitman (Whitman Pit A is the southerly one, with Pit B behind it), and two more, of a slightly different design, became Battery Cushing (built just to the east and in an east-west alignment). When fully equipped, these pits contained 16 12-inch coast defense mortars, able to bombard the southern approaches to the harbor with projectiles weighing over each. Three of the mortar pits are still visible. The fourth (the most easterly of Cushing's two pits — Pit A) has been partially filled with debris from the recent demolition of other structures at the fort. The Boston press reported that when the mortars were test-fired in the 1920, they literally blew doors off of nearby barracks buildings and broke windows at the fort. Island residents also told of the blast from the mortar barrels igniting brush fires on the grassy slopes of the mortar pits. In addition, the fort had two 6-inch guns of Battery McCook (and until 1917 two 5-inch guns of Battery Rice) and two 3-inch guns of Battery Bumpus in concrete emplacements at the top of the bluff northeast of the fort, overlooking Nantasket Roads (the main channel to Quincy Bay), the shipyards beyond, and (formerly) the southern entrance to Boston Harbor itself. The gun emplacements can still be seen, but they are seriously deteriorated and somewhat dangerous to visit.

History

Fort Andrews was constructed in 1898-1904, one of many forts of the Endicott program, including an initial seven forts in the Boston area.Harbor Defenses of Boston at NorthAmericanForts.com
/ref> Fort Andrews was one of two Endicott period forts of this size in Boston Harbor, the other being

Fort Strong Fort Strong is a former U.S. Army Coast Artillery fort that occupied the northern third of Long Island in Boston Harbor. The island had a training camp during the American Civil War, and a gun battery was built there in the 1870s. The fort was ...

, on Long Island, and after the demolition of almost all of Fort Strong's wooden structures in about 2005 to make way for a children's camp, Fort Andrews is the sole survivor of its type in Massachusetts. In 1910 the four M1890 mortars of Battery Whitman, Pit A, were removed to provide half the armament for Battery Geary at

Fort Mills Fort Mills ( Corregidor, the Philippines) was the location of US Major General George F. Moore's headquarters for the Philippine Department's Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays in early World War II, and was the largest seacoast f ...

Corregidor Corregidor ( tl, Pulo ng Corregidor, ) is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of the Province of Cavite. Due to this location, Corregidor has historically b ...

Island in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. In 1913 Pit A was rearmed with four M1908 mortars. World War I brought further changes to Fort Andrews' armament. In February 1917 Battery Rice's two 5-inch guns were transferred to

Fort Story 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, Vir ...

Cape Henry Cape Henry is a cape on the Atlantic shore of Virginia located in the northeast corner of Virginia Beach. It is the southern boundary of the entrance to the long estuary of the Chesapeake Bay. Across the mouth of the bay to the north is Cape Cha ...

, Virginia for an emergency battery. The 5-inch gun was withdrawn from Coast Artillery service shortly after the war, and these guns were never replaced. In August 1917, Battery McCook's two 6-inch guns were ordered dismounted for potential service on field carriages on the Western Front. It appears these guns never left the fort, and they were remounted in 1920. As part of a forcewide re-alignment, almost half of Fort Andrews' mortars were removed in early 1918. It was determined that attempting to simultaneously reload four mortars per pit was inefficient, and that a similar rate of fire could be obtained with only two mortars per pit. Also, many 12-inch mortars were needed as

railway artillery A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best-known are ...

for potential service on the Western Front. None of these mortars were shipped to France before the

Armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the La ...

, but many were retained as railway mortars through World War II. The result at Fort Andrews was that Battery Cushing was reduced to four mortars and Battery Whitman was reduced to six mortars. For some reason, Pit A of Battery Whitman retained its four M1908 mortars. By the 1920s, Fort Andrews consisted of some 30 structures (see map at left), ranging from large brick barracks buildings that housed over 100 soldiers each to elegant officers' quarters and a 50-bed hospital. The fort even had a radio transmitting station, one of the Army's earliest. After World War I, Fort Andrews was put on caretaker status ("mothballed"), and was brought back into action again during World War II. By the 1930s the fort's mortars were superseded by the long-range guns of

Fort Ruckman Fort Ruckman was a U.S. Coast Artillery fort located in Nahant, Massachusetts. Originally called the Nahant Military Reservation, the fort was laid out in 1904-1907 and covered an area of about 45 acres just northwest of Bass Point, on the southw ...

and

Fort Duvall Fort Duvall was a Coast Artillery fort, part of the Harbor Defenses of Boston, in Massachusetts. What was then called Hog Island in Hull, Massachusetts was acquired by the U.S. government in 1917, and the fort was constructed in the early 1920s. ...

