Roads & Routes

Dutch Island and Fort Greble, a fascinating visual journey through the past, will delight and educate both the avid historian and the casual observer.

Dutch Island is an 81-acre island situated at the southern end of the West Passage to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. It served an important role in our country's military history, from its acquisition by the United States Army in 1864 until its closing by the military in 1947.

This volume is the first pictorial history illustrating the military development and facilities of Fort Greble on Dutch Island, spanning the period from the Civil War to World War II. Readers will step back in time and wander through the early earthworks and different incarnations of Fort Greble, stroll along the pristine parade ground before it was covered in briar and bramble, gaze upon the huge coastal artillery guns pointing toward the sea, and watch uniformed soldiers performing their duties on this fortified island.

Author Walter K. Schroder, author of Defenses of Narragansett Bay, has compiled an amazing collection of photographs, many from the official federal archives, that detail and examine a memorable chapter in our country's military past.

Weak maritime nations have always sought to augment the strength of their coastal defenses and navies by the use of "diabolical" contrivances for destroying an invader's ships.

The history of the adoption of the torpedo as a recognized implement of warfare is not unlike that of gunpowder or of exploding shells. Each in its turn was met by the cry, "Inhuman, barbarous, unchivalrous."

During the American Civil War, the Confederate Navy employed submerged mines, called torpedoes, and explosive charges mounted on a long pole referred to as the "spar torpedo" which was bumped into the hull of an enemy vessel exploding on contact. These weapons enjoyed great success during the conflict.

In July 1869, the Secretary of the Navy announced the establishment of the Naval Torpedo Station on Goat Island in the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island, for development of a more sophisticated and deadlier self-propelled torpedo. From its founding until the end of the Second World War, the Naval Torpedo Station has been the Navy's principal center for the design of torpedoes.

Newport continues as the home of the U.S. Navy's most important laboratory for research and development of modern weapons' systems.

Follow the author as he explores the once bustling stagecoach routes and turnpikes that crisscrossed communities throughout New England. Now quiet country lanes in the age of superhighways, traveling these routes today lets us explore the houses and buildings that still remain, and learn the history of the these homes and businesses, of the people who lived and worked within the communities these roads connected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Each journey conveys a detailed description of the route and acts as a guide, as well as providing the history of the road. Long an avid hiker and kayaker, the author also provides information about those opportunities along the routes he has chosen, as well as suggestions for lodging, camping, and eating along the journey on some of the most picturesque roads in New England.

The United States Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, originally built as a Neutrality Patrol seaplane base, became a unique and fundamental asset to our nation's armed forces.

In World War II, more than half of all U-boats sunk by U. S. aviation were destroyed by Quonset-trained shore and carrier-based squadrons. In the years following World War II, Quonset Point Naval Air Station remained a premier industrial naval air station, sending squadrons or overhauling equipment for use in the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold War conflicts. For 34 years and through four wars, the Quonset Point Naval Air Station stood proud and tall on behalf of the U. S. military. This second volume of Quonset Point images uncovers nearly 200 more scenes of the installation's achievements and activities during the entire period of its service.