page_title: Fort Andrews
section_title: Armament
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Andrews / Armament
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of a 6-inch Coast Artillery gun, Model 1900, Barbette Mount.
context_page_description: Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast Defenses of Boston, Massachusetts. Construction began in 1898 and the fort was substantially complete by 1904. The fort was named after Major General George Leonard Andrews, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of nearby Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. It occupies the entire northeast end of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor, and was originally called the Peddocks Island Military Reservation. Once an active Coast Artillery post, it was manned by hundreds of soldiers and bristled with mortars and guns that controlled the southern approaches to Boston and Quincy Bay. The fort also served as a prisoner-of-war camp for Italian prisoners during World War II, who were employed as laborers following the Italian surrender to the Allies in 1943. Today, the fort is abandoned, and is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, as part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.
context_section_description: Fort Andrews' gun and mortar batteries as built were as follows:
  In its heyday, the fort's armament was impressive.  Fort Andrews was the site of one of Boston Harbor's two 12-inch coast defense mortar complexes (the other was Fort Banks), meant to protect the southern approaches to Boston Harbor. The two pits of Battery Whitman at the northwest end of the fort were initially planned to be the first two pits of a four-pit (16-mortar) battery, in a so-called Abbott Quad design. With a range of 7 miles, these batteries could reach both the northern and southern channels into the harbor, interlocking with the fire of Fort Banks' mortars.
  As it was, only two pits (in a north-south alignment) were built for Battery Whitman (Whitman Pit A is the southerly one, with Pit B behind it), and two more, of a slightly different design, became Battery Cushing (built just to the east and in an east-west alignment). When fully equipped, these pits contained 16 12-inch coast defense mortars, able to bombard the southern approaches to the harbor with projectiles weighing over 1,000 pounds (450 kg) each.  Three of the mortar pits are still visible. The fourth (the most easterly of Cushing's two pits — Pit A) has been partially filled with debris from the recent demolition of other structures at the fort. 
  The Boston press reported that when the mortars were test-fired in the 1920, they literally blew doors off of nearby barracks buildings and broke windows at the fort. Island residents also told of the blast from the mortar barrels igniting brush fires on the grassy slopes of the mortar pits.
  In addition, the fort had two 6-inch guns of Battery McCook (and until 1917 two 5-inch guns of Battery Rice) and two 3-inch guns of Battery Bumpus in concrete emplacements at the top of the bluff northeast of the fort, overlooking Nantasket Roads (the main channel to Quincy Bay), the shipyards beyond, and (formerly) the southern entrance to Boston Harbor itself. The gun emplacements can still be seen, but they are seriously deteriorated and somewhat dangerous to visit.
caption: Photo of an M1900 6-inch gun on pedestal mount; Battery McCook had two guns of this type.
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