William T. Johnson and Coast Artillery

My association with Coast Artillery began when I was about six years old and my father joined the newly formed Battery B, 264th Coast Artillery Battalion, in Washington. About that time, the powers that be raised enough funds to build the Auditorium-Armory next to Washington High School, where I was in the first grade. I now realize how inadequate both these functions were. The auditorium part was too small for basketball and stage productions, and the armory part was completely inadequate for use as an armory. However, my father was proud of the small unit of about 60 men which met there and trained Tuesday nights. I suppose no one realized how inadequate Coast Artillery was and that it would soon be gone. The unit's name eventually became Btry B, 264th CA(AA), after a few years training with disappearing 16-inch guns at Fort Barrancas, Florida, and at Charleston, South Carolina. The unit was reorganized about 1939 as Hq & Hq Btry, 214th AAA Group, and was ordered to active duty at Camp Stewart, Georgia, November 25, 1940. By this time my father was forty years old and resigned from the Guard. During the unit's existence in Washington I occasionally visited the armory and saw its inadequacies.