Fort Drum

Fort Drum was built from April 1909 to 1914 and shaped like battleship 50 feet long by 144 feet wide. The fort was armed with two custom-made 14-inch (356 mm) M1909 guns in custom built M1909 turrets. Its secondary armament consisted of two 6-inch (152 mm) M1908MII guns on M1910 pedestal mounts in casemates.

Fort Drum is named in honor of Brig. Gen. Richard C. Drum, veteran of the Mexican War and Civil War.

The fort was part of US Army's Harbor Defense of Manila Bay before WWII and manned by E Battery, 59th Coast Artillery Regiment. It was bombed by Japanese forces on 2 January 1942. On 12 January 1942, an M1903 3-inch (76 mm) seacoast gun with a pedestal mount was transferred from Fort Frank and installed at Fort Drum to help protect the fort's vulnerable "stern" section from attack. THe following day, the fun became the first American battery of seacoast artillery to open fire on the enemy in World War II when it drove off a Japanese-commandeered inter-island steamer.

In the first week of February 1942, Fort Drum was subjected to heavy shelling from Japanese 150mm howitzer batteries positioned on the mainland near Ternate. By the middle of March, Japanese 240mm siege howitzers managed to destroy Fort Drum's 3-inch antiaircraft battery, disabling one of the 6-inch guns, and damaging one of the armored casemates.

On the night of 5 May 1942, Fort Drum's 14-inch batteries fired on the second wave of the Japanese forces assaulting Corregidor, sinking several troop barges and inflicting heavy casualties. It surrendered the next day after the fall of Corregidor.

Fort Drum was recaptured by Company F of the 2nd Battalion, 151st Infantry Regiment, 38th Infantry Division along with a detachment of the 113th Combat Engineer Battalion in 1945. The Americans used gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline to burn the fort from the inside, killing sixty-eight Japanese soldiers. The fire burned for several days.

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Source

• Text: Kaj Metz
• Photos: Paul Soutar