Six Inch Ordonez gun at Subic Bay Grande Island

[randysubic]

The six-inch Ordonez gun is a rifled breech-loading weapon with a cast iron body, hooped with wrought iron, and with a steel tube screwed in place that contained the breechblock and extended just forward of the trunnions.

Four of these 150 mm guns were to be mounted at a battery at Subic Bay but had not yet been emplaced by the time Admiral Dewey arrived at the beginning of the Spanish-American War. After the defeat of the Spanish, Filipinos resisting the US colonization of the Philippines moved one of these to a battery they constructed on the slope of Kalaklan ridge overlooking Subic Bay and used it to fire on American ships entering the bay.
On September 23 1899, USS Concord, USS Charleston, USS Monterey entered the bay and fired upon the battery with their 10 and 12 inch guns.

Following a preliminary bombardment of the position, a landing force of sailors and Marines, under the command of Lieutenant John D. McDonald, USN, left the ships at about 1045, went ashore against small-arms fire from the beach in the vicinity of the abandoned Spanish naval station in Subic Bay.

When the entire American landing force was ashore and in position along the beach the ships ceased fire. The landing party scrambled up the rocky slope to the battery. Gunner A. Olssen placed a charge of guncotton in the gun, blowing off the muzzle. Fearing the tenacious Filipinos would still use it, second and third charges were set, completely destroying the gun.

The landing force was back aboard ship by 1300.

William Randolph Hearst later acquired this gun and presented it to the City of San Francisco where it was on display at Columbia Square Park until 1973, when it was moved to the Main Post of the Presidio of San Francisco.

Earlier this month I was at the Presidio and took these photos: Photos of Gun now at Presidio

[rickthelibrarian]

Interesting that the Concord took part because HER 6" guns (two of them are now at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis WA. They were previously at a park in Seattle WA. I took a few pictures of them during a visit about six weeks ago.

[cbuehler]

I have known and visited the Ordonez Gun now at the Presidio of San Francisco since I moved here in 1984. It is located on the east side of the parade grounds, which have now been entirely grassed over, eliminating parking lot that used to encompass the grounds.
My wife works as the accountant for the California Society of Pioneers, which now occupies one the former brick barracks buildings seen on the side of the photos.
The vague white building seen on the other side (east side) of the photo was the Headquarters of the US Sixth Army.
The old brick buildings used to be the barracks of the 30th US Infantry Regiment (San Francisco's own), historically part of the 3rd Infantry Division, and now belong to the Presidio Trust and US Parks Department, which took over and now rents the refurbished buildings in the vast and beautiful Presidio when the Army relinquished it in 1994.

CB