One of our original projects was to create a searchable database with information, maps, and pictures of the various locations that had defense structures. Sadly, that project never really got started. But, we have made some strides in collecting source information on the structures built for harbor defense. While not as organized as it should be, this is a very good collection of historical information on the harbor defense structures: batteries, fire control, mine support, searchlights, etc., built at the various harbor locations.
The CDSG now has digitized a fairly complete set of Engineer documents on the harbor defense structures of the United States Army. We have broken these down into files to fit on CDs. The data sets available have been broken down by the various harbor defenses in the list below so you can order sets of records by coast/harbor defense, or get the complete collection. Additional information on specific harbor defenses can be found in the various reports that are also have been digitized as PDFs, also available from the CDSG.
Order the CDSG ePress items directly from Mark Berhow.
---> Contact Mark Berhow by post/email if you are interested in ordering only specific titles <---At the conclusion of each fiscal year, the chief of engineers submitted a written report to the secretary of war, covering the military operations of the Corps of Engineers, work on fortifications, and rivers and harbor improvement. These reports, especially in the Endicott Era, are basic resources for anyone researching seacoast defenses. Until 1922, these reports were published in the annual report of the secretary of war. We have photocopied the portions of these reports, from 1866 through 1922, which deal with fortifications, and these photocopies are now available from the CDSG Press as PDFs on a CD-ROM. Since the volumes that were copied do not belong to us, it was not possible to take the books apart, and so the photocopies are not of the standard that would be offered by a professional service. In addition, some of the volumes have plates much larger than the photocopy machines. These large plates were usually copied in sections, although in a few cases, they proved impossible to copy. 26 reports, 330 MB.
At the conclusion of each fiscal year, the chief of artillery (1901-1907) and chief of coast artillery (1908-1937) submitted a written report to the secretary of war, covering the military operations of the Corps of Artillery/Coast Artillery. These reports are basic resources for anyone researching seacoast defenses. We have photocopied these reports, from 1901 through 1937 and these photocopies are now available from the CDSG Press as PDFs on a CD-ROM. 15 files, 622 pages, 60 MB
The National Archives in Washington, D.C., (Archives I), has three boxes of typewritten proceedings of the Board of Engineers, 1887-1905, in Record Group 77, Entry 462. This Board of Engineers was the continuation of the board created in 1816 to oversee the Third System of Fortifications. Until the creation of a chief of artillery in 1901, the board had virtually sole responsibility for fortification planning. In addition, for some years the board was also responsible for river and harbor improvements. However, the National Archives does not have the proceedings for all the years the board was in existence. For fortifications, the record largely stops at the end of 1905. The CDSG now has available PDFs of the proceedings from 1887 through 1905, excepting only those that deal solely with rivers and harbors or otherwise fail to offer any useful information on fortifications. A file this large requires some sort of finding aid. A rough listing of the fortification material has been put together that can be searched for a specific location or subject. It is linked here: Board of Engineers Proceedings Finding Aid, and will be included on the CD. In general, it shows where actual information on a specific harbor can be found, without listing every instance where a harbor was only mentioned, without details. Following the practice of the board, references to the artillery defense of a harbor are separate from those referring to the submarine mine and searchlight defenses. There are a number of general references to mines, as well as ammunition hoists, gun and mortar batteries, and fire control.
We have photocopied these proceedings, from 1887 through 1905 and these photocopies are now available from the CDSG Press as PDFs on a CD-ROM. 16 files, 83 MB, 1814 pages.
105 files 119 MB with title list
Reports of completed batteries (RCBs) and reports of completed works (RCWs) were forms used by the Corps of Engineers to document seacoast fortifications and other structures related to coast defense. RCBs were in use from 1900 until 1919. RCWs were in use from 1919 until the coast artillery was disbanded in 1950. Both are essential documents in the study of modern U.S. coast defenses, 1890-1950.
From 1903 to 1919 the RCB was used to compile information on the batteries located at specific harbor defenses, including the official name of each batteries, the individual number and name of the manufacturer of each gun or mortar and carriage with the number of the emplacement each gun or mortar and carriage was mounted in. RCBs were submitted annually.
