page_title: Fort Miley Military Reservation
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Miley Military Reservation / World War II
caption_attribution_description: Octagonal building, Fort Miley Military Reservation, San Francisco, California, USA
context_page_description: The Fort Miley Military Reservation, in San Francisco, California, sits on Point Lobos, one of the outer headlands on the southern side of the Golden Gate. Much of the site is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, while the grounds and buildings that were converted into the San Francisco VA Medical Center are administered by the Veterans Health Administration of the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
context_section_description: By 1937, the army had decided that 12-inch batteries such as Chester should be abandoned when the harbor defenses could again be modernized with a new generation of defenses. However, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the Second World War before the new modernization project was completed and Battery Chester's guns continued to play an important role in coastal defense until 1943. The Allied victories in the Pacific War that year reduced the danger of an enemy attack on San Francisco to such an extent that the army ordered Battery Chester's guns be salvaged.
  Battery 243 (Construction Number) at Fort Miley was completed in 1944, designed for two 6-inch rapid-fire guns protected by steel shields rather than the traditional concrete-and-earth parapets. This type of coastal gun was considered to be of value at that late date in the war because of its function to cover the submarine minefields outside the Golden Gate, making minesweeping by the enemy difficult if not impossible. Its guns were not mounted until 1948, after most other types of coastal guns had been scrapped. This battery is historically significant because it represents one of the last phases of the traditional concept of coastal defense.
  The fort's garrison included Battery F, 18th Coast Artillery from November 1941 through April 1944.
caption: Octagonal building, Fort Miley grounds
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