Battery Island

Battery Island is a location that appears in the novel, Without Remorse. In 1970, the island was the home of John Kelly who had leased it.

History

In the early 19th century during the War of 1812, militiamen placed a small gun battery on the island to guard a narrow spot in the Chesapeake Bay against the British. A British squadron commander noticed puffs of smoke coming from the island and sent a ship to attack the island with it's cannons. The militiamen manning the island fled to the mainland. Shortly after, a small party of British soldiers rowed ashore the island and disabled the battery cannons by "spiking" them. The British then sailed up the Patuxent River and headed toward Washington D.C.

After the war, the island grew into disrepair and was seen as an embarrassment for its failure against the British. Left unattended for nearly a hundred years, the island was used again by the U.S. Navy during World War I. In 1917, the island was chosen by the Navy as an ideal place to test weapons and train sailors to engage in combat against German U-boats. For the next several months in the fall of that year, 12-14" battleship rifles blasted the island, bring nearly a third of it below sea level. Following the war, over a hundred cargo ships were scuttled around the island and later began to resemble real islands themselves.

The island was again left unused until World War II when it and the surrounding sunken ships were used as a bombing range for pilots to test munitions. Three large concrete observation bunkers were built in 1943 for officers to observe TBFs and SB2C bombers practicing runs on targets. One day, a bomb accidently destroyed one of the bunkers though it had been unoccupied at the time. Afterwards, the destroyed bunker was demolished and the island was converted into a rescue station for crashboats to respond to aircraft accidents. This was done by constructing a concrete quay and boathouse on the island as well as the refurbishment of the two remaining bunkers. The island was used as a rescue station for the next six years until the helicopter use became widespread in the 1950s.

The island once again remained unused until John Kelly acquired a lease for it through a friend and had lived there with his late wife Patricia Kelly. Kelly subsequently renovated one of the bunkers and transformed it into a home. The bunker was initially divided into three large rooms with concrete walls. Kelly installed and painted drywall on the walls, covered the ceiling, and laid rugs on the floor. The home featured furniture that had been chosen by Patricia as well as old-fashinoned appliances. During the winter, Kelly heated the structure through steam from radiators that had been installed during the war. Kelly used the second bunker on the island as his workshop.

Trivia

• Fishing Battery Light is a real life artificial island that has a similar geographic location to Battery Island. Despite this, both islands have vastly different histories and it is unknown if it was used by Tom Clancy as inspiration for Battery Island.