Reports of completed works (RCWs) were a new set of forms that superceded the RCBs in 1919. It prescribed that all data in the RCBs would be submitted on seven forms referred to as reports of completed works. Furthermore, new forms need only be submitted whenever changes in works made the old forms obsolete, compared to the annual submission of RCBs. The seven forms were:
Form 1 all important data relating to an individual battery
Form 2 details of fire control and torpedo structures
Form 3 details of mine wharfs and tramways
Form 4 details of searchlights (a separate sheet for each light)
Form 5 details of electric plants
Form 6 existing Engineer Dept structures of permanent or semi-permanent nature
Form 7 a blueprint of the battery
The big scanning project of all of the coast artillery RCBs and RCWs is now complete. A first generation copy set of over 12,000 pages--- nearly all the RCBs and RCWs available at NARA II--- have been scanned and digitized as PDF pages. This will be the most extensive collection of RCBs and RCWs available. The documents are organized by harbor defense and broken down into two or more files by harbor (RCBs) and fort/location (RCWs) depending on the number of pages. Each document contains a series of grey-scale images of each of the RCB/RCW forms in the collection related to each harbor defense. Grey scale was chosen because black and white scans could not sufficiently resolve the "negative" forms and give a legible printout. The grey scale scans are at 200 dpi, which gives a bigger file size than black and white but with sufficient resolution to make a readable copy. The PDF documents are essentially a series of electronic photocopies, and as such the files are NOT text searchable, so a researcher will have to scroll through each file to find the pages of interest. Some of the smaller harbor defenses can be combined on one CD, the larger ones are on up to four CDs. The entire RCB/RCW collection is 26 GB in size-forty-five 700 MB CDs or six 4.7 GB DVDs. The RCB collection has been added to each harbor defense collection.
The engineer assigned to each harbor defense kept a notebook on the defense structures that were located in a given harbor defense. They maintained a ledger, a journal, and memorandum log for the batteries, the fire control structures, the electrical generators, the searchlights, the torpedo (mine) structures, and in some cases, the land defenses. A fairly complete set appears to have been collected around the mid-1920s and is now housed in the National Archives. These have been copies and scanned as PDFs. These notebooks have information on when the structures were built, but more importantly information on modifications and changes to these structures over the years. For instance, we can see what guns were removed from what battery during 1917-18. The notes show that both Los Angeles, CA and Guantanimo Bay, Cuba had a complete set of structures built for the control of mine fields, even though the mines were not deployed at these locations. These are a great source of additional information on the Endicott and Taft era fortifications. The notebooks for the various coast/harbor defense are noted in the table above. The complete set is about 2600 pages, 2.63 GB and can be put on one DVD or 4-5 CDs.
Harbor Defenses/ pages/ MB file
Portland/ 118 pp/ 144 MB
Kennebec/ 20 pp/ 30 MB
Portsmouth/ 33pp/ 42 MB
Boston/ 171 pp/ 206 MB
New Bedford/ 21 pp /23 MB
Narragansett Bay/ 109 pp/ 124 MB
Long Island Sound/ 119 pp/ 113 MB
Eastern New York/ 56 pp/ 62 MB
New York/ 172 pp/ 194 MB
Delaware River/ 74 p/ 69 MB
Baltimore/ 54 pp/ 58 MB
Potomac River/ 38 pp/ 40 MB
Hampton Roads/ 106 pp/ 114 MB
Chesapeake Bay/ 41 pp/ 53 MB
Cape Fear/ 28 pp/ 30 MB
Charleston/ 56 pp/ 65 MB
Savannah/ 42 pp/ 53 MB
Key West/ 56 pp/ 72 MB
Tampa Bay/ 42 pp/ 47 MB
Pensacola/ 56 pp/ 89 MB
Mobile Bay/ 49 pp/ 53 MB
Galveston/ 75 pp/ 81 MB
San Diego/ 61 pp/ 76 MB
Los Angeles/ 46 pp/ 53 MB
San Francisco/ 200 pp/ 224 MB
Columbia River/ 92 pp/ 105 MB
Puget Sound/ 165 pp/ 200 MB
Oahu, Hawaii/ 106 pp/ 127 MB
Panama/ 164 pp/ 197 MB
The Philippines/ 174 pp/ 227 MB
The Caribbean/ 19 pp/ 26 MB
Total: 30 files, 2600 pages, 2.63 GB, 4 CDS, 1 DVD
A Harbor Defense Project was a written document setting forth the missions of the harbor defense, the means to be employed, the methods to be followed, and the successive steps to be taken to accomplish the mission, based not only upon the means actually available or definitely allocated, but also upon those not in existence that were deemed necessary or desirable. When approved by the secretary of war, the project was the official statement of the resources approved for the harbor defense, both present and projected. These projects were relatively brief, typically less than 20 pages. For the continental defenses, projects were completed in 1932/33, 1937, and 1943-46; for Alaska, in 1942; and for the Panama Canal Zone in 1946.
