Historic California
Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields
Fort Funston:
Battery Lawerence L. Bruff
Battery Lawerence
L. Bruff
by Sgt. Maj. (CA) Dan Sebby, Military
Historian, California Military Historian
In February 1917, work began on a temporary
battery to mount two 5-inch rapid fire guns to come from Fort
Winfield Scott's Battery Sherwood. The USACE completed the battery
on 30 January 1919 and turned it over to the Coast Artillery
Corps. The only concrete in the emplacement was in the gun platforms;
the plotting room was a wooden building. The battery's ammunition
magazine was a mere wooden shelter between the guns covered with
a thin layer of earth. This battery was named for Colonel Lawrence
L. Bruff, an ordnance officer who had died in 1911, and it should
not be confused with the later Battery Bluff. Battery Lawrence
L. Bruff was declared obsolete a mere six months after it had
been turned over to the Coast Artillery Corps, making it the
shortest-lived battery in the San Francisco Bay defenses.
Battery Lawerence
L. Bruff
by Justin Ruhge
Battery Bruff was a temporary installation.
It used two 5-inch guns from Battery Sherwood at Fort Winfield
Scott. The two platforms for the 5-inch guns on pedestal mounts
were completed at a cost of $3, 572. The ammunition storage consisted
of a wooden shelter between the two emplacements covered with
a thin layer of earth. The works were turned over to the artillery
troops on January 30, 1919.
This Battery was named in honor of Colonel
Lawrence L. Bruff, an ordnance officer who had been an instructor
at West Point and the author of texts on ordnance and gunnery.
He had died in 1911.
Six months after the engineers turned
the battery over to the troops, the War Department declared it
obsolete on July 22, 1919. The guns were removed and the site
covered over with sand.
