Two rusty old Portuguese artillery batteries remain in Sao Vicente Island, Capeverdean Republic. Pictures from www.mindelo.info
A coastal battery at Joao Ribeiro, behind the repair yard Cabnave:
And an AA battery at Alto de Sao Joao, occupied now by some squatter families:
Can anybody ID the guns?
It is not completely surprising there are some fortifications on the island. I suppose they were built during WW2, when the German U-boots sheltered in the bay.
Enjoy,
Nuyt
The Portuguese artillery employed just about any brand of guns: Krupp, Schneider, Vickers.
Luckily we have the Vickers online archives and it shows some Portuguese guns:
A 3 inch aa gun
a 4,7 inch naval gun
And check out the mount of this fixed 3,7 inch, it is smiliar to the one on Alto de Sao Joao
So is it a Vickers 3,7 inch?
Commando Militar de Cabo Verde (Brigadier Augusto Martins Noguera Soares, 8.41 to 12.44)
(S. Vicente island)
Comando do RI 23
1st Exped. Bn RI 5
1st Exped Bn RI 7
1st Exped Bn RI 15
1st Coast Artillery Btty (I'm guessing from other information that one of these had the 4.7", the other 3 x 5.5" ex HMS Hood)
2nd Coast Artillery Btty
AA Btty 9.4cm
AA Btty 4 cm
Bataria de Referenciacao (observation btty?) a 2 Divisoes (of the 2nd Division, or of 2 divisions?)
2nd Co. Sappers Miners, 2nd Engr Rgt
Engineer Park
Seccao de Padaria (chaplains?)
Depot Subsistence and Material
Water Analytical Lab
Principal Mil. Hospital Cabo Verde
Medical Depot
Military Tribunal
(2 battalions occupying defensive positions and 1 in reserve)
(Sal island)
Comando do RI 24 (Lt. Col Henrique Augusto Lacerdo)
1st Exped Bn. RI 2
1st Exped. BN RI 11
3rd AA Btty
Military Hospital Sal
(Santo Antao island)
detachments from S. Vicente, normally 1 reinforced atiradores company from the reserve battalion
This is what happens when I cut and paste late and in haste.
I was thinking of the ex-Hood guns on Ascension Island.
On page 450 of Volume 3 of "Historia do Exercito Portugues" is the statement "Mas, em Junho de 1941 encontravam-se prontos a embarcar em Inglaterra com destino a Cabo Verde, 3 pecas de artilharia de 4.7", tres jogos para plataformas e 450 municoes, AS autoridades inglesas ofereceram ainda pessoal para instruir e montar estas pecas
Em 1941, foi criada na cidade do Mindelo, em S. Vicente, uma Bataria de Artilharia de Costa"
The coastal arty battery (3 guns, 4,7 or 5,5 inch)
The 3,7 inch AA battery at Alto de Sao Joao
Town of Mindelo with the coastal batt top and the AA bottom:
There may have been a third battery on the other side of the Porto Grande bay, where the barracks of the CV Army are located (undoubtedly former Portuguese barracks)... Check it out yourself on Google Eart (I dont publish that picture), as there are still signs of gun emplacements...
Both sites may be auctioned soon by the CV Ministry of Defence.
So who wants these guns?
It may take a while as a conflict between the govt and the town has broken out about the ownership of the sites: http://www.expressodasilhas.cv/c_base.php?gc=Ver%20notícia&id=2128
"During the war (WW1) HMS LANCASTER landed a couple of 6-inch guns and mounted them, one at Sapper Hill and the other at Mount Low for local defence purposes.
After several years it was decided to move the gun from Mount Low to Sapper Hill, a distance of some 4 miles across broken ground of soft peat and rock and a passage of about 1 mile by water.
This was done by HMS DURBAN in two visits , 1931-2, by means of primitive sleds and much man-power.
In 1933 HMS DAUNTLESS by the same methods dragged the gun another 4 miles over equally rough ground to a position near Canopus Hut the other side of Port Stanley. From 31st Dec.1936 HMS AJAX commenced work to mount the gun (no.1641) on her emplacement."
(source GRIPPO, A record of the first commission of HMS AJAX, April 1935-August 1937).
It seems one of the guns was moved again as on the photographs they are close together.
During WW2 Falkland Islands guns were: 2-6 inch, 1-4 inch and 2-12 pdrs.
Maybe somebody knows the name of the present spot of the guns.
found some more information
According to Marine Rundschau 1983/3:
"Canopus-battery 2 15.2 cm guns from HMS CANOPUS since 1938 400 m. SW todays Port Stanley airfield".
They are wrong about guns being former HMS CANOPUS ones, they were former HMS LANCASTER guns.
The old battleship HMS CANOPUS was guardship in the Falklands during 1914, she was inside the
harbour and had at least one observation post on dry ground. This is the spot were the guns are named: "Canopus hut". So maybe that's the reason MR writes they were former HMS CANOPUS guns.
