Sunday, June 18, 2006

An afternoon on George's Island...

I bet you didn't know South Dakota was once home to a nuclear missile field that housed 150 Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missiles buried inconspicuously in silos deep below the prairie.

As I understand it, the missiles were placed throughout the Midwest, because, let's face it, if the Soviets were ever going to nuke the U.S. of A., they would have started with either of the coasts. That's why it was so brilliant and downright sneaky of our military leaders to hide our missiles in flyover country (a.k.a. the Midwest). When Kruschev claimed he would bury us, I don't think he had the slightest inclination to start with Rapid City, South Dakota.

The missiles are no longer there, and that's actually why I know about them. With the Soviet Union defunct and the Cold War over, our federal government removed the missiles in the 1990's and destroyed most of the silos, generating a fair amount of coverage in the local media.

Now, you're probably wondering why I would bring up ICBM warfare on an otherwise beautiful Sunday in June. It's really quite simple: I took a day trip seven miles off the coast to George's Island in Boston Harbor this afternoon.

Not following my logic? Well, long before reconnaissance satellites orbiting the earth were used to track potential enemies off our coasts, George's Island was Boston's last defense. Any foreign navy had to get by George's Island before it could enter the harbor, plunder, and then pillage Boston.

The most recently constructed fortress on George's Island is Fort Warren, built between 1833 and 1869. Many a Union soldier was trained at Fort Warren during the Civil War, and many a captured Confederate was forced to call Fort Warren home.

Fort Warren, like the missile silos of South Dakota, was abandoned by the federal government in 1958. Interestingly enough, the government's initial plan was to use the fort as a nuclear waste repository. After all, where better to store our nuclear waste than inside the walls of an historic place on a picturesque island just a few miles off the coast of our nation's seventh largest metropolitan area?

But greater minds prevailed and the fort was saved. That being said, Fort Warren could use a little work -- a nip here and a tuck there, if you will. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts now owns the island, and they've turned it into a campground of sorts. People take the ferry to George's Island with picnic baskets, footballs and frisbees, and tents in tow. All of this makes for an odd juxtaposition of past and present as you'll see in the photos below...

The ferry approaches George's Island.

Our park ranger tour guide explains that a dry moat surrounding the fort was, you guessed it, meant to keep enemies out of the fort.

A woman sunbathes in the dry moat. Our ranger did his best to ignore the woman so I was forced to draw my own conclusions. I can only assume those who constructed Fort Warren had no plan for keeping young sunbathing women out of the dry moat.

Union soldiers assemble in formation within the fort's walls in 1864.

Our ranger tells us about the many solemn activities that took place in the fort's courtyard (soldiers were trained for war, cannons were fired, traitors were hung) while a bunch of hooligans play football...in the courtyard.

In 1864, soldiers loaded massive Rodman cannons like the one pictured above. They could take out a ship nine miles away.

Today, the fort is protected by small children, Cub Scouts actually, and their skipping stones.
posted by The Head Kid at 6:15 PM

1 Comments:

That last photo and caption ought to be used in official George's Island promotional materials!
Blogger Kate, at 6:52 PM  

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