Battery Russell, Battery Mishler and Peace Memorial, Oct. 24, 2016

As we continued our exploration of Fort Stevens, our next stop was Battery Russell, Battery Mishler and the Peace Memorial.  At 11:30 p.m. on June 21, 1942, Japanese Navy Submarine I-25 surfaced off the coast and using its small deck gun, fired nine shells at Fort Stevens - all fell harmlessly in unoccupied swamp land and beach areas.  The Fort commander did not return fire, as he did not want to reveal the location of his guns.  Interestingly, most of the guns were miles away on the east side of the small peninsula facing the Columbia River (more about those in a later post) - only Battery Russell and the end station of Batter Mishler were on the western or Pacific side of the peninsula.  We were able to walk up into and on top of Battery Russell and see where the circular mounts for the guns had been housed.

 

We walked further and found the Peace Memorial dedicated 50 years after that one and only attack on the lower 48 states in WWII.

We  continued on to the Battery Mishler Base End Station.  The Mishler was the only one were the gun could rotate 360 degrees to fire on either the Pacific side or the Columbia River side of the peninsula, while all the other guns could only turn 180 degrees to fire on enemy ships on either the Pacific Ocean or the Columbia River side.

On our way back to the car, we came across some banana slugs - after learning from Megan about the banana slug races held in Ketchikan, whenever we come across the slugs, we take pictures for her and email them to her.