Salisbury Beach Military Reservation was a coastal defense site located in

Salisbury, Massachusetts Salisbury is a small coastal beach town and summer tourist destination in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of Boston on the New Hampshire borde ...

.Salisbury Beach Base-End Station and 155 mm Gun Battery at American Forts Network
/ref>

History

The Salisbury Beach Military Reservation was built on state land in 1941. Its mission was to protect the

Merrimack River The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into M ...

and Newburyport Harbor from possible air and naval attack. The site had four "

Panama mount The Panama Mount is a form of gun mount for fixed coastal artillery developed by the U.S. Army in Panama during the 1920s. Widely used during the buildup to and during World War II by the United States military, it was typically equipped with ...

s" (circular concrete platforms) for four towed 155 mm guns. It never fired its guns in anger, though it did play an important part in the defense of the harbor. It was initially 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 co ...

(HD Boston). A handwritten note on the

US Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

' Report of Completed Works indicates it was transferred to the

Harbor Defenses of Portsmouth The Harbor Defenses of Portsmouth was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine from 1900 to 1950, ...

with the construction of a

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 ...

structure supporting

Fort Dearborn Fort Dearborn was a United States fort, first built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by U.S. troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secre ...

, which was part of those defenses. Battery F of the 9th Coast Artillery Regiment initially garrisoned Salisbury Beach on 2 October 1941, and was redesignated Battery C on 10 October 1941. The gun mounts were north of the Merrimack River's mouth. Construction began on 18 April 1942, and the mountings were transferred to the operating forces on 7 July 1942. Two of the weapons were removed in November 1943. The fire control structure was designated Location 137B, was designed to resemble a beach house, and was completed in October 1943. It was north of the intersection of Route 1A and the coast road, in front of the line of beach houses. It provided target data to the guns of Battery Seaman at Fort Dearborn as Base-End Station No. 4. The building had three stories and a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

on the roof. The cupola was an observation post for the

Anti-Aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...

Intelligence Service. The upper floor was the base-end station, the middle floor had a fire control switchboard, and the ground floor's function is unclear; it was possibly barracks space. Other fire control sites for HD Portsmouth in Massachusetts were at Plum Island,

Crane Beach Crane Beach is a conservation and recreation property located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, immediately north of Cape Ann. It consists of a four-mile-long (6 km) sandy beachfront, dunes, and a maritime pitch pine forest. Five and a half miles ...

, and Halibut Point.Halibut Point Base-End Station at American Forts Network
/ref> The latter two were shared with HD Boston, and only the last remains. The reservation was returned to the Commonwealth in 1945; the fire control station became a

Massachusetts State Police The Massachusetts State Police (MSP) is an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, responsible for law enforcement and vehicle regulation across the state. As of 2024, it has 2,500 sworn troop ...

barracks until it was destroyed by a storm on 2 April 1958.

The site today

Today the site is home to Salisbury Beach State Reservation, a recreational beach. Two of the mounts are sometimes visible after storms; the other two are buried (as of 1978).

References

*
Gaines, William C., Coast Artillery Organizational History, 1917-1950, ''Coast Defense Journal'', vol. 23, issue 2
*

External links

List 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 United States Army in Massachusetts Salisbury, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Essex County, Massachusetts Military installations established in 1941 Military installations closed in 1945

History

The site today

See also

References

External links