Proceedings of the Board of Engineers: 1887-1905

The National Archives Record Group 392 includes four classes of record books that are from coast defenses installations. These were the official record books maintained at the various sites, with information on commanders, names of sites, and fire control systems. They are: Battery Emplacement Books, Fort Record Books, Fort Record Book Files (supplements to the Fort Record Books), Mine Command Record Books. Very few of these have been copied.

These typescript documents were prepared by the defense commands following WW II. They contain a wealth of information on Coast Artillery troop deployments on the east, gulf and west coasts during the war. Never formally published, only a few copies of each have survived in the military libraries, such as Carlisle Barracks. These are currently available from the CDSG ePress.

• History of the Eastern Defense Command
• History of the Southern Defense Command
• History of the Western Defense Command

Drill Regulations for Coast Artillery, United States Army (1898, 1906, 1909, 1914), Govt. Printing Off., Washington, D.C. One of the early drill manuals published by the War Department specifically on seacoast defenses, these manuals outline the procedures used to fire the guns and operate the equipment used by the Coast Artillery Corps, including general principles, assignment of personnel, formations, command structure, fire control, gun drills, emplacement instructions, target practice, searchlights, communication, apparatus and instruments, care of materiel, definition of terms, and exams for gunners. Photocopy reprints of the 1914 Drill Regulations are available from Military-Info.com. A PDF version is available form the CDSG ePress.Manual for Submarine Mining (1898, 1912, 1926, 1930): A manual of procedures for the handing of submarine mines was developed 1890s and revised several times. A PDF version is available form the CDSG ePress.

Training Regulations (separate series, TR 435 coast artillery) 1920’s. These individually printed chapters replaced the book-bound “Drill Regulations” in the 1920s. These “TRs” were designed to be assembled into binders and could be “custom assembled” based on the interests of the individual officer or enlisted man. Photocopies of several Training Regulations are available from Military/Info Publishing. PDF versions of a few of these titles are available from the CDSG ePress.

Field Manuals and Training Manuals: The beginning in the late 1920s the army manual system was overhauled, redone, and printed as Field Manuals (FM) and Technical Manuals (TM), all part of the Army Manual system. A fairly complete set of original FMs and TMs are housed at Carlisle Barracks. Photocopies of several coast artillery FMs and TMs are available from Military/Info Publishing. A partial PDF list of coast artillery FMs and coast artillery TMs can be downloaded here by clicking the links: a list of Coast Artillery Field Manuals titles (FMlist.pdf (9K)), and a list of Coast Artillery Training Manual titles (TMlist.pdf (8K)). PDF versions of a few of these titles are available from the CDSG ePress.

Coast Artillery Tables of Organization and Equipment (TOEs): TABLES OF ALLOWANCES, TABLES OF BASIC ALLOWANCES, TABLES OF EQUIPMENT, TABLES OF ORGANIZATION / ORGANIZATION & EQUIPMENT. The CDSG ePress has a series of PDF files that have been copied from the National Archives.

Ordnance Department Documents: The Ordnance Department published a series of specific handbooks on the various weapons used by the US Army. Ordnance Department Document (ODD) No. 1467 is has a list of these pamphlets. A fairly complete collection of these documents are in the holdings of Carlisle Barracks and at the National Archives in RG-287 (Records of the Government Printing Office). Photocopies of several Ordnance Department Documents are available from Military/Info Publishing. A partial PDF list of coast artillery ODD titles is available here by clicking the link (ODDlist.pdf (18K). PDF versions of a couple of these titles are available form the CDSG ePress.

Ordnance Dept. Gun and Carriage Cards: These cards, organized by caliber with individual entries by serial number, contain information on the transfer (from location to location) and often the ultimate fate (scrapped, sent to a town, sent to the proving ground, etc.) of individual guns and carriages during their service life. The cards cover roughly the period 1900-1945. The files are organized by caliber both for guns and carriages: 3-, 4-, 4.7-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 10-, 12-, 12 (M)-, 14-, 16-inch guns. The CDSG ePress has a series of PDF files that have been copied from the National Archives.

Journal of the United States Artillery (1892-1922)
Coast Artillery Journal (1922-1948).
Antiaircraft Journal (1948-1954).

These publications were the professional journals for the artillery and coast artillery. They have a wide variety of news, history, and technical articles on US Coast Artillery. Complete sets are hard to find, but some of the larger libraries have some copies. Issues often turn up at used book sales. The CAJ was originally published by the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and later by the United States Coast Artillery Association. The Journal also published a series of 12 Gunner’s Instruction Pamphlets, which covered all aspects of antiaircraft, fixed and mobile artillery and submarine mining. In 1948 the Journal was renamed the Antiaircraft Journal, which was last published in 1954. A complete set of PDFs of the Coast Artillery Journal is now online.

