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Post by Registrar on Aug 28, 2009 16:37:25 GMT 8
Q: WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE OF THE HISTORY AND HERITAGE OF FORT DRUM? ACETYLENE, RUST, or DYNAMITE?
A: NONE OF THE ABOVE. The last time I was at Ft. Drum, the guns were sitting proud. Recent photographs show that they have fallen into the turret pit. Is it that someone is assisting the guns on Drum to collapse? Think of it - the manner in which a gun is affixed to a carriage allows for the transmission of immense forces to the carriage. Just a 18 mths or 2 yrs ago, these barrels/breaches were rock hard fixed in place, now they have collapsed – doesn’t that indicate someone is “assisting” the process by cutting the guns from the carriages? No rust or natural forces could have done this within a few hundred years. The conclusion is that as much as someone is destroying them, NEGLECT is allowing them to be scrapped. We are seeing the theft of what remains of Ft. Drum. Whoever pretends to be in charge of this piece of Heritage is not in charge of it at all. (This is posted as a follow-on of corregidor.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=post&action=display&thread=116 ) which indicates that the problem IS known, and that it IS being neglected.
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Post by mgk1951 on Aug 28, 2009 16:51:52 GMT 8
Hi
In January 2007, I hired a boat with the aid of a fixer friend of my brother-in-law and accompanied by b-in-l’s bodyguard, motored around Fort Drum. Two of the 14 inch gun barrels had already slipped down inside their turret well.
There was a young guy helping with the boat. He suggested that the inside of the turrets had been dynamited to remove scrap. Now that I have seen Karl’s photos of the turret wells, I believe the young guy.
Karl’s photos show the turret wells almost completely empty, except for rust and sheet metal. All the heavy stuff, 100s of tonnes of it is gone. Removing the mountings, upper and lower loading room floors, has lead to the collapse (at least in one turret) of the barrels into the turret well.
Fort Drum and Fort Frank are in the municipal area of Maragondon. I understand the mayor of Maragondon is aware of the historic importance of these two Forts.
Regards
mgk
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Post by fots2 on Aug 28, 2009 21:04:50 GMT 8
I was on Ft. Drum two weeks ago today. There were no obvious signs of fairly recent cutting but then I was not looking for this either. Tons of crumpled and rusted metal are at the bottom of the turret where the guns have collapsed (both collapsed barrels are in the same turret). They may have carted away a lot of metal scrap but they also left a lot.
Do you think mere dynamite would do this much damage inside a turret? This place is built like a fort!!! Ok forget the pun. Perhaps it has deteriorated more than we think or cutting most of the way through load bearing sections then blasting as the final straw makes more sense to me.
The heavier rear end of both barrels is at the bottom for one gun and near the bottom for the second one. This second one still has a short portion of the front of its barrel sticking out of the gun port at a very steep upward angle.
There are collapsed floors in the lower levels apparently due to scrappers work. In a few of my photos I see ‘I’ beams that are cut off.
Soon I will add a pbase album so you can see what Ft. Drum looked like that day. Since some of you guys know this fort better than me, you can tell me what you see in the photos.
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Post by mapmaster on Aug 29, 2009 10:01:29 GMT 8
The heaviest items were the barrels and the mounts. The mounts are gone. These were massive steel items, which contained bronze bushes. The mounts have been cracked off the barrels, perhaps by explosives and probably for the steel and bronze.
Everything that can be cut into pieces is being cut and removed, leaving what we see now – almost nothing. The upper areas of the turret are now cleaned of fittings.
I think we are seeing work in progress here – the remaining steel will go over time.
Regards
mapmaster
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Post by Registrar on Aug 29, 2009 13:00:57 GMT 8
IF A WHISTLE IS BLOWN IN THE FOREST, DOES ANYONE HEAR IT?
This is a process which can only be noticed from a series of visits and a comparison of photographs taken inside Fort Drum – a group of thieves is scraping the guns and turrets of Fort Drum - the barrels did not collapse by virtue of gravity and rust - they have been dynamited from their mountings. Thus collapsed into the turret, where no one can see the process continuing, they are being scrapped piece by piece.
It is a gradual process, a process which cannot be noticed by a single visit alone.
This is not something which happened “ages ago” – it is happening currently, gradually, and very deliberately.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2009 10:06:19 GMT 8
i think the neglect and the scourge of the scrappers emulates the same processes that were seen at fort frank, where the artillery that did survive the war was eventually dismantled. however, the damage to fort drum only became apparent in late 2006. this happened to coincide with two category 5 typhoons which scored direct hits on the metro manila and manila bay areas. this is evidenced by the presence of the guns still mounted in pictures posted in this and other sites dating from mid-2006. however, pictures of fort drum dating from after late-2006 show the guns as having collapsed into the turret. it is likely that because of intensive scrapping of the interior of the turret that the internal structure was severly weakened. nature (vis a vis a typhoon) eventually caused the guns' collapse.
