Most people taking the ferry from Portland just want a view of the water, but if you head into the woods on the east side of Peaks Island, you run right into a massive chunk of World War II paranoia. This is Battery Steele. Completed in 1942, this concrete behemoth once held two 16-inch guns capable of firing 2,240-pound armor-piercing shells twenty-six miles out into the Atlantic. Think about that weight. That is the size of a small car flying through the air to smash Nazi U-boats before they could threaten Portland Harbor. The government constructed the bunker with walls up to six feet thick to withstand direct hits from naval bombardment, burying the whole thing under dirt and vegetation to hide it from spy planes.
Casco Bay mattered immensely during the war. The Navy stationed destroyer escorts, battleships, and carriers here because Portland was the main assembly point for transatlantic convoys heading to Great Britain. So, the Army built Steele to stop a worst-case scenario. They feared German battleships like the Tirpitz might break out into the Atlantic and shell the coast. They never did. In fact, the garrison at Battery Steele never fired a single shot in anger. Instead, soldiers spent endless, freezing Maine winters doing drills, greasing the massive gears, and staring into the North Atlantic fog. Boredom, not combat, defined their war.
By 1948, the military had already declared the battery obsolete. They sold the massive gun barrels for scrap metal. Today, the concrete shell remains. Walking through the dark, damp corridors now requires a flashlight, unless you want to trip over chunks of fallen masonry or splash into stagnant puddles. Local teenagers and artists have covered the gray walls in decades of colorful, chaotic spray paint. Actually, it feels more like a post-apocalyptic temple now than a military fort. It is quiet. But standing under those massive concrete hoods, you can still feel the sheer weight of the panic that built them.