The specific details were contained in the annexes prepared by the local harbor defense. The last series of these were termed Supplements, but contained the same series of annexes. These annexes/supplements furnished a concise record of the status both of existing harbor defense fortification construction and equipment, and of new or modified construction which has been approved by the War Department for future accomplishment, and made available information of a technical and tactical nature which is not otherwise available in usable form. They were in the range of one or two hundred pages. Not surprisingly, the larger harbor defenses tended to have the larger annexes.
Annex A - Armament
Annex B - Fire Control
Annex C - Seacoast Searchlights
Annex D - Underwater Defense
Annex E - Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Harbor Defense)
Annex F - Gas Defense
Annex G - Equipment
Annex H - Real Estate Required
The scans of these annexes are B&W at 300 dpi. While the original documents in the National Archives were legal-size, some were photocopied that size and some letter-size. The price is $10 for a CD with the entire collection. The following annexes/supplements have been scanned:
Portland: 1945 (155 pp)
Portsmouth: 1945 (107 pp)
Boston: 1945 (191 pp)
New Bedford: 1943 (82 pp)
Narragansett Bay: 1945 (150 pp)
Long Island Sound: 1945 w/Change 1, 1946 (184 pp)
New York: 1944 (255 pp)
Delaware: 1945 (132 pp)
Chesapeake Bay: 1945 (145 pp)
Charleston: 1937, 1945 (60+100 pp)
Key West: 1945 (71 pp)
Pensacola: 1945 (87 pp)
Galveston: 1936, 1945 (53+98 pp)
San Diego: 1944 (182 pp)
Los Angeles: 1944 (183 pp)
San Francisco: 1945 (381 pp)
Columbia River: 1937, 1945-46 (25+195 pp)
Puget Sound: 1945-46 (248 pp)
Balboa: 1946 (127 pp)
Cristobal: 1946 (127 pp)
Dutch Harbor: 1944 (209 pp)
Kodiak: 1944 (199 pp)
Seward: 1944 (115 pp)
Sitka: 1944 (155 pp)
Total: 25 files, 4016 pages, 300 MB, 1 CD
No complete projects or annexes have been located for Oahu or the Philippine Islands.
The Quartermaster Corps kept careful historical records on the buildings and structures for which it was responsible. These records were transferred to the Corps of Engineers along with the responsibility for construction and maintenance. The Historical Record of Buildings described individual structures. The term building was used in the broadest sense, and included wharfs, manure pits, tennis courts, and even statues. The first such forms in the record, dating from 1905, are un-numbered. They contain information on two buildings, one on each side of the 10 x 12 card-stock form. Filed by post building number, the forms list the construction date, materials, and equipment (to include wash basins, showers, urinals, screen doors, and wall lockers), as well as an annual list of expenditures for repairs. Perhaps most valuable, the forms normally displayed a 4 x 5-inch black and white photograph of the structure. By 1921, the forms, now 173A, were enlarged to 10 x 14 inches and covered only one structure. On the reverse a grid pattern was provided for a simple plan of the structure. Plans were drawn for some structures; others had blueprints pasted on, while still others were blank. In 1924, the form was renumbered 117, but otherwise remained relatively unchanged. These forms cover buildings built until the Corps of Engineers assumed responsibility days before the United States entered World War II. Both permanent and temporary buildings are included, as well as a number of civilian structures taken over by the army when the land on which they stood became part of a military post.
One of the most important entries on the Historical Record of Buildings was the OQMG (Office of the Quartermaster General) plan number, which was normally listed, at least for 1891-1917 buildings. These plan numbers, in turn, lead to another valuable source. From 1891 through 1917, the quartermasters built most structures to numbered standard plans. As these plans were updated, letter suffixes were added. The Cartographic Branch at Archives II contains Standard Plans of Army Post Buildings (Received from Quartermaster Office) 1891-1917. These are hundreds of standard plans prepared by the Office of the Quartermaster General. A notebook lists the plans by number and suffix, with the number of sheets prepared. To request them, merely specify RG 77, PI NM-19, Standard Plans of Army Post Buildings 1891-1917, with the plan number and letter suffix desired.
See article by Bolling Smith in the Coast Defense Journal Vol. 16, No. 2 pp. 29-42, for more details.