So it seems the second gun was also moved from Sapper Hill to the place Canopus hut.
There is also a photo taken during WW2 in the same MR with the guns firing a salvo.
Nuyt, try again on Google Earth.
same place I was thinking
first gun (photos 1 and 3) is white spot with black square, second gun (foreground photo 2) small black square N of the first gun and maybe the small white spot NW of first gun is in the foreground of photo 1.
The following article is copied here from "The CDSG Newsletter" May 2003 Pg 6 & 7. Not included are the four photos and one map which appeared in the article and I could not reproduce here. The photos of the two 6-inch guns are somewhat similar to those appearing earlier on this thread.
Falkland Islands’ Surviving Coast Defense Guns
by Philip Sims
For ease of production, logistics, and training, the British Empire enforced considerable standardization on its coast de¬fenses throughout the world. However, every large operation has it exceptions, and the press of war combined with remoteness made the Falklands Islands one. The three coast defense guns still there today were mounted on ex-naval mounts, and two of them received what appear to be home-built shields that they still retain. A WWI destroyer 4-inch gun is mounted at the “Penguin Sanctu¬ary”; its breech marks are “ORDNANCE MARK IA, VICKERS
It overlooks Port William Sound, where it necks down to the entrance to Stanley Harbour, plus Yorke Bay, where the Argentine troops landed in 1981, although the gun was long out of service by then. The white ship in the first picture is the Royal Princess, the means of reaching the island on Christmas Day 1999.
The two 6-inch guns are located near the present-day airport on a low rise called Canopus Hill, named for a fire control sta¬tion located here that supported the fire of the battleship HMS Canopus during the battle of the Falklands. The breech of the ¬right-hand gun is marked “B.L. 6 IN WIRE VII EOS 1900 No 1230,” while the left-hand gun is “B.L. 6 IN WIRE VII EOS 1902 No 1735.” The locals claim the guns were removed from the secondary armament of the Canopus. Launched in 1898, by WWI Canopus was desperately slow and obsolescent at best, although she had pioneered British use of Krupp cemented armor. She had been briefly moored (some reports say beached) in Stanley Harbour as a static harbor defense, and opened the battle of the Falklands with indirect 12-inch fire from out of sight, to the considerable surprise of the Germans. After serving in the Dardanelles expedition, she was sold for scrap in 1920.
The box-like shields for the 6-inch guns do not resemble other shields elsewhere in the empire. Possibly they were made on site. Two spare barrels are on the grounds of the Falkland Island Museum. The pits of the supporting magazines and fire control emplacements still exist but the structures have been destroyed.
South Georgia had 2 of these 4" guns during WW2, while there was one in the Falkland Islands (it's still there, for photo of this one type into Google: www.flickr.com world war ii vickers gun).
Google search type: Hansen Point gun (and there it is!)
the second gun, at Stromness Bay, is no longer there (more about it can be found in same story as the Hansen Point gun)
I think they were 4" guns and not 4.1" guns
Maybe there were a total of four 4" guns in South Georgia
to protect Stromness Bay (with Leith hrb and Stromness) there were two positions:
one at Hansen Point and one at a gun emplacement behind Leith hrb
to protect Grytviken there were two positions:
one at Horse head and one at Hope point
(the photo one the Brazilian site could be the one at Horse Head, but I'm not 100% sure)
An important port for the French and the site of an allied attack against the French (legaliste) Navy in the early years of WW2. Goggle Earth shows at least two sites of possible coastal artillery: one on Gore Island (the infamous slavery trading post) and one on the coast to the West of the city. I visited Goree a few years back (in february 2003) and a guide told me the gun positions were used to film the Guns of Navarone movies! True?
Here are the pics. Does someone know what guns were installed in the old days?
First picture posted shows the Goree Island twin 240mm battery in an open top turret. A four gun 198mm battery is just off the picture at the top left. The second picture is of the 240mm battery in four single mounts at Mamelles. The third picture posted is a ground level pix of Mamelles.
Other batteries located on Google surrounding Dakar include:
Goree Island 4 canon 198mm (above) and 4 canon 90mm (90mm emplacements not located on Google)
Cap Manuel west of Goree Island. Twin 240mm mounting like Goree Island
Bel Air North of Goree Island. Twin 240mm mounting like Goree island
Madeleines 3 canon of 138mm single emplacements between Mamelles and Cap Manuel
Rufisque 2 canon 95mm on East side of bay in a fenced in compound
Yoff 4 canon 155mm on the north side covering the northern beaches (emplacements not located)
Fann 4 canon 90mm on the west side between Mamelles and Madeleines (emplacements not located)
A photograph of the Goree Island turret is at .
39-45 Magazine, Issue #234 Mai 2006, has a map of Dakar with battery locations and arcs of fire.
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