Battery B, 249th Coast Artillery group photo, taken at Ashland Oregon NG Armory, 1940

[agate hunter]

This is one of my favorite group photos I have.

I like to collect items related to the Harbor Defenses of the Columbia River, primarily the 18th Coast Artillery and 249th Coast Artillery (which was an Oregon National Guard unit).

The forts of the HDCR was Fort Stevens, Oregon, and Forts Canby and Columbia across the Columbia River in Washington. The 18th Coast Artillery was the regular army unit that served at HDCR, with Headquarters at Fort Stevens, the largest fort in the area. The 18th CA began serving at Ft Stevens February, 1940, taking over a couple batteries of the 3rd Coast Artillery who were caretakers of the forts.

The National Guard was federalized in 1940 due to the national emergency facing the nation when WWII broke out. On September 16, 1940 the 249th Coast Artillery (Oregon National Guard) was federalized. The men of the 249th CA mustered at their respective armories and were shipped out to Camp Clatsop, Oregon for training (Camp Clatsop began in the late 1920s as an Oregon National Guard camp, and was renamed Camp Rilea in the late 1950s. It is still an active ONG post). In February, 1941, the 249th CA was mustered out to Forts Stevens, Canby, and Columbia, joining the ranks of the 18th CA who had already been garrisoning the area for a year.

I have never seen, before this one, a group battery photo of the 249th CA at their armory prior to shipping out to Camp Clatsop for training. This photo was taken outside the Ashland, Oregon National Guard Armory, where Battery B, 249th CA was assigned to.

What makes this photo even more one-of-a-kind though, is that I've met one of the veterans in it several times, who sadly just passed away late last year. He is front row, third from the left. He joined the 249th CA in 1938, and was one of the few men who remained with the unit throughout all of WWII, leaving the military as a Sergeant. He remained in Battery B the whole time, first serving at Fort Canby in 1941, then at Fort Stevens for the rest of the war. Prior to December 1941, B/249th CA trained on 6 inch disappearing guns, then were assigned to the Columbia River examination battery, out on the South Jetty of the Columbia River (the extreme northwestern tip of Oregon) after December 7th. Here they had two 75mm French field guns, and were to fire on any incoming vessels that did not recognize themselves as friendly to the joint Army/Navy manned Harbor Entrance Control Post (HECP, which was inside Battery Mishler at Fort Stevens). By spring 1944, 90mm guns had replaced the 75mm guns at the examination battery.

The veteran I know that is in the photo was at Fort Stevens the night of June 21, 1942 when Japanese submarine I-25 shelled the area in and around Ft Stevens. He was at the barracks on the main post sleeping. He said he slept through most of the shelling at the beginning (which lasted about 15 + minutes, around seventeen 5.5 inch shells were fired), and smelled gun powder in the air when he woke up. The shelling began around 11:20 PM. The Coast Artillery did not fire back on the submarine, though all batteries were ready at their guns. The official word by the commanding officer was that the sub was out of range, but various men at plotting boards in the area said they thought it was within range of their guns and mortars. The commanding officer didn't want to give away any positions of the gun batteries either (which could be seen firing at night easily). The word was not given to fire though. This angered many of the coast artillerymen who had trained hard for such an event. Many put in transfers to other branches, especially the Air Corps, the next few days. Thankfully no soldiers or civilians were hurt during the erratic shelling by the submarine.

The veteran I know in the photo is also a Soldier's Medal recipient, for an act he partook in at the South Jetty at Fort Stevens during a storm in mid January 1944 while on duty. He and five other men and two officers went out on the South Jetty (which had a railway trestle on it), with heavy waves pounding over it, to attempt to rescue a Navy pilot who had crashed into the Columbia River during a training flight. The pilot, Ensign William Walsh, was flying an F4F-F and touched wings with a nearby FM-1, both from Naval Air Station Astoria. Ensign Walsh parachuted into the river, but ultimately did not survive. His body was found two days later. All the Coast Artillery soldiers that tried to rescue him were beaten up by the waves on the rocks of the jetty (most having fallen off the jetty trestle), and ultimately had to save each other when they couldn't help Ensign Walsh. I happen to own the Class A uniform of one of the eight Soldier's Medal recipients from that same action.