In the National Archives Record Group 407, Records of the Adjutant Generals Office, 1917-, Entry 366, are filed the annexes to the various Harbor Defense Projects of the 1920s to 1940s. A Harbor Defense Project was a written document which described all existing and projected harbor defense elements, including structures, first prepared in 1932-33. Annexes to Harbor Defense Projects were published to update these projects in 1934-37. These projects and annexes were then used by the Local Board Proceedings, Modernization Program Harbor Defenses in 1941-42. Finally Supplements to the Harbor Defense Projects were prepared 1943-44 and updated 1945-46 which superceded the previously issued Annexes and Local Board Proceedings. The supplements detail the progress on the construction of the new 1940s modernization program defenses with descriptions and a set of maps that showed where these new structures were located, the field of fire of the guns, radar coverage, etc. The supplements provide extensive detailed information on all tactical and physical aspects of the harbor defenses on the date of the supplement, both existing and proposed, and a number of exhibits detailing the locations of elements.

The supplements follow a format consisting of the following items:
Annex A- Armament.
Annex B- Fire Control.
Annex C- Seacoast Searchlights.
Annex D- Underwater Defense.
Annex E- Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Harbor Defense).
Annex F- Gas Defense.
Annex G- Equipment.
Annex H- Real Estate Required.

These supplements contain specific information on each of the items cited above and contain a number of detailed maps and drawings. Exhibits included fields of fire for the major batteries, tactical organization charts, ammunition allowances, location maps, site maps, cable routings, and various appendices. These provide an excellent place to find very specific information on a given harbor defense during the World War II years.

The CDSG ePress has PDF files, indicated by an * of the complete Supplements to the Harbor Defense Projects from 1944-46 and few of the Projects and Annexes.

Reports of completed batteries (RCBs) and reports of completed works (RCWs) were forms used by the Corps of Engineers to document seacoast fortification structures and other buildings related to coast defense. RCBs were in use from 1903 until RCWs were created in 1919. Reports of completed works (RCWs) were created by a circular letter issued by the chief of engineers, Eben E. Winslow, on January 30, 1919. It prescribed that all data that would be submitted on seven forms referred to as reports of completed works. The main difference in the RCW compared to the RCB was the separation of data onto different forms. RCWs were in use from 1919 until the coast artillery was disbanded in 1950. These forms contain vary specific information on the construction and physical characteristics of seacoast fortification structures built by the USACE.A brief description of the content of each of those seven forms, which changed remarkably little over the next 30 years, follows:

Form 1 all important data relating to an individual battery
Form 2 details of fire control and torpedo structures
Form 3 details of mine wharfs and tramways
Form 4 details of searchlights (a separate sheet for each light)
Form 5 details of electric plants
Form 6 existing Engineer Department structures
Form 7 a blueprint of the battery (A fairly complete set of battery drawings is now on the CDSG Pubs CD)

RCWs also allowed for greater detail in documenting different elements of coast defenses than the RCB. Both are essential documents in the study of modern U.S. coast defenses. Copies of these forms are located in various holdings of the National Archives system. A number of these documents have been duplicated by various researchers over the years.

The CDSG ePress has a series of PDF files of the RCWs that have been copied from the National Archives.

The first series of maps (1900-1935) was reproduced as negatives from a master positive in blueprint style, and as they were classified “confidential” by the War Department, they became known as “confidential blueprints.” As they were updated frequently, maps of different dates provide a snapshot of what structures were on a given military reservation on a given date. The confidential blueprint series of maps has general maps of each defended harbor, and general maps of each of the forts and military reservations in the harbor defense. If it was warranted, larger scale maps of parts of some forts were also included. These were labeled “D” for “detail” and followed in series, D-1, D-2, D-3, etc., as required. These maps show the location of batteries, various components of the fire control and communication system, mine facilities, and all the post buildings. Identification of each structure was shown by name, symbol, abbreviation, or number. A complete update of these maps was performed during the years 1920-1922, just after the major construction projects of the Endicott and Taft programs were completed, but before some of the smaller harbor defense areas were eliminated. The 1922 collection contains about 290 maps of 29 harbor areas. A complete set of the maps collected in 1922 has been found and reproduced from the National Archives. These have been scanned into electronic format (along with some additional map sets of various dated in the 1930s and 1940s) and are available as downloadable PDF files on the CDSG database page. They are also available from CDSG ePress. Many other maps in this series, some initially drawn in the first decade of the 1900s, were updated over the years up to the late 1930s. The dates are noted in the series in the upper left hand corner of the maps. The new Harbor Defense Modernization Program begun in 1940 brought with it a new series of confidential, or secret, blueprint maps.