Fort Miles gun was used for secret research
Story Location:
Cape Henlopen Drive
Lewes, DE
United States
A World War II model M2 90mm anti-aircraft gun is the newest addition to the Fort Miles Artillery Park in Cape Henlopen State Park. Delivered on March 30, the gun will first be restored and then moved to the artillery park.
A partnership between Delaware's Division of Parks and Recreation and the Fort Miles Historical Association brought the gun to the park. Volunteers from the association will restore the gun near Battery Smith behind the Biden Center; work is expected to be completed by this fall.
The gun came from the collection at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum, Md., which determined the Fort Miles Artillery Park was the best-suited location for permanent placement because of its reputation for communicating and interpreting history.
Gary Wray, president of the Fort Miles Historical Association, said when he first came to the area in the 1960s, he saw National Guard troops firing the guns during training exercises on the sands of Bethany Beach.
This type of 32,000-pound anti-aircraft gun was used on ships in both the European and Pacific theaters during World War II. It could fire both high-explosive and armor-piercing shells weighing 24 pounds at a rate of about 25 rounds per minute. The projectiles were capable of hitting land- or water-based targets up to 11 miles away. The shells could also hit aircraft flying up to 34,000 feet in the air.
Wray said the guns were also critical during the fight against Japanese kamikazes toward the end of the war.
Unlike replica-guns on display in the park, the M2 is the only type of gun that was actually used at Fort Miles, said Jim Hall, chief of cultural resources for the Division of Parks and Recreation.
He said the guns were used at the fort for secret research, testing a detonation device called a proximity fuze, technology Gen. George Patton said was second in importance only to the atomic bomb.
Hall said a radio transmitter inside the “fuze” of an artillery shell sent out and received radio signals, constantly calculating distance – proximity – so that the shell would detonate when it was near a plane or tank instead of making direct contact with the target. Fort Miles served as the proving ground for this highly classified technology before it was used in battle.
Wray said 12 of the 90mm guns in groups of four were stationed on the beach at Fort Miles.
The artillery park is missing only one gun from its arsenal, Wray said. Volunteers have located a 1917-1918 105mm gun at a VFW Post in Pennsylvania. “They are pretty attached to it, but we will see if we can work something out,” Wray said.
