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Corps loans 90-year-old cannon

A World War I-era cannon first fired by Marines more than 90 years ago to commemorate the opening of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., was returned to the center in July, on loan for the next decade from the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

The detachment of Marines fired the seven-inch tractor-mounted behemoth Oct. 16, 1918, a Navy release said. It’s been returned to the Navy proving ground in anticipation of the facility’s 100th anniversary.

On the day the installation was founded, the Marines launched a 152-pound projectile about 24,000 yards down the Potomac River. Army observers later described the weapon as, “the heaviest and hardest hitting gun for which a mobile field mount of this kind had ever been requested by any nation or army.”

Its range — between 19,000 and 25,000 yards — was more than double that of its predecessors.

Wayne Harman, a former physicist at the warfare center who helped secure the cannon’s return, noted that 20 of these 7-inch field cannons were built for the Corps to use on the Western Front during World War I.

“But none ever made it over there as the war ended before they could be used. Not one shot was ever fired in anger,” Harman said in a Navy release. “During World War II they were secured for mostly coastal defense purposes.”

The cannon’s return to Dahlgren coincides also with the 200th birthday of its namesake, Rear Adm. John Adolphus Dahlgren. Dahlgren, born Nov. 13, 1809, is considered the father of modern naval ordnance. The cannon will be on display at his birthday commemoration later this year.

“The two hundredth birthday of Rear Admiral John Dahlgren this November was the catalyst for moving the gun back to Dahlgren,” said Peter Kolkowski, the instillation’s Division Operations Department Head in a Navy release. “It’s great to have this important piece of Dahlgren history back here because it began this place.”