The CDSG ePress has scanned in a fairly complete set of these records for all the coast artillery posts circa 1905-1940. The collection comprises 17,200 pages and is organized into separate PDF files by fort. The entire collection can be fit on 6 CDs or 1 DVD and 1 CD. The purchase price for this collection is $50. As this scanning project cost the CDSG over $2800 (covering NARA copying costs and mailing costs) any additional donation towards covering the coast of this project would be appreciated. The Board feels that making these historical records available is an important role for the CDSG. We ask our memberships help in supporting this.
Quartermaster record listed by harbor (file size MB), fort(s) (pages)
Note in the table that: - means no files were available to be scanned, + means the total is added to the number directly above. Some of the smaller defenses have been combined (w/Harbor).
Each CD holds about 650 MB, each DVD holds about 4200 MBs, total amount on each disk will depend on the file sizes.
|
Coast/Harbor Defenses of |
Maps 1921-35 |
Engineer Notes |
RCWs |
Annexes 1944-46 |
QM records
|
MB files (total) |
|
Portland |
20 pp |
118 pp |
167 pp |
155 pp |
990 pp
|
905 MB |
|
Kennebec |
4 pp |
20 pp |
w/Portland |
no annexes |
+
|
w/Portland |
|
Portsmouth |
6 pp |
33 pp |
163 pp |
107 pp |
413 pp
|
560 MB |
|
Boston |
30 pp |
171 pp |
612 pp |
191 pp |
953 pp
|
2120 MB |
|
New Bedford |
4 pp |
21 pp |
50 pp |
82 pp |
+
|
w/Boston |
|
Narragansett Bay |
12 pp |
109 pp |
399 pp |
150 pp |
744 pp
|
1330 MB |
|
Long Island Sound |
13 pp |
119 pp |
800 pp |
184 pp |
821 pp
|
1960 MB |
|
New York |
22 pp |
172 pp |
1099 pp |
255 pp |
1950 pp
|
3760 MB |
|
Eastern New York |
4 pp |
56 pp |
154 pp |
no annexes |
+
|
w/NewYork |
|
Delaware River |
5 pp |
74 pp |
360 pp |
132 pp |
638 pp
|
1500 MB |
|
Baltimore |
6 pp |
54 pp |
147 pp |
no annexes |
457 pp
|
900 MB |
|
Potomac River |
9 pp |
38 pp |
124 pp |
no annexes |
261 pp
|
w/Baltimore |
|
Chesapeake Bay |
16 pp |
41 pp |
900 pp |
145 pp |
788 pp
|
3190 MB |
|
Hampton Roads |
+ |
106 pp |
w/Ches Bay |
+ |
+
|
w/Ches Bay |
|
Cape Fear |
2 pp |
28 pp |
71 pp |
no annexes |
138 pp
|
1620 MB |
|
Charleston |
15 pp |
56 pp |
232 pp |
160 pp |
347 pp
|
w/Carolinas |
|
Port Royal Sound |
6 pp |
- |
- |
no annexes |
38 pp
|
w/Carolinas |
|
Savannah |
6 pp |
42 pp |
107 pp |
no annexes |
332 pp
|
w/Carolinas |
|
Key West |
10 pp |
42 pp |
180 pp |
71 pp |
232 pp
|
1004 MB |
|
Tampa |
4 pp |
56 pp |
91 pp |
no annexes |
201 pp
|
w/Key West |
|
Pensacola |
8 pp |
72 pp |
363 pp |
87 pp |
563 pp
|
1062 MB |
|
Mobile |
4 pp |
49 pp |
120 pp |
no annexes |
107 pp
|
492 MB |
|
Mississippi River |
5 pp |
22 pp |
90 pp |
no annexes |
130 pp
|
w/Mobile |
|
Galveston |
5 pp |
75 pp |
267 pp |
151 pp |
343 pp
|
961 MB |
|
San Diego |
11 pp |
61 pp |
243 pp |
182 pp |
375 pp
|
1070 MB |
|
Los Angeles |
16 pp |
46 pp |
181 pp |
183 pp |
540 pp
|
1858 MB |
|
San Francisco |
30 pp |
200 pp |
748 pp |
381 pp |
1756 pp
|
2820 MB |
|
Columbia R/W. WA |
39 pp |
92 pp |
420 pp |
220 pp |
371 pp
|
1295 MB |
|
Puget Sound |
23 pp |
165 pp |
1139 pp |
248 pp |
625 pp
|
3260 MB |
|
Hawaii |
15 pp |
106 pp |
692 pp |
no annexes |
1205 pp
|
2025 MB |
|
The Philippines |
41 pp |
174 pp |
880 pp |
no annexes |
717 pp
|
2170 MB |
|
Panama |
28 pp |
164 pp |
599 pp |
254 pp |
1231 pp
|
2010 MB |
|
Sitka, AK |
7 pp |
- |
614 pp |
155 pp |
-
|
1490 MB |
|
Seward, AK |
11 pp |
- |
w/AK |
115 pp |
-
|
w/AK |
|
Kodiak, AK |
12 pp |
- |
w/AK |
199 pp |
-
|
w/AK |
|
Dutch Harbor, AK |
17 pp |
- |
w/AK |
209 pp |
-
|
w/AK |
|
Caribbean & Argentia |
- |
19 pp |
35 pp |
no annexes |
52 pp
|
68 MB |
| Total | 440 pp | 2600 pp | 12000 pp | 4016 pp | 17200 pp | 40 GB |
BOARD REPORTS AND OTHER REPORTS
OTHER REPRINTS
ARMY MANUALS
