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Army’s Coast Artillery guarded nation’s shores

Before aircraft and missiles defended the U.S. against attack, the chief weapon guarding America’s Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts was the Army’s Coast Artillery branch. Coast Artillery soldiers served with pride and were distinct from the separate Field Artillery branch.

In the 19th century, the Army saw improvements in its artillery guns. This meant that training given to soldiers manning fortress batteries was very different from that given artillerymen in the field. After the Spanish-American War, the Army decided it needed a Coast Artillery branch.

Russell F. Weigley wrote in “History of the United States Army” (New York: MacMillan, 1967) that in 1901, Congress dissolved the existing artillery regiments “to make way for an artillery ‘corps’ of 30 batteries of field artillery and 126 companies of coast artillery.” After that change, artillerists could be assigned to either branch.

Some soldiers had a preference for the fluidity of action and the mobility of field, mountain and horse units. Others were drawn to the predictable nature of duty with the stationary guns in Coast Artillery forts. Most officers and many enlisted men who chose Coast Artillery received their training at Fort Monroe, Va., which operated the Coast Artillery School from 1907 to 1946.

In 1916, Congress passed a National Defense Act that called for the expansion of the Coast Artillery Corps to 263 companies over five years. After the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, however, it became clear that the United States was unlikely to be attacked from the sea.

Maj. Gen. Erasmus Weaver, the chief of Coast Artillery, proposed his branch take responsibility for developing and operating large-caliber mobile artillery. In October 1917, the Coast Artillery Corps took over the antiaircraft artillery mission.

The National Defense Act of 1920 maintained the Coast Artillery’s importance in the Army as one of the four combat arms, together with infantry, cavalry and field artillery. When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, more than 10 percent of the Army’s total strength was in the Coast Artillery. As it soon became apparent that Germany and Japan would not attack America’s coasts, the Coast Artillery Corps focused on its antiaircraft mission.

During World War II, Army antiaircraft artillerymen were critical in defending London against the German V-1 pilotless “buzz” bomb, and played a major role in defending the Remagen Bridge in March 1945. But as the Army Air Forces expanded and the Allies achieved air superiority, antiaircraft artillery units were used more and more to support ground units.

Even before the end of World War II, carrier-based aviation and long-range bombers had made coast-based fixed artillery obsolete. After a board of officers recommended that Coast Artillery and Field Artillery be merged, the Coast Artillery Corps was dissolved in January 1950.

Although the Coast Artillery has been gone for more than 50 years, artillery was only briefly a combat arm; during the Vietnam War, the Army divided its artillery branch into air defense artillery and field artillery.

Fred L. Borch retired from the Army after 25 years and is the regimental historian for the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. His e-mail address is borchfj@aol.com. Robert F. Dorr, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.