Casemate 77

Oscarsborg Fortress:

Svein Wiiger Olsen has sent a 40pp well produced booklet with lots of b/w and colour photos and prints, though an odd omission is a plan of any kind other than aerial photos, which are not annotated.

Svein has also sent a large fold-out leaflet on the 1905 batteries across the Drøbak narrows from Oscarsborg, with large colour photos and text (in Norwegian) on one side, and on the other a very crude map which looks like a primary school attempt with which I had great difficulty finding the batteries on Google Earth.

Fort Worden, WA:

Al Chiswell, CDSG member and President of the Puget Sound Coast Artillery Museum, has provided a DVD of a Virtual Tour of the fort, produced as a computer animation. This is good fun and value for money, lasting 24mins; a commentary accompanies virtual bird's eye views of the batteries and buildings and there are 3D animations of four types of gun that were at the fort, followed by 10 high res stills from the video; $22.50 (must be US$) inc p&p from Coast Artillery Museum, Fort Worden State Park, 200 Battery Way, Port Townsend, Washington 98368 USA, or contact Al on agchiswell@aol.com, phone 1-360-379-3052 if interested in bulk purchase.

Tussen Vecht en Eem (Between Two Rivers)

Elizabeth Scheltema-Vriesendorp has sent via Margaret Pinsent, who has kindly done some translating, a very well produced 208pp booklet Tussen Vecht en Eem (Between Two Rivers), celebrating 50 years of the Naarden Fortress Museum. Elizabeth has an article recounting the restoration of the fortress of Naarden in the twentieth century.

Air photo of Naarden in 1935. Military status ended in 1926, and in 1932 the Stichting Menno van Coehoorn was established with the prime aim of preserving the town walls, then under dire threat of demolition. (Town Archives, Naarden, with permission)

Postern

is a home produced A5 booklet, concentrating mainly on castles. No 18 Spring 2006 has 32pp, several book reviews, features on 'Salses' and 'Castles in Spain', a colour section, and a separate booklet on Treviso.

Contact Peter Presford, Rose Cottage, 3 Tram Lane, Buckley, Flints. CH7 3JB. Peter says a sample copy is available for a s.a.e. with 2 x 2nd class stamps on.
rosecot@presford.freeserve.co.uk for more information.

Malbork

Peter has also sent a leaflet, in English, on the magnificent Polish castle of Malbork (Marienburg), the famous Teutonic fortress, and in Polish and English one on Gdansk, Modern City Fortifications, which has 15pp in English, which together with a bi-lingual map, take the visitor on a tour of the very substantial remaining fortifications, with 6 moated bastions, the St Gertrude Bastion from 1607-1638 and 5 from 1623-38, in the early Dutch style, with low brick scarps and massive earthworks on top. These are what remain of 14 which defended Gdansk from the north, east and south. On the east is the Grodzisko Fortress, with C19th works on top of C17th bastions.

Vistula Mouth Fortress

The town is on the Vistula river, and further down towards the sea is the Vistula Mouth Fortress, an interesting looking structure showing changes and adaptations from a 1562 circular tower fortress built round a lighthouse, a late C16th square 4-bastioned fort and a further 5 bastions surrounding this in 1624-26.

Peter has very kindly passed on to me a packet of copies of plans of the Vistula Fortress sent by Robert Morgan, a regular contributor to Postern. These indicate that the central circular tower is the subject of restoration proposals. There are also large scale plans of the fortress, and small plans showing its development at various dates.

Vistula Mouth Fortress; working plans. (Knock.Knock Studio,)

Vistula Mouth Fortress; development plans. (Knock.Knock Studio,)

Florida

David Page was sent three leaflets by an American friend, and has sent them on. All are from Florida, by the National Park Service, US Dept of the Interior, and are models of clarity. Castillo de San Marcos (aka Ft Augustine), Fort Matanzas, 14 miles further south, and Fort Caroline to the north are single fold-out sheets, in full colour; at sort of square A3. San Marcos is twice the size of the others. There are clear illustrated descriptions of the forts and their features, their history and context.

Spanish fortifications of the Caribbean

After I had expressed interest in the Spanish fortifications of the Caribbean (Casemate 75 p23), Peter Harrison, shortly before going off to Cuba, referred me to Puerto Rico and the Forts of Old San Juan, by Albert Manucy and Ricardo Torres-Reyes. A search on the internet found several copies available, one of which cost the princely sum of £2.47 - the postage was more than twice this - and four days later I received an excellent copy, as far as I could tell, unopened. Published by the Chatham Press Inc, Riverside, Connecticut in 1973, PB, it has 94pp, some b/w photos, a lucid and entertaining text, explaining much technical stuff to the layman, but its chief joy is Manucy's many fine line birds-eye drawings of the forts, siege operations, principles of bastioned fortification and maps of various military campaigns. An excellent purchase; my thanks to Peter. (San Juan is now on Google Earth - so is Valenca do Minho, Portugal. Well worth a look).

Fort Adams

Fort Adams (1824-57) at Newport, Rhode Island was visited by Chris Cooley who sent a fold-out leaflet. One of the largest American brick-built forts, with provision for 468 cannon and 2400 men in war time, it was designed to defend the east passage of Narragansett Bay with 3 tiers of cannon, and extensive earthworks defended the land side.

Charles Blackwood.