Beginning at the Golden Gate Bridge toll
plaza and extending southward along the bluffs at the northwestern
edge of the Presidio of San Francisco are five post-Endicott
Board (1885) seacoast defense batteries. They include some of
the earliest Endicott-type artillery defenses of San Francisco
Bay. When begun, and for some time after completion, these batteries
remained unnamed, and during construction were known simply by
emplacement numbers assigned by the New York Board of Engineers
in preparing the first Endicott-type plan for San Francisco Bay
in 1890. The defenses of San Francisco were nationally second
in priority, preceded only by those of New York Harbor. Sequentially
the first five emplacements were to be five 10-inch guns mounted
on the bluff above Fort Point. These were never built.
Early in 1892 excavation began for emplacements
14, 15 and 16 of the 1890 plan, to mount three 12-inch rifles
on barbette carriages. Three old magazines of Battery West dating
from the 1870s were broken up to be embedded in the new concrete,
but four others were left intact Battery Godfrey was finished
in 1896, the first Endicott-type battery to be completed in the
defenses of San Francisco Bay. It was transferred to the heavy
artillery on August 19, 1896. Its Model 1888 breech-loading rifles
were all manufactured at Watervliet Arsenal, serial numbers 9,
6 and 4, and were mounted on Watertown Arsenal non-disappearing
or 'barbette' carriages serial numbers 6, 3 and 2, respectively.
The battery was named on February 14, 1902 in honor of Captain
George J. Godfrey, 22nd Infantry, killed in action at Cavite
on Luzon in the Philippine Islands in 1899. Like Battery Cranston's
'disappearing' guns, the guns at Battery Godfrey were in place
throughout World War I, two decades of peace, and over a year
of World War II before being removed in 1943.
For more information on Battery Godfrey,
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Battery Godfrey's
Gun Number 1. Photgraph courtesy of Craig Hegdahl
Battery
Godfrey's gun number 2 and crew. Photgraph courtesy of Bolling
Smith
Gun number
2 firing. Photgraph courtesy of Craig Hegdahl
Layout
of Battery Godfrey, 1919
Drawings
Courtesy of Mark Bernow
Battery
Godfrey Today
Gun 3's emplacement
undgoing restoration. October 2000
Emplacement
for guns 2 (foreground) and 1 (background). October 2000
California State Military
Department
