Devil's Battery & Elkins Barracks
The ways and means to defend Halifax against enemy attack from the sea evolved continuously over the two centuries since the settlement and naval yard there were established, in 1749 and 1759 respectively. As the range and power of weaponry increased over the years, it became necessary to push the defences further to seaward, in order to be able to engage enemy warships beyond the range at which they could bombard the city and inner harbour.
By the First World War (1914-1918) powerful gun batteries existed at Sandwich Point and on McNab’s Island, at Fort McNab, to guard the seaward approaches to Halifax. Both of these batteries mounted large 9.2-inch breech loading guns with a maximum range of 20,000 yards (18 kilometres) and an effective range of around 12,000 yards (11 kilometres). They were augmented by smaller 6-inch guns for shorter range engagements.
With the coming of the Second World War however (1939-1945), advances in naval gunnery made greater ranges possible; as such the batteries at Sandwich Point and Fort McNab became obsolete. Two new batteries, even further to seaward were constructed to replace them: one at Chebucto Head and the second at Hartlen Point, as called for in a 1937 Canadian Government coastal defence plan. These two new batteries, with their fire coordinated by a new Fire Command Post built at York Redoubt, would together defend Halifax from attack through the mid-20th century.
The battery at Hartlen Point was named Devil’s Battery, after the nearby island of the same name. Incorporating technological advances such a powered hydraulic system to train and elevate the guns and the latest in radar detection equipment, as well as being mostly buried underground, the battery would be the most complex of all of Halifax’s defences. Construction began in late 1940 and by spring 1941 the concrete had been poured for the three large gun positions and various store rooms, pump chambers, plotting room, engine room, magazines and tunnels – all underground. Air compressors and hydraulic pressure pumps run by electric motors were then installed, and through the summer of 1941 the three Dominion Crossley diesel engines (two D-80 type 245 horsepower and one D-15 type 85 horsepower) to power the battery were fitted.
The battery consisted of three connected gun emplacements, each mounting a 9.2-inch Mk X breech-loading gun. Although the guns themselves dated to the pre-First World War era (made at the Royal Gun Factory and at the Elswick Ordnance Company between 1901 and 1903), they were now paired with modern high-angle Mk VII mountings. These mountings allowed 35 degrees of elevation compared to the older 15-degree Mk V mountings of the earlier 9.2-inch batteries at Sandwich Point and Fort McNab. This increased the maximum range of the guns from 20,000 yards to around 30,000 yards (27 kilometres). One of the guns had been in service earlier at Fort McNab, while the other two had formerly been mounted at Signal Hill in Esquimalt, B.C. They were all transferred to Devil’s Battery after being re-lined in the UK.
The three 9.2-inch guns and mountings were installed beginning in August 1941 and manually tested in April 1942. Each gun position consisted of, in addition to the guns themselves: gun stores, crew shelters, a ventilated concrete and fire-proof brick magazine 30-feet underground, and a pump chamber; the complex was heated by an oil furnace and served by an underground drainage system. There was also an Autosight and a Hotchkiss 6-pounder sub-calibre gun attached to each main 9.2-inch gun, for use in training. The tunnels from the three gun positions converged at the small Battery Command Post, also underground. From the Command Post, another tunnel ran back to the Engine Room, holding the diesel engines and switchboard, and from there to the opening to the outside, on the fort’s southwest flank. The low ground on which the battery was constructed would cause persistent drainage problems throughout its existence, especially in the underground magazines.
The Battery Plotting Room (BPR) was located underground as well, behind the battery and completely isolated from it. Made of concrete, it consisted of four ventilated rooms, the main one housing the Fire Direction Mk III B plotting table, coordinate convertor, ballistic calculator and Magslip data transmission controls. Two rooms of the BPR were fitted as degassing chambers in case of poison gas attack, and the fourth was a machinery room containing an oil pump and stores, all supplied with 110-volt lighting and water. Water for the complex was provided by a 620-foot deep well, using a Fairbanks-Morse pump run by a small 5-horsepower electric motor.
