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| Photographer caught by the photographer, Battery Townsley, Marin Headlands |
In the 1930's, as Hitler showed clear signs of imminent aggression in Europe and Japan was consistently clashing with China, it was prudent for the United States to build up coastal defense batteries to protect against what was then the greatest weapon known to mankind - the battleship. The Bismarck and the Yamamoto, Germany and Japan's most advanced and deadly fighting ships, were fast and deadly weapons capable of hurling high explosive armor-piercing shells, accurately, at ranges of over 20 miles. Such weapons could wreak havoc in a harbor like New York or San Francisco. To protect against this terrifying threat America built a series of shore batteries, like the one partially pictured above, to keep such weapons away from sensitive targets like the shipyards of Oakland and Maine.
The man seen above is photographing the light at the end of a tunnel that runs beneath Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. This lovingly preserved relic is a photographer's dream. Concrete walls, heavy iron doors, water stains and streaks of rust - all partially buried in the hillside overlooking the Pacific. Deer graze here where sentries once stood watch and coyotes live amongst the undergrowth. Once a month aging volunteers lead tours inside the bunkers; which the rapidly advancing military technology of the time had rendered obsolete only a few short years after this facility was completed. These batteries never fired a shot in anger and their guns were cut up and sold for scrap shortly after the war. What 's left is what was too costly to remove or destroy - the concrete walls; which were built thick enough to withstand an aerial bombardment by traditional explosives. Now they are being slowly eaten away by salt spray and rain. But men built these walls, and men lived within them, and the spirit of those men, and of that particular moment in time when mere bombs and shells were all we had to fear, still permeates this facility. It is haunted by more than just ghosts. The Manhattan Project yielded more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They proved that we could also destroy ourselves. In such light as this this, these old gun emplacements, with their long metal tubes projecting from their man-made caves of hardened sand and lime, seem as quaint as frontier forts constructed of logs. Perhaps that's what this photographer was trying to capture here in the tunnel. Or maybe it was simply the light at the end of it.
The man seen above is photographing the light at the end of a tunnel that runs beneath Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. This lovingly preserved relic is a photographer's dream. Concrete walls, heavy iron doors, water stains and streaks of rust - all partially buried in the hillside overlooking the Pacific. Deer graze here where sentries once stood watch and coyotes live amongst the undergrowth. Once a month aging volunteers lead tours inside the bunkers; which the rapidly advancing military technology of the time had rendered obsolete only a few short years after this facility was completed. These batteries never fired a shot in anger and their guns were cut up and sold for scrap shortly after the war. What 's left is what was too costly to remove or destroy - the concrete walls; which were built thick enough to withstand an aerial bombardment by traditional explosives. Now they are being slowly eaten away by salt spray and rain. But men built these walls, and men lived within them, and the spirit of those men, and of that particular moment in time when mere bombs and shells were all we had to fear, still permeates this facility. It is haunted by more than just ghosts. The Manhattan Project yielded more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They proved that we could also destroy ourselves. In such light as this this, these old gun emplacements, with their long metal tubes projecting from their man-made caves of hardened sand and lime, seem as quaint as frontier forts constructed of logs. Perhaps that's what this photographer was trying to capture here in the tunnel. Or maybe it was simply the light at the end of it.
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