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Post by mgk1951 on Aug 30, 2009 11:36:51 GMT 8
Hi
Each 14 inch M1909 Gun on Fort Drum weighs 69.8 tons (US). The M1909 is quite a heavy weight remembering there are two per turret. The barrels are 40 calibres long and are of wired bound construction.
A gun mount with trunnions and recoil mechanism with springs hold each gun in battery. The recoil mechanism provides 30 tons of force to keep each gun in battery. Disconnect the gun from the recoil mechanism and it will slide back wards in its recoil mechanism until the breech rests against something solid at the back of the turret.
Remove the mounting and gravity takes over. If the mounting and recoil mechanism had come away from the turret front through rust and decay, it should still be situated somewhere on the barrel. In Battery Wilson, they've gone.
Battery Marshall has the remains of the mounts and trunnions still attached to the turret front. The recoils mechanism of both are gone. The left barrel is resting on the remains of the mount and appears to be jammed against the back of the turret. The right gun appears to be balance on the remains of its mount. Both of these barrels appear to be ready to fall with a little more help.
Regards
mgk
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Post by fots2 on Aug 30, 2009 13:30:22 GMT 8
mgk1951, as I start to look at my photos it appears you are correct about the raping of Battery Marshall also.
The drawings above shows me detail of the batteries in their operational condition. So little is left that I can take photos from the bottom straight up and see almost all of the barrels.
When I was there I had no idea of what the interior of an intact turret looked like. One more trip would fit it all together for me and I could take more appropriate photos to tell the full story.
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Post by Registrar on Sept 4, 2009 11:13:18 GMT 8
After a little research, and having had the benefits of discussions "off the record" , I think we can add the following to " Drum Lore": explosive damage was largely pre 1960's, and mostly a hangover from the war; any dynamite damage is actually quite old, and can't be accurately dated; recent claims by locals of dynamite scrapping are baloney;
the turrets had been gutted post-war by unrestricted scrapping via the old way (acetyline torch, metal saws and steel grinders) by the time that Drum had become a ship navigation aid for entry to Manila Bay; nothing has remained of the carriages for decades;
[c] at least three of the early scrappers involved ultimately were blinded, due to their not using proper welder's goggles during their employment;
[d] the barrels rested on large blocks of teak wood and a few metal remnants;
[e] the blocks of wood survived the two typhoons of 2006, and the barrels did not collapse due to the typhoons.
[f] the barrels were still in place when the CDSG visited post-typhoons 2006.
[g] As can be seen from a then/now comparison from photographs, further damage has occurred since the CDSG visit. It almost certainly wasn't dynamite scrapping since the CDSG visit.
[h] My prediction for the future - I have no confidence that any outcome for Drum will hold any joy for buffs. On Corregidor, at least, there is a regard for the value of history. They learned the lesson there that scrap metal can be sold only once, but that history sells every day of the week. On Drum, I see no evidence of that learning, and no likelihood of it in the future.
At the risk of being nominated for the "best bleedin' obvious statement of the year", Drum does not belong to we military history buffs. It is an asset of another country, to do with as they wish. While we may lament that historical assets are not always maintained and protected, we can hope that in the event that attention ever falls upon Drum , that care is taken to ensure that any refurbishment is structurally and aesthetically sympathetic with the historic status and heritage that Drum deserves. The best we could hope for is someone be consulted about what the historic state of the facility used to be.
(Yeah, as if.)
I do want to emphasize, lest anyone not be aware, that Corregidor Foundation has NO jurisdiction over Drum, and thus has no direct authority to do anything - or even to prevent anything involving it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2014 14:07:13 GMT 8
The scrappers will never stop taking metal from Drum.
I have photos my Dad took beginning in the late 60s and 70s until the early 90s, of the guns and the interior (meaning the walls and floors), and comparing them to recent pics on this Board, Fort Drum will go the way of Fort Frank: not a single scrap of metal will be left of the guns.
I even have a pic my Dad took as late as around 1980 showing the broken barrel portion of one of Battery Marshall's gun tubes, lying on the top deck, the wire-wound construction of the barrel evident. And only one gun barrel was elevated, all the others were level.
And both casemate batteries had gun tubes sticking out of them.
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