The three-story concrete Battery Observation Post (BOP) with its Type Z Mk II Position Finder, and Barr and Stroud Mk I Range Finder was completed in December 1941, standing about 3 km northwest of the battery. Electrically heated, with water provided by a large underground cistern, the structure featured protective steel shutters covering the observation windows on the top floor. It was connected with, and passed fire control information (i.e. ranges and bearings) to the Battery Plotting Room via a Magslip cable.
An additional four-story concrete Fortress Observation Post (FOP) with a “Y” Mk I Position Finder and stereo telescope was constructed at nearby Flandrum Hill, inland from Cow Bay. Completed by June 1942, it contained barracks within, and had an associated wooden mess hall, kitchen and well house. Of note, the pedestal for the Position Finder at the FOP, rather than resting on the top floor, was on a pillar entirely independent of the building for its 40-foot height – intended to eliminate any sway from the building.
A CD (Coastal Defence) radar station was built nearby at Osbourne Head, on a 50-foot cross braced structure, with a building at the base for the electronics, another for an electrical generator, and a well house and barracks. Osbourne Head remained under National Defence control after the Second World War, being used as a naval gunnery training centre until 1989 and since then a naval electronics test range.
In August 1942 two 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns were added to defend the battery against aerial attack, but they were withdrawn just a year later in June 1943 as the threat subsided.
A 30-foot-tall wooden tower was erected near the battery in March 1943, which was used to test the new experimental CDX (Coastal Defence Fire Control) radar developed by the National Research Council. An experimental CDX had been set up at Duncan’s Cove near Chebucto Head the previous October 1942 to test its accuracy in detecting and tracking vessels and shell splashes; the prototype test at Devil’s Battery in 1943 determined the radar’s effectiveness paired with and providing fire control information to the 9.2-inch guns of the battery. After the successful test, a permanent, taller concrete tower for the CDX was built a few hundred yards north of Devil’s Battery in the summer of 1944, replacing the earlier 1941 Battery Observation Post (BOP); the radar itself and associated equipment, manufactured by Research Enterprises Ltd., were installed by February 1945.
Other supporting buildings at Devil’s Battery, generally wooden structures above ground, including a guard room, barracks, recreational facilities, a mess hall, a hospital and officers’ quarters were located on the landward side of the battery. The gun positions themselves were carefully camouflaged, with structures built on top of them to resemble farm houses; the first Battery Observation Post (1941) was disguised as a church. Elkins Barracks was built in 1941 just over 2 km northwest of the battery at Eastern Passage, to provide additional quarters for soldiers serving at Hartlen Point; that same year A-23 Coast and Anti-Aircraft Artillery Training Centre was established there to train coast and anti-aircraft gunners. Named after MGen W.H.P. Elkins CB, DSO, CBE General Commanding Officer of Atlantic Command, the facility remained in service after the Second World War as a tank training ground. Today it is the site of Oceanview Elementary School, Tallahassee Community School and Seaside Elementary School. Devil’s Battery itself was manned by officers and soldiers (137 total of all ranks) from the 53rd Coast Battery of the 1st (Halifax) Coast Regiment RCA (reorganized in May 1942 from the 1st (Halifax) Coast Brigade).
Devil’s Battery ceased being operational at midnight on 31 August 1944, as the threat of enemy attack receded towards the final months of the Second World War. Manning was reduced to a caretaker force of about 20 men from the 51st Battery and the guns were placed in a preserved state. The CDX radar site however remained in operation to provide coastal surveillance.
In 1954 the 9.2-inch guns and all associated fire control instruments and stores were dismantled and shipped to Turkey under NATO mutual aid arrangements. Later the barracks provided training support for Reserve units including the Halifax Rifles; they were later turned over for civilian use and served as a senior citizens residence. Today, the former battery and gun emplacements are surrounded by the Hartlen Point Forces Golf Course. While the underground portion of the former battery is sealed off, the three gun emplacements and the entryway into the complex can still be seen.
References:
Fort Record Book - Devil's Battery (Library and Archives Canada)
Doug Knight, The 9.2 inch Coast Defence Gun in Canadian Service. Ottawa 2000
CDX Radar Tests: Devil's Battery, Halifax, N.S. April 1943, National Research Council of Canada. Radio Branch (NRC Publications Archive).