Fort Stevens, Oregon
The Fort Stevens was a coastal fortification of the US Army in the US state of Oregon . The fort formed the main fortification of the coastal fortification of the mouth of the Columbia River comprising three forts . The other two forts were Fort Canby and Fort Columbia in Washington State . Fort Stevens was built during the American Civil War and served military purposes until 1952.
history
19th century
To ward off feared attacks by British and Confederate privateers, US President Lincoln ordered the construction of fortifications at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1863. In 1864 the fortress was completed as Fort at Point Adams and was garrisoned. The system consisted of a pentagonal bastion fortification of earth walls and trenches, the armament consisted of 29 guns, including a 381 mm Rodman cannon . It was later renamed after Civil War General Isaac Stevens . After the Civil War, the fortress was only poorly maintained. Since the fortress and the cannons were now out of date, the garrison was withdrawn in 1882 and only one sergeant remained at the fort as a guard.
Expansion in the Endicott period
Between 1897 and 1907, Fort Stevens was expanded as part of the construction program named after the then Secretary of War Endicott . The earth walls were supplemented by concrete bunkers and massive gun emplacements. By 1907 eight batteries with a total of 23 guns were built in the fort. The main armament of the new fort was eight 254 mm guns in the Russel , Walker , Lewis and Mishler batteries . The guns could be partially sunk, i. H. if they did not fire, they were protected against enemy fire by concrete positions and earth walls. They could fire 280 kg projectiles over 14 km. These guns were supplemented by 152 mm guns from Battery Pratt and eight 305 mm mortars from Battery Clark . The Smur and Freeman batteries equipped with rapid-fire guns were used to protect the minefields created in the estuary in the event of a defense . The Fort Stevens garrison consisted of 20 officers and 450 men, who also provided the crew for Fort Canby and Fort Columbia. In the event of a defense, the crew should be reinforced by twelve companies of the National Guard .
First World War
After the USA entered the First World War , the National Guard was called up and the crew of the forts was increased to 127 officers and 2,574 men by June 1918. During the First World War, first the 152 mm guns of the Battery Freeman, later also the four 254 mm guns of the Lewis and Walker batteries, were dismantled and shipped to the Western Front in France.
In 1918, 50 garrison soldiers died of the Spanish flu in the fort's hospital .
Between the world wars
After the First World War, the garrison was reduced to around 70 men in 1921. The dismantled guns were not replaced, four of the mortars were dismantled and installed at Fort Canby. The garrison also took over the supervision of Fort Canby and Fort Columbia, but the number of personnel dropped to about 40 men.
From 1935 to 1937, the Civilian Conservation Corps used part of the barracks when it was deployed in the region for coastal fortification, soil protection and forest fire fighting. Due to the development of long-range ship guns, more modern fire control systems and, above all, the threat from the air, the old coastal fortifications were long out of date at the beginning of the Second World War . The defense of the mouth of the Columbia River was to be done by mining, the guns of the old coastal fort were to protect the minefields, which is why Battery Pratt was modernized before the Second World War.
Second World War
On the night of June 21-22, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 fired seventeen shells at Fort Stevens. This made Fort Stevens the only military facility in the continental part of the United States to be attacked by a foreign power after the war of 1812. The submarine was out of range of the outdated guns, so that they could not return fire. However, the attack brought only minor damage; the submarine was pursued by an American plane, but managed to escape.
To defend against further attacks, Battery 245 was built with two 152 mm guns, whose guns had a range of 24 kilometers, almost twice as long as the old 254 mm guns. In addition, a 90 mm anti-torpedo boat battery was installed on the south pier. After the completion of the new batteries, the old Battery Russell was dismantled. The building of the Battery Mishler, deactivated in 1941, was converted into the underground command center of the coastal defense of the Columbia River. During this time around 2500 soldiers were stationed in the fortress, which is why new barracks had to be built.
After the Second World War
In 1947 the fortress was abandoned and handed over to the US Army Corps of Engineers . By 1950 the guns were dismantled and the buildings and bunkers cleared, the garrison buildings were sold to private owners. From 1950 to 1952 the US Air Force maintained a radar station on the site, the radar antennas were installed on the former Battery Mishler. The Army Corps of Engineers used the fort as headquarters for its coastal defense work at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1975 Oregon State Parks leased the grounds of the old fort, and since 1980 it has been accessible as Fort Stevens State Park .
Web links
- Internet presence of the Friends of Old Fort Stevens
- Fort Stevens on FortWiki
- Fort Stevens State Historical Site, pdf, 2.79 MB
Individual evidence
- ↑ Glen, Susan L .: Fort Stevens. Arcadia 2008, ISBN 978-0-7385-5933-9 , p. 75.
- ^ The Coast Defense Study Group: Fort Stevens. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 9, 2013 ; Retrieved September 28, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
