SANDY HOOK – The National Park Service will hold its annual celebration of Fort Hancock Days on Friday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 26.
Fort Hancock Days commemorates the establishment of Fort Hancock as an Army base in October 1895. The historic fort is now a part of Gateway National Recreation Area’s Sandy Hook Unit.
Volunteers from the Army Ground Forces Association (AGFA) will conduct a lantern tour of the fort from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, beginning at the Fort Hancock Museum and ending at Battery Gunnison, which was built in 1904.
AGFA volunteers, wearing authentic World War II U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps uniforms, will emphasize the fort’s World War II years during which Fort Hancock’s population swelled to more than 12,000 soldiers and civilian defense workers.
AGFA will focus in particular on 1943 when the Army converted Battery Gunnison from being a disappearing gun battery into its present configuration as a pedestal mounted gun battery.
Visitors can watch or join in helping AGFA members from noon to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26, as they conduct gun drills at Battery Gunnison. Those attending will see how an original Model 1900, 6-inch gun, which is actually more than 25 feet long and weighs 10 tons, was aimed and loaded.
Period medical equipment also will be on display and staffed by an AGFA volunteer Army nurse.
Also on Sunday, Oct. 26, the Sandy Hook Mortar Battery, America’s first concrete mortar battery, located across the street from the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, will be open for tours from 1 to 4 p.m.
During World War II the tunnels of the battery served as a Harbor Defense Command Post, a central headquarters commanding all of New York Harbor’s forts and defenses from 1941 to 1945.
Fort Hancock protected the harbor area from enemy warships and warplanes from the time of the Spanish-American War through the nuclear age.
During the Cold War, radar and Nike air defense missiles were the fort’s last defense system from 1954 to 1974.
Former Army Nike veterans will conduct guided tours of Fort Hancock’s Nike Missile Radar site at Horseshoe Cove from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26.
The fort was deactivated in 1974, when the Sandy Hook peninsula became one of the park units of Gateway National Recreation Area as a National Park Service site.
Visitors are welcome to visit Sandy Hook’s beaches, trails and military history sites.
