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Fort Barry: Battery Elmer J. Wallace
 

 Entrance to Gun Number 1, October 2000
 
This battery seems to part of the hillside, but was originally constructed as an open firing platform in 1919. The Endicott period Model 1895A4 12 inch coastal rifles mounted on the more modern Model 1917 Carriage extended the range of the older gun from eight miles to 17 miles.
 
The battery was named after Colonel Elmer J. Wallace, a Coast Artillery Officer who was killed in France in 1918.
 
The threat of aerial attack led the Army to develop overhead cover for the battery's two guns. Between 1942 and 1944 the battery was casemated with a steel reinforced concrete ceiling and covered with blast absorbing earth and camouflaging vegetation.
 
By 1948, Battery Elmer J. Wallace was considered obsolete. The Army abandoned it and scraped its massive guns.
 
For more information concerning this battery, CLICK HERE
Layout of Battery Elmer J. Wallace, June 1921
Battery Wallace, 1940
 

 Left. Gun #1 firing during training in 1940. Right. Crewmen waiting to reload the 12 inch gun. Photographs courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library
 
Layout of Battery Elmer J. Wallace, October 1943

 

 

 

 

. Drawing courtesy of Mark Bernow, Coast Defense Study Group
 
Battery Wallace Today
 

 Battery Elmer J. Wallace from Battery Mendell. The administrative area for Nike Site 88L is in the foreground. It is now a YMCA facility. October 2000

 

Casemated positions for guns 1 and 2. October 2000 
 
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