Destroyed Structures
The Nantasket peninsula had several fire control buildings and radars that have since been destroyed, leaving almost no visible traces. This section describes these sites.
Located northeasterly down the hill from the tall fire control tower was Location 120, one of the most important in the network of harbor defenses. It was the site of a three-story fire control and command building with an SCR-682 harbor surveillance radar dome on top, a small one-story fire control bunker northeast of that, and an SCR-269A fire control radar down the street. As Slide #5 in the top gallery shows, the bunkers were likely located on what are now the lots of a pair of beautiful new homes. And indeed the owners of these homes report that beneath their totally re-graded properties there lurk masses of hard-to-destroy reinforced concrete pads and retaining walls. The basement of the mauve house to the south (on the right in Slide #6) reportedly contains reminants of the foundations of Building 2A and a "gun position" (likely a concrete pedistal mount for one of the observation instruments from the 1920s).
The larger (square) building (Location 120-2A) contained in its 3rd story "attic" a cramped rangefinding station (DPF) for Battery Gardner in Nahant. Its 2nd story housed the Battery Control station for the 16-inch guns of nearby Battery Long on Hog Island plus a spotting station for the Harbor's South Command. Its 1st floor housed a spotter for Battery Long and also the South Command post itslef. The smaller bunker (Location 120-3A) housed a spotter for Battery 206 in Nahant plus a position that had been intended to spot for the 16-inch guns at Ft. Dawes (which were canceled during the war).
As the drawings in the gallery to the left show, these two bunkers had some of the most creative design features in the entire harbor defense system, with faux windows and garage doors scribed into their solid concrete walls.
Corps of Engineers records show that various fire control structures had been maintained in this immediate area since before 1909. Fire destroyed one of these early stations, and the structure was rebuilt in the 1920s into a very large two-story lookout with a 40 ft. by 70 ft. footprint. This was further modified in the 1930s and 1940s into the designs shown in the gallery at left.
The SCR-296A fire control radar, atop a 50 foot tower with its antenna platform sitting about 150 ft. above sea level, was located three houses south down Bluff Road from the southerly of the two houses now occupying the plot that used to hold Buildings 2A and 3A. A quick walking inspection of this property did not reveal any traces of the radar tower or its outbuildings. A small residence now occupies the tower lot, and the tower itself apparently had its center under the back porch of this home.
Strawberry Hill
A final Hull area fire control station was built about a mile and a quarter south along the peninsula at Strawberry Hill. This small 12 foot-square bunker spotted for the two 6-inch guns of Battery Whipple at Ft. Standish on Lovell's Island. All traces of this structure are now gone, but a nearby house is apparenly a re-sided version of a station from the 1920s that preceeded the WW2 bunker (and also did fire control for Battery Whipple, as well as for the 12-inch disappearing guns of Battery Stevenson at Ft. Warren on George's Island).
An additional SCR-269A fire control radar (Set #23) had been planned for this site (Location 116) but was cancelled during WW2 after the tower piers and outbuildings had already been put in place. The cancellation was apparently due to the decision to cancel the completion of the 16-inch guns at Ft. Dawes.
Strawberry Hill is not to be confused with Strawberry Point, a very extensive group of fire control positions farther to the south in Scituate, MA.