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:''Distinguish from Fort Andrew, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA.'' Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast Defenses of Boston, Massachusetts.〔Construction dates and structure or battery details used in this article come from period documents such as Quartermaster's records and Army Engineers Reports of Completed Works (RCWs), as reproduced from National Archives originals and distributed on DVD by the (Coast Defense Study Group ), 2010.〕 It occupies the entire northeast end of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor. 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. 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. The fort was named after Maj. Gen. George Leonard Andrews, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. By the 1920s, Fort Andrews consisted of some 30 structures (see map at left, below), ranging from large brick barracks buildings that housed over 100 soldiers each to elegant officers' quarters and a 50-bed hospital. The fort even had a radio transmitting station, one of the Army's earliest. Fort Andrews was one of two forts of this size in Boston Harbor,〔Fort Warren, on Georges Island, also covered a large area, but most of its structures were obsolete, dating from the pre-Civil War era.〕 the other being Fort Strong, on Long Island, and after the demolition of almost all of Fort Strong's wooden structures in about 2005 to make way for a children's camp, Fort Andrews is now the sole survivor of its type in Massachusetts. In 2010, most of these structures are seriously dilapidated or in danger of collapse, and Peddocks Island, normally reachable by ferry from Hull, was temporarily closed to the public. The island was reopened on July 8, 2011 The fort was active prior to and during World War I and, after having been put on maintenance status ("mothballed"), was brought back into action again during World War II. In 1942 the fort's massive coast defense mortars were scrapped, but its 6-inch and 3-inch guns served out the war guarding the southern approaches to Boston Harbor. In 1946, Ft. Andrews was decommissioned by the Army, and in the 1970s, it was purchased, along with the rest of Peddocks Island, by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.〔A few retired non-commissioned Army officers were permitted to continue to occupy quarters at the fort late into the last century, but today there is only one year-round resident on the island.〕 ==Armament== In its heyday, the fort's armament was impressive. Fort Andrews was the site of one of Boston Harbor's two coast defense mortar batteries, 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.〔This was also the design that was used to build Boston's other two mortar batteries, at Fort Banks in Winthrop, MA. For a discussion of the Abbott Quad and an inventory and discussion of all U.S. coast defense mortar batteries, see "Analysis of Seacoast Mortar Battery Design Types (1890-1925), by Thomas Vaughan, Version 1.0. Stoughton. MA 27 February 2004.〕 With a range of 7 miles, these batteries could in fact have reached both the northern and southern channels into the harbor, interlocking with the fire of the Ft. 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 12 12-inch coast defense mortars, able to bombard the southern approaches to the harbor with projectiles weighing over 1000 lbs. each. Three of the mortar pits are still visible. The fourth (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.〔On the map above, the four mortar pits are indicated by small rectangles, each with four dots(indicating the planned number of mortars) within it.〕 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 the two 6-inch guns of Battery McCook and the 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.〔Before the causeway to Long Island was constructed, ships could pass between Moon Island and Deer Island. These passages were protected by anti-ship and anti-submarine booms during World War II.〕 The gun emplacements can still be seen, but they are seriously deteriorated and somewhat dangerous to visit. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Andrews」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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