Fort Heath was a US seacoast military installation for defense of the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and Winthrop Harbors with an early 20th-century

Coast Artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...

fort, a 1930s USCG radio station, prewar naval research facilities,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

batteries, and a Cold War radar station. The fort was part of the

Harbor Defenses of Boston The Harbor Defenses of Boston was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of Boston, Massachusetts from 1895 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program. These included both coa ...

(Coast Defenses of Boston 1913–1925) and was garrisoned by the

United States Army Coast Artillery Corps The U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) was an administrative corps responsible for coastal, harbor, and anti-aircraft defense of the United States and its possessions between 1901 and 1950. The CAC also operated heavy and railway artillery ...

. The fort's military structures have been replaced by a residential complex, including the luxurious Forth Heath Apartments, and recreation facilities of Small Park, which has both a commemorative wall and an historical marker for Fort Heath. Ft-Heath-Map-1921

Grover's Cliff Military Reservation

The Grover Cliff geodetic survey station marker was emplaced in 1847 (, lost by 1922), and the military site was renamed Grover's Cliff Military Reservation in 1895. November 1890 planning for the military site was for 3 artillery rifles and 16 mortars, and by spring 1898 Lieutenant Sewail was in charge of construction. A spur of the

Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad The Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad was a narrow-gauge passenger-carrying shortline railroad between East Boston and Lynn, Massachusetts, from 1875 to 1940. Part of the railroad's right of way now forms the outer section of the Massachus ...

was built to the site by 29 March, bids for lumber were received in April, and the "Winthrop Mortar Batteries" of the regular army (Battery F and Battery M) were ordered to Grovers Cliff in May 1898 for the 16 mortars, with the batteries encamping 16 May on Cherry Street in Boston. Constructed during the Endicott modernization period for fortifications, "the first concrete foundation for one of the disappearing guns at Grovers Cliff" was complete in May 1898, and in 1900 the installation was renamed Fort Heath.

Battery Theodore Winthrop

Battery

Theodore Winthrop Major Theodore Woolsey Winthrop (September 22, 1828 – June 10, 1861) was a writer, lawyer, and world traveller. He was one of the first Union officers killed in the American Civil War. Biography Winthrop was born in New Haven, Connecticut ...

construction was complete by 1901 with three 12-inch M1888 guns on M1896

disappearing carriage A disappearing gun, a gun mounted on a ''disappearing carriage'', is an obsolete type of artillery which enabled a gun to hide from direct fire and observation. The overwhelming majority of carriage designs enabled the gun to rotate bac ...

s, the heaviest guns in the

at the time. "Major Morris of the Seventh Heavy Artillery" was the initial commander, and "Batteries P and O of the Regular Army" manned the guns. Additional land was considered in 1901 for a Fort Heath garrison (temporary barracks were on the west side in 1921), and the fort was inspected by the

Ordnance Department The United States Army Ordnance Corps, formerly the United States Army Ordnance Department, is a sustainment branch of the United States Army, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. The broad mission of the Ordnance Corps is to supply Army comb ...

in 1902. Fort Heath was a secondary station for a 1907 naval exercise, and in 1908 the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia had a Fort Heath unit. In 1908 the fort had a "range-finders house" and a sea wall was considered (constructed on the south shore by February 1921). In 1917 a "duct line" between Fort Banks and Fort Heath was contracted to

New England Telephone and Telegraph The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was a very early, short lived company set up to develop the then-new telephone. It should not be confused with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company that was formed a year later and was one ...

, and for 3 batteries—Winthrop and Battery Kellogg & Battery Lincoln at Ft Banks—Ft Heath had the primary base end stations and the Battery Commanders' stations (a commander's station was atop the Fort Heath

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

). After the 1925 renaming of the Coast Defenses of Boston to the

, the fort's ammunition hoists were authorized for disposal in January 1932. A federal survey marker ("MY0121—GROVERS") was set in the roof of the southernmost of the three fire control buildings at the fort in line at the northern end of Battery Winthrop. The marker on the "BC" (battery control) structure is roughly indicated on the 1921 map. Gun No. 3 (the most westerly one) of Battery Winthrop was about 120 ft. southeast of this marker, and the line between this gun and Gun No. 1 (the most easterly one) was 270 ft. in length.

