3000 aerial bombs against Fort Drum - "concrete battleship" of the US Navy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The US military nicknamed him the "Concrete Battleship" and considered him their pride, although he never sailed. In fact, the unsinkable Drum Fort is an island turned into a military fortress, although it looks like a ship. And the unique structure fully justified its impregnable status. After all, the fort was repeatedly besieged, stormed and blown up, but it never surrendered.

In reality, the "Concrete Battleship" is a fortification of the American army, part of the fortifications of the island fortress of Corregidor. Fort Drum is located in the Philippines, next to the fairway of the southern entrance to the Bay of Manila Bay of the largest island of the archipelago - Luzon. Actually, the Concrete Battleship was built to cover the approaches to the latter.

The appearance of the fort really strongly resembles not a static island, but a US Navy warship of the early 20th century: a sharp nose that served as a breakwater, two ship towers equipped with double-barreled guns, a lattice mast. The general view of the fortress is similar to the design of the American battleships West Virginia and Tennessee.

The history of Fort Drum began in 1898, when the US Army captured Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. Moreover, this victory was given quite easily. However, the United States was in no hurry to relax and began to strengthen the approaches to the Manila Bay. It was decided to build Fort Drum at a distance of nine kilometers from the Fortress of Corregidor.

To implement their plans, American designers turned to the "gifts of nature." The island of El Frail, suitable for this purpose, was chosen as the construction site. The construction of the fortification was started in 1909 and completed

In 1918, when it was transferred to the army. The fortification got its name in honor of the American Brigadier General Richard Drum.

The area of the concrete battleship was relatively small: length - 106 meters, width - 44 meters, height above sea level - 12 meters. Fort Drum was built on the premise that it would be absolutely inaccessible to an external enemy and at the same time be able to withstand a long siege without loss of personnel. So, its infrastructure was completely autonomous: the reserves of fuel and ammunition there, as well as fresh water and food, were sufficient so that the soldiers could hold out without communication with the outside world for several months.

The level of armament and defenses of the concrete battleship was amazing: the sides in different parts of the fort had a thickness of 7, 5 to 11 meters and were entirely cast from reinforced concrete. Behind the strong walls were the cellars for the projectiles, the engine rooms and the living quarters that could accommodate 240 soldiers in combat conditions. In addition, for peacetime, barracks for living were located on the deck of the fort.

As for equipping the unique structure with weapons, its quantity and power were impressive. On the deck were two armored naval towers, which rotated on their axis, with a twin installation of 356-mm guns on both. They were capable of firing an armor-piercing or high-explosive projectile at a distance of up to 18 kilometers.

Paired 152-mm guns were installed on the sides, the task of which was to eliminate small-sized targets. Until the outbreak of World War II, the upper deck was additionally equipped with two 76 mm anti-aircraft guns and machine guns. Such a level of weapons at Fort Drum made it invulnerable in the eyes of both the Americans and their opponents: according to Novate.ru, by the time the United States entered World War II, the guns of their main enemies, the Japanese, could penetrate thick concrete walls only half a meter.

However, the first attempts to capture the impregnable concrete battleship were made literally on the second day of the war for the United States. So, early in the morning on December 7, 1941, the Japanese army attacks the base of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, after which the US enters the war. And already on December 8, the Japanese launched an invasion operation in the Philippines.

Already on January 2, 1942, Manila, the capital of the Philippines on the island of Luzon, was taken. The landing of the 14th Army under the command of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, by their actions, cut off the connection of the fortresses of Corregidor and Fort Dram with the coast located in the bay. On January 31, the Japanese army reached the opposite shore of the bay and was fired upon by direct fire from a concrete battleship. From that moment on, the story of the long siege of the impregnable fort began.

For two and a half months, the Japanese army was never able to inflict significant damage on either the concrete fortress itself or the weapons on the deck. As a result, on March 15, they used heavy howitzers against the fort, but even here they were not lucky - they managed to destroy only the anti-aircraft guns, while the rest were not damaged. The American concrete battleship was still impregnable and battle-worthy, and this infuriated the Japanese. Shelling has become daily.

Only on May 5, the Japanese troops went on the landing. Both Fort Drum and Corregidor managed to eliminate a number of enemy targets, but at least 500 people were still able to land ashore. General Homma was ready to admit the failure of the operation, but the Americans decided otherwise.

The commander of the United States Army units based on Corregidor, General Wainwright, was well aware that their situation was about to become desperate: most of the personnel were incapacitated due to injury or illness, food was being pumped in, as well as ammunition, and they, unlike the same Japanese people were still cut off from getting help.

The situation at Fort Drum was not much better. The damage to the concrete battleship was not serious, and, in principle, it could remain completely inaccessible to the enemy for a long time. However, even there they ran out of fresh water and food, and there was nowhere to replenish their supplies. So, the American officers decided to surrender. Before leaving the fort, guns were blown up, and the impregnable fortress turned into a concrete dot on military maps.

However, the battle history of Fort Drum did not end there. As early as 1945, the US Army successfully pushed out the Japanese Army and the Philippines. Then, after the liberation of the fortification of Manila Bay, the Americans learned that the garrison of the Imperial Army was based in the fort. It seemed like a strange decision, since the armament of the concrete battleship could not be restored.

The Americans' offer to surrender was rejected. And those, knowing about the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Manila, also rejected all manifestations of humanism. In April 1945, American soldiers landed at the fort. But no one was even going to fight: they simply filled the ventilation system of the fort with flammable substances and, moving deep into the sea, remotely set it all on fire. The fire in the fortress lasted for several days. There were no survivors of this among the 65 people of the Japanese garrison.

After the war, it was found out that the fort withstood the hit of at least 3,000 aerial bombs and other types of shells without serious external and internal destruction. There was no point in restoring the former pride of the American army. Today Fort Drum is empty, most of the surviving metal has been cut and taken away by looters, but the gun turrets on the deck have survived. An automatic beacon was installed there only to ensure navigation. But even in this state, the unique concrete battleship amazes everyone who visits Manila Bay.