HISTORY OF THE 700 AND 800 SERIES CANTONMENT CONSTRUCTION CD ROM: WW 2 and the U.S. ARMY MOBILIZATION PROGRAM: A History of the 700 and 800 Series Cantonment Construction including Historic American Building Survey documentation for Camp Edwards,MA and Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. 552 pages, 82 illustrations, 152 pages of building drawings. This is a history of the World War Two Temporary Buildings built by the Quartermaster Corps. Barracks, Mess Halls, Storehouses, Motor Sheds and all the other temporary buildings put up at US Army Posts all over the United States. This is a PDF format CD-Rom. 25.00 postage paid. Contact by email: ARMYJUNK@aol.com.
REPORT ON WAR DAMAGE TO THE HARBOR DEFENSES OF MANILA AND
SUBIC BAYS, 6 OCTOBER 1945 (The Case Board Report) This CD contains the complete 102 page text of the report (formatted as close as possible to the original) along with the scanned version of the 77 photographs and an index to all of these photos which are captioned and explained in the text. The CD also includes 104 Quartermaster Corps cantonment (building) photographs with an index. The CD is available for $25.00 (price includes domestic postage) Contact by email: ARMYJUNK@aol.com.
THE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE PANAMA CANAL by Hugh H. Gardner and Norman T. Carpenter, Historical Branch, Headquarters, United States Army Forces Southern Command, 1 April 1965.121 pages with photos and maps. A PDF file prepared from an original copy obtained in March 1970 while Bill Cole was on duty with the 4th Bn. (AW-SP), 517th Artillery at Fort Clayton in the Panama Canal Zone. The transcription is formatted as close as possible to the original. The CD ROM can be obtained for $14.00 (price includes domestic priority mail) from:
William Cole
107 Charles Street
North Cape May, NJ
Several Army documents have been scanned and placed on line as downloadable PDF files.
For example: Survey of Japanese Seacoast Artillery, 1946 by GHQ USAFPAC, Seacoast Artillery Board 160pp. The US Army Military History Institute has placed this valuable and rare document on the web in pdf format, which will allow it to be viewed using the free Adobe Reader. This report by a board of coast artillery officers at the end of the war focuses primarily on the seacoast defenses of the Japanese home islands. It is a very detailed report, with much information not available elsewhere. It is divided in three parts. Parts One and Two cover Japanese army and navy seacoast artillery. Part Three deals with controlled submarine mines. All three sections cover the training, organization, and equipment of these various groups. Tables detail the characteristics of Japanese army and navy seacoast weapons and ammunition, while photos, drawings, and plans illustrate many of the weapons, including the big 41 cm turrets. Maps show the locations of Japanese batteries in the home islands with their fields of fire, and the text provides detailed information on Japanese fire control equipment and methods. Part Three is a detailed look at Japanese controlled mines, including magnetic and acoustic detection equipment.
Historical Resource Studies
Other Documents
Seacoast Fortifications Preservation Manual addresses the extensive and nationally significant seacoast fortification network in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Its purpose is to identify specific preservation issues affecting the fortifications; provide technical information about appropriate treatments; and develop a methodology for prioritizing the application of those treatments to the park's extensive fortification network. Written by a team of five preservation specialists, the manual is organized as sections that discuss the historic significance and preservation rationale for the resource; explain the physical history of the fortifications in order to better understand their evolving nature; and present up-to-date and practical treatment solutions for the many preservation challenges that these fortifications present.