Ft. Miles Has Sites on Long Missing Giant

At a quarter-million pounds each, the two 16-inch guns that protected the entrance to Delaware Bay during World War II provided maximum firepower and could hurl a one-ton shell 26 miles.

At 66 feet long, they dwarfed a man, a Jeep -- even a tractor-trailer.

Like those on the battleship USS Missouri when the Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945, such great guns are hard not to notice.

The two guns at Fort Miles at Cape Henlopen probably were cut up and sold for scrap after the war, said Cape Henlopen State Park historian Michael Rogers. The lore among the vets who had been assigned to Fort Miles is that the Gillette Co. bought the scrap and made it into razor blades, he said.

For years, state park officials and the members of the Fort Miles Historical Association have been looking for a replacement for the long-vanished 16-inchers. As part of a plan for a $6 million WWII museum at the park, officials and volunteers would like the gun to help tell the story of coastal defenses, the very real threat of German U-boat attacks and how the army planned and prepared for it.

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