The Coast Defense Study Group, Inc.

CDSG Membership Application

Washington State's Fort Columbia State Park—a preserved American Coast Artillery post. Photo taken May 2008.
Explore the Harbor Defenses of the Columbia River

CDSG Web Site Navigator

CDSG website update log

CDSG Message Board

CDSG Newsletters (PDF version)
CDSG Meetings & Events Calender
The CDSG Fund (small monetary grants for preservation & interpretation projects)
CDSG representative reports (Current updates on US seacoast defense locations )

About the Coast Defense Study Group

CDSG Downloads: Membership Brochure, Posters, & Documents
CDSG Press Catalog (books, back issues, conference notes)
CDSG ePress PDF reprints on CD and DVD
American Seacoast Defenses: a Reference Guide SECOND EDITION
Index/Table of Contents for CDSG News/Journal
Special Offers of Privately Produced Coast Defense Publications
Special CDSG OFFER to donate 2 books to coast defense site libraries

Information on American Seacoast Defenses and the Coast Artillery Corps 

Seacoast Defenses of the United States—a brief history
US Seacoast Artillery Forts & Batteries 1794-1950
Explore 20th Century US Harbor Defenses: weapons, equipment, and forts
Researching US Seacoast Defense: References and the National Archives
The Coast Artillery Corps
Photo Galleries of Surviving American Seacoast Artillery

List of American Remaining Coast Artillery Artifacts
The Battery Pratt Restoration Project at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon
News from the Forts
Member WWW Links

For more information contact

Mark Berhow berhowma@comcast.net

Battery Worth, Fort Casey State Park, Whidby Island, Washington.
In the foreground is the circa-1900 seacoast fortification with one of its 10-inch guns on a disappearing carriage, with Puget Sound, Port Townsend, and the Olympic Mountains behind (Photo by Steve Kobylk, April 2006)

Battery Chamberlin, Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Members of the CDSG in action on the 6-inch gun mounted in a disappearing carriage during the 2006 San Francisco annual meeting.
Battery Wallace, Fort Barry, Harbor Defenses of San Francisco 1930s (NARA).
Battery Prince and Battery Carr at Fort Grant in the Panama Canal Zone.
The photo was taken in 1967 when Ft. Grant was the home of Battery C, 4th Battalion, 517th Artillery. Battery C was a Hawk Missile battery. The screened structure built over the mortar pits was the Battery C mess hall (Courtesy Bill Cole).

Third System seacoast defense works Battery Weed (on the shoreline) and Fort Tomkins (behind and above) at the New York harbor narrows. Photo taken February 2006 by Phil Gilson, Brooklyn, NY.

Castle Williams, a Second System fort on Governers Island in New York Harbor, circa 1870s. The flag pole to the left in the photo is in the parade ground of adjacent Fort Jay. Photo from the collection of Bill Cole.

16 inch Navy MkIII gun on Army Proof Carriage at Aberdeen Proving Grounds (2005)

One of the 16 inch rifles of Battery Williston, Fort Weaver, in Hawaii in the 1920s. Photograph courtesy Phil Whaley (pwhaley2@cogeco.ca)

A great view of a base end station with a depression position finder (DPF) scope (courtesy of John Martini)

The crest of the "Gridiron Club" of Fort Monroe 1920 featuring the Oozlefinch