Coast Guard radio station

The

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

radio station at Fort Heath (

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

"NMF") opened on 12 November 1931, and was initially used for testing "traffic…relayed from

Point Bonita Point Bonita Lighthouse is a lighthouse located at Point Bonita at the San Francisco Bay entrance in the Marin Headlands near Sausalito, California. Point Bonita was the last manned lighthouse on the California coast. It was added to the National ...

, California." The station had three 50-foot masts in 1934 (e.g., "Heath Northwest Radio Mast") but as a trial for determining if Navy facilities could instead handle USCG radio traffic, the "station at Winthrop" closed from 1934 to 1936. Subsequently, operating "until 1939 when the site was taken over by the Army", the USCG equipment "relocated to a former intelligence monitoring station at North Truro, Massachusetts."

AA Battery No. 4

Antiaircraft Battery No. 4 was designated in 1935 after the third gun pad was constructed in 1934 for 3-inch (76 mm) AA guns. The first two gun pads were built during World War I. The three emplacements were south of a surveillance radar and west of the "Theo. Winthrop" foundations, and the three guns were approved on 8 January 1942 to be moved to

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 ...

Navy Field Test Station

The United States Navy Field Test Station, Fort Heath, was established by 1938 and included a

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

research facility for " fire-control systems" (

cf. The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...

Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...

radar research at the Twin Lights station at the New Jersey Highlands).

AMTB Battery 945

Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat Battery 945 at the eastern tip of Fort Heath ( covered the northern harbor approaches with a pair of 90 mm Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat (AMTB) guns, and the HHB 3rd Battalion of the 9th Coast Artillery Regiment was activated at Fort Heath on 1 June 1941. From September–November 1941 the camouflage training school for the First Coast Artillery District was conducted by the Corps of Engineers at Fort Heath. Gun No. 1 () was north of the second gun, and Battery 945 was declared surplus on 28 December 1943 (a very large apartment building is on the Battery 945 position.)

Cold War radar station

The

Fort Heath radar station The Fort Heath radar station was a USAF radar site and US Army Missile Master installation of the joint-use site system (JUSS) for North American Air Defense at a former coastal defense site. The Cold War radar station had 2 USAF AN/FPS-6B ...

was a NORAD Control Center of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

and

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

from 1960–9 for coordinating interceptors of the Boston Air Defense Sector and

Project Nike Project Nike (Greek: Νίκη, "Victory") was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft mi ...

surface-to-air missiles of the Boston and Providence Defense Areas. From 1959 to 1962 the 820th Radar Squadron, which was renamed an Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron in 1961, operated the Air Force portion of the facility. The station also had an

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

ARSR-1A

Air Route Surveillance Radar The Air Route Surveillance Radar is used by the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to control airspace within and around the borders of the United States. The ARSR-4 is the FAA's most recent (late 1980s, early 1990s) ...

, and the air defense control site was demolished in 1969 (the bunker remained in 1971), and after a Rhode Island AN/TSQ-51 had opened by 1 July 1970,

Project Concise Project Concise was a United States Army program to close military installations after the Vietnam War. The closures included Nike missile launch sites and command posts including Highlands Army Air Defense Site, Fort Lawton, Fort MacArthur, Fort ...

closed the remaining Nike batteries in 1974.

Small Park

The FAA operated the ARSR-1 until the mid-to-late 1990s, and by 2005, the "Fort Heath property" acquired by the town had been converted to a municipal park. The fort land is a

Formerly Used Defense Site Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS or FDS) are properties that were owned by, leased to, or otherwise possessed by the United States and under the jurisdiction of the United States Secretary of Defense. The term also refers to the U.S. military pro ...

(MA19799F184300).

References

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External links

Fort Heath at FortWiki.comList of all US coastal forts and batteries
at the Coast Defense Study Group, Inc. website
FortWiki, lists most CONUS and Canadian forts
{{FmrMAForts Installations of the U.S. Army in Massachusetts Coastal artillery installations of the United States Army Winthrop, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

World War I sites in the United States World War II sites in the United States Demolished buildings and structures in Massachusetts