World War II Coastal Defenses at the Aransas Pass

The guns are gone, but their platforms are not. Battery 155 at Port Aransas put two 155 mm guns on Panama mounts, circular platforms that let a gun swing a full 360 degrees. Gunite-stabilized mounds raised the trunnions to 37 feet 6 inches. Five splinter-proof magazines and a plotting room served them, and the work was finished in December 1942 for $24,726. The temporary harbor defense was deactivated on July 1, 1944; the guns left on July 3 and the troops on July 4. The mounts are reported to survive near the Marine Science Institute.

What the plaque says

World War II Coastal Defenses at the Aransas Pass In the late 1700s, the U.S. began a coastal defense system to protect ports and strategic points. Texas, which became a state in 1845, featured several gulf coast sites that would prove important in U.S. Military engagements in the 19th century and later. In March 1941, before the U.S. entered World War II, the War Department created the Southern Defense Command (SDC) as part of its national defense system. Led by Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, the SDC included the southern U.S. coastline from North Carolina to Brownsville. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), the U.S. increased defense efforts along the Texas coast, which included several military bases as well as key wartime industries. A month later, in what may have been a false alarm, a German U-Boat, or submarine, was reported just miles off the entrance to the Aransas Pass. The SDC dispatched a temporary field artillery battery of the 2nd Infanty Division to Mustang Island, where they set up 105 mm Howitzers. In April 1942, relief came to these troops when Battery E, 50th Coast Artillery Regiment arrived. The new troops remained until October 1942 and began emplacing two French-designed 155 mm GPF Guns on Panama mounts and building timber magazines, a commander station, searchlights and a camp for 360 men. Two companies later stationed there finished the work: Battery G, 20th Coast Artillery Regiment (Oct. 1942-Mar. 1944) and Battery E, 20th Coast Artillery Regiment (Mar.-Jul. 1944). In conjunction with the coast artillery, the U.S. Navy operated a harbor entrance control post. Officially designated as Temporary Harbor Defense at Aransas Pass, this coastal defense complex just south of the south jetty closed in July 1944, after enemy naval threats in the gulf were no longer a concern. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Port Aransas — steps away
  The fishing town at the north end of Mustang Island, reached by a free state ferry that crosses the ship channel day and night, with a university marine lab begun in a one-room shack.
• Mustang Island State Park — 13 mi
  More than five miles of Gulf beach on a barrier island named for wild horses, with beach camping on the sand and a twenty-mile paddling trail on the bay side.
• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 15 mi
  A French Second Empire house of 1874-77 on Aransas Bay, paid for with hides and tallow, with gas lights, central heat and hot running water no other house nearby had.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 20 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Aransas Pass, C.S.A. — 0.3 mi
• Tarpon Inn — 0.4 mi
• Aransas Pass Light Station — 1.8 mi
• Terminal Railroad — 6.3 mi