. In 1942 the fort's massive coast defense mortars were scrapped, but its 6-inch and 3-inch guns served out the war guarding the southern approaches to Boston Harbor. The fort also served as a

for Italian prisoners during World War II, who were employed as laborers following the

to the Allies in 1943. In 1946, Ft. Andrews was decommissioned by the Army, and in the 1970s it was purchased, along with the rest of Peddocks Island, by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 2010, most of the fort's structures were seriously dilapidated or in danger of collapse, and Peddocks Island, normally reachable by ferry from Hull, was temporarily closed to the public. The island was reopened on 8 July 2011.

Fire Control Structures

Ft. Andrews is unusual in the number of different types of

fire control Fire control is the practice of reducing the heat output of a fire, reducing the area over which the fire exists, or suppressing or extinguishing the fire by depriving it of fuel, oxygen, or heat (see fire triangle). Fire prevention and control ...

structures it has. These were to house the evolving

Coast Artillery fire control system In the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps, the term fire control system was used to refer to the personnel, facilities, technology and procedures that were used to observe designated targets, estimate their positions, calculate firing data for guns ...

. These were constructed beginning in 1904, with new structures built through World War II. The oldest fire control structure at the fort is the so-called East Side fire control building, completed in 1904. Its position (), 100 ft. high on the hill to the northeast of the parade ground, gave it a commanding view of the southern harbor channels and out to sea. This structure originally contained a vertical

base end station Base end stations were used by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps as part of fire control systems for locating the positions of attacking ships and controlling the firing of seacoast guns, mortars, or mines to defend against them. A Brit ...

for Battery McCook, as well as observation instruments for the Commander of the fort and a

plotting room A plotting room was the co-ordination centre of a fire control system for guns used against enemy ships or aircraft, whether naval guns or coastal artillery. The plotting room received data on ship or aircraft position and motion from fire con ...

. A second east side fire control station was the

coincidence range finder A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...

(CRF) station that was located ()in a blockhouse constructed in 1925 on the gun platform for Gun #1 of Battery Rice, a 5-inch battery built in the early 20th century but for which the guns were never delivered. This small (13-foot square) structure housed a Barr and Stroud CRF device that, with a length of 9 ft., must have made for very cramped quarters. The third fire control station on the east side, also built in 1925, was the small pillbox that housed a second

depression position finder The depression range finder (DRF) was a fire control device used to observe the target's range and bearing to calculate firing solutions when gun laying in coastal artillery. It was the main component of a vertical base rangefinding system. ...

(DPF) for Battery McCook. The position of this emplacement (), about 350 ft. northwest of the battery, near the lip of the tall northern bluffs of the island, gave it a commanding view over toward Ft. Warren on Georges Island and the surrounding channels into Boston.The remains of a 1920s era coastal searchlight emplacement can be found about 40 ft. southwest of this pillbox. The searchlight was of the type that could be lowered into a concrete pit when not in use. Both this pit and the access hatch of the pillbox are now open and heavily overgrown, making them dangerous for an unwary visitor. Atop the tall hill on the west side of the parade ground were two more stations. In 1944, a single-story concrete bunker was built to house

#1 for Battery McCook. Located at a height of 128 feet above sea level (), this structure housed a depression position finder (DPF). Today, the structure is thickly overgrown with trees and brush, but during World War II controlled burns kept the brow of the hill clear of obstructions. The final fire control structure is a two-bay wood and plaster building that was 40 ft. long overall, constructed in 1907, and had dual observation platforms and plotting rooms for mortar batteries Whitman and Cushing, northwest of the parade ground. Located () about 80 ft. northwest of the 1944 bunker described above, this building has now collapsed under the weight of fallen trees, and its remaining walls are shaky. The building was built in a 15 ft. deep pit, with only its observation windows likely projecting above ground level, and today (in 2010) this renders it almost invisible until a visitor is virtually on the edge of the pit. The ruins are significant for being the only remains of one of the early wood and plaster fire control buildings that were so prevalent throughout Boston's harbor defenses in the period 1905-1925.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * *

External links