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Horace Knowles slowly walks the sands of Cape Henlopen State Park. He stops for a moment, closes his eyes and slips back in time to 1941 – to the first days of Fort Miles.
A smile comes over his face and tears well up in his eyes. The World War II fort, carved out of the sands of the park, was his home for almost four years. Key to East Coast defenses, the fort was heavily fortified with artillery and a sophisticated mine-laying operation.
In his mind’s eye, where he is standing near the bathhouse, he can see his unit’s four gun mounts. Across the parking lot, which was nothing more than sand dunes then, he can see barracks. He can see the ocean clearly from each of the gun mounts located several hundred yards from the shoreline; today large sand dunes and pine trees block the view.
Sand and time have taken a toll on the remnants of the fort, including the gun mounts.
“There is so much history here and so much that is not being told,” he said. “I want the true facts about Fort Miles known.”
Knowles, 87, grew up in the Seaford area and now lives in Lewes. He was stationed at Fort Miles from 1941 to 1944. In fact, he helped build the fort as one of the first soldiers to arrive in April 1941.
Thanks to the efforts of people like Gary Wray, Fort Miles Historical Association president, and Lee Jennings, chief of cultural resources for Delaware State Parks, Fort Miles is starting to come back to life.
But there is one piece of the restoration of the fort that has extra-special meaning to Knowles.
He is on a mission to help preserve four gun mounts he and other members of the 261st Coastal Artillery manned 24 hours a day during the war. The concrete mounts are in the vicinity of the present-day park bathhouse close to the parking lot.
Knowles, who had a building background, helped construct the mounts. During the war, 155-mm guns were in place on the mounts aimed out at the ocean.
Since the war, a boardwalk for beach access from the bathhouse was constructed over top of gun mount No. 1, which was the site of the main gun where Knowles was stationed.
Knowles said permission has been granted to begin work to restore all but one of the mounts. Most of the work will require digging out sand and clearing away brush to uncover all of the large, concrete mounts.
He wants a small trail cut to connect the mounts from the parking lot to the bathhouse. And Knowles wants permission extended to restore all gun mounts – including No. 3. “I’m fighting to get this one restored as well,” he said.
Knowles, who has been doing some work himself to clear dead brush away from the mounts, wants the project completed as soon as possible because his own clock is ticking. He wants the work to progress faster.
“I’m not sure when the good Lord is going to call me. If I could see these four gun mounts restored, I would be able to go peaceful,” he said.
“It looks like if the work is going to get done, I will have to push it.” It’s not that he isn’t grateful for what has taken place so far and what is in the works today – the formation of a museum at Battery 519.
“I can never express how much I appreciate what Gary Wray and Lee Jennings have done,” he said. “The least I can do is devote some of my time.”
Wray said one workday has taken place and another will be scheduled in the near future.
“These things move slow, but they move,” Wray said. “You have to understand these mounts do not belong to us; they belong to the state.”
Wray said the association has been meeting with state officials for months to coordinate efforts to begin a serious restoration project. A workday to restore mount No. 4, the one closest to the parking lot, will be announced during the association’s annual meeting at 10 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 6, at the Biden Center in the park. Historical signage is also in the works to explain the significance of the gun mounts.
Wray said tons of sand would have to be removed, requiring some heavy equipment.
“I know Horace wants all four mounts restored,” Wray said. “We will do No. 4 first and then see what happens after that.”
Wray said he understands Knowles’ urgency as he approaches the project.
Knowles has spent more time alone at the park the past few weeks than he has the past 60 years. “I’ve had a lot of time to think and ask myself why am I doing this?”
The answer was clear. “I have to do it for the 261st and all my friends who are now gone. I want them all to be remembered,” he said. He also wants people to understand the historical significance the 261st played in the defense of the country. Knowles is convinced the four 155-mm guns played a pivotal role in the defense of the East Coast. “Hitler knew about our defenses, knew we had these guns here and they were a big part in the reason he never attacked the East Coast.” he said.
Horace Knowles played a rold in Fort Miles' history
When Horace Knowles arrived at what was to become Fort Miles in April 1941, he was part of a 40-man crew sent from Fort DuPont for a three-day training mission. Those three days turned into nearly four years for Knowles and many others of the 261st Coastal Artillery unit. With no running water and no electricity, the men slept in pup tents awaiting the arrival of the rest of the unit and more supplies. Slowly, the area began to look more like a military fort as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved in to begin construction. But the first winter, the unit was forced to sleep in tents with wooden floors and sides with heat provided by pot-bellied stoves. “It was a long, cold and windy winter,” Knowles recalls.
Knowles and his squad helped to construct the wooden floors and sides to make the tents more secure for winter weather.
Mornings were spent training and afternoons were spent on construction details. “But we were always on alert and we manned the guns all night long,” he said. Because of his building background, Knowles helped to construct targets and ammunition dumps. His unit even helped to build the railroad into the park. “We helped carry rails and drove the spikes,” he said.
Knowles said by 1944 it was obvious that Germany was not going to attack the East Coast, and he asked for a transfer to the fighting in Europe. He was sent to Fort Bragg where he trained to fire one of the Army’s biggest mobile guns, a 240-mm howitzer, comparable to a 16-inch gun. In Europe, he was assigned to Gen. George C. Patton’s 3rd Army, but because the guns were so cumbersome and Patton was on the move to Germany so fast, Knowles’ squad could not keep pace, and he was reassigned to the 7th Army.
He never got to fire the big guns and instead was assigned to mop-up duty to capture German prisoners and confiscate arms and munitions. After the war ended, Knowles was stuck at the port of Calais, France, for two months because of a dock strike in the United States. Then on the way home aboard an English Victory Ship, the Exchequer, everyone got sick from bad turkey prepared for a Thanksgiving feast aboard ship.
People who know about Fort Miles history are aware of the surrender of the German submarine U-858 on May 14, 1945. There is much documentation and many photographs of the event.
Knowles said there was another incident involving a submarine that surfaced in the area of Fort Miles. “But to this day, there is no record of it,” he said.
Knowles said he thinks the submarine was first detected as it tried to enter Delaware Bay and tripped off the electronic mines. He said for some reason, permission to fire the mines was not granted until the following day, and the sub was long gone.
However, the next day two U.S. Navy destroyers began to drop depth charges off the coast and a Navy blimp with radar equipment began a search for the sub.
Knowles said it was located off the coast of Bethany Beach and it surfaced and surrendered. “It was Italian, not German,” he said.
A Navy tugboat hooked on to the sub and towed it along the coast and then up the Delaware Bay. That was the last anyone heard of it. No details were ever released, as far he knows, about the incident.
SHOT FIRED - Knowles said many shots were fired during training, and only one very unique ship was fired on.
All ships were required to provide identification as they approached the mouth of the Delaware Bay. In late 1942, one ship did not answer the Navy’s Morse code request for information.
Knowles said their orders were to fire two warning shots and then sink the vessel.
“We fired a shot over the top and the ship came to a complete stop,” Knowles said. “We flipped on the search lights and the crew was on the deck waving sheets.”
It was a Polish ship carrying supplies to Philadelphia and was manned by an all-woman crew.
“The only ship fired on was a Polish ship of women,” Knowles said with a chuckle.
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