Having found this photo on eBay, the fact that I knew one of the men in it made it that much better. It is a great piece of local military history. It measures about 14 inches long, and has all the officer's names written on the back. I believe it belonged to one of the officers in the photo.

 

 

The soldier I knew is front row, third from left. He was a PFC when this photo was taken.

 

 

[agate hunter]

Scan of the photo.

 

 

 

[Eric Queen]

Nice photo and great write up. You clearly have a passion for this subject. The fact that you actually met one of the men in the photos takes it over the top. How many of us can actually say that we knew the men pictured in our photos. I would say not many and the opportunity to do so is getting less and less every day.

 

Thanks again for posting. I know it is not easy to post yard longs.

[agate hunter]

Thanks Eric. I've been studying as much as I can about the HDCR for about five years now, and about Coast Artillery in general. I've met three other HDCR veterans in the last couple years. Since most of them were older men who served in the early 1940s, many of them are older than other WWII veterans, and there are few left today. I hope to find some more and interview them. I spend a lot of time at Fort Stevens and Forts Canby and Columbia, and have spent many nights at Fort Stevens while doing WWII living history. It is great to be able to walk the same ground that all these men did in the past. Both Fort Stevens and Canby have been around since the Civil War, so there is a lot of history there. There is a museum at Fort Stevens with some good items, including one of the only Depression Position Finders left now (one other model is on the east coast). The DPF was an instrument to calculate azimuth and range from an observation station. Last summer I was able to spend a few hours looking at artifacts and photos in the Fort Stevens museum collection, which was great. I hope to be able to do more of that in the future. Currently I'm working on a database for names of soldiers who served in the HDCR, mainly during WWII but before that as well, mainly getting names from menus and unit rosters. I'm about 100 miles from Fort Stevens, and 110 miles from the forts up in Puget Sound. It's a good central location, but if I lived closer to Fort Stevens I'd be spending a lot more time researching in the museum, and in the museum at Fort Columbia.

[12thengr]

Any of these guys recognizable from the Oregon National Guard yearbook of 1939? Got to be a few holdovers from any Company or Battery over a year. Thanks for sharing the picture Aaron.

[agate hunter]

Yes there are a few who are in the 39 yearbook. Capt. Bentley and Lt. Clary are both in this photo and the yearbook. And I recognize some NCOs too.

[sgtpeter]

Hey Aaron - glad you were able to find that yard long, its great connecting faces and names.

[agate hunter]

Thanks Peter.

And Eric, I don't know if you've seen this thread or not, some of my other stuff in my collection. The Staff Sgt uniform of mine, I added the DIs to it for display, and other collar discs. It came with two screwback discs, one with US over 249, and the other one only US, not a crossed cannon CA disc. The bottom photo in the thread of the five men with the Soldier's Medals, was the ceremony for the event I described above. On the far right is the soldier I've met who is in the yard long. The uniform I own is the center soldier in the photo.

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/146878-70th-anniversary-of-the-japanese-shelling-of-fort-stevens-oregon/

[Eric Queen]

Nice items. Do you find there is a lot of interest/competition in this subject or is the field less crowded than others.

 

Here is one of my doggie photos you may find interesting.

[Eric Queen]

Notice the Western Defense Command patch being worn

[agate hunter]

Coast Artillery is definitely less crowded than other areas of collecting, but there are still a few collectors of it out there. Unit specific items are more of a local thing.

Cool photo. From my understanding other branches of the army, like say some infantry units, that are assigned to the Western Defense Command, will wear the WDC patch. I've seen an infantry officer's portrait wearing it and a group of infantryman (don't know where at but probably California as they were in khakis). Units other than infantry and artillery though would have worn the 9th Service Command patches for the west coast, or maybe IX corps patches if they're assigned on the Corps level (I haven't seen photos of IX Corps patches being worn by west coast soldiers, just documents showing that IX Corps men have been assigned to west coast duties, like the temporary harbor defenses of Grays Harbor in WA (which the 249th CA helped with as well).

Many 4th Army units on the west coast switched to the WDC patch later in the war I think. I've seen a group photo of a battery of the 205th Coast Artillery (AA) (WA NG) from 1942 wearing 4th Army patches. The 205th CA (AA) went to Alaska during the war.

[willysmb44]

That is a great photo, and I'm glad you have it in your collection as you have a greater interest in the CA units of Fort Stevens than anyone else I know of.