"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy
Ecole Superieure de Guerre (1929)

The Japanese dive bomb attack on Pearl Harbor revolutionized military thinking in 1941, proving that aircraft launched from carrier decks were a legitimate and tenable threat to capital ships. The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway reinforced this conclusion in 1942, as the U.S. Pacific Battle Fleet defeated Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the first naval battles fought exclusively by aircraft. These factors impelled a critical demand for more effective anti-aircraft defenses aboard military vessels, leading to the invention of the Bofors forty-millimeter gun.

Battleship Cove is pleased to announce the recent $120,000 restoration of four (4) such weapons aboard Battleship Massachusetts. The Massachusetts is the only historic naval vessel in New England to exhibit these guns, which have been completely restored to full manual mode. Of Swedish design, the Bofors 40MM mounts represented an exponential leap in anti-aircraft weaponry. Readily adopted by the U.S. Navy in the 1940's the twelve-ton mounts were originally manned by a crew of eleven sailors and aimed by a remote director.

Funded by the Marion-based defense contractor Sippican, Inc., the Bank of Fall River, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project included: rehabilitation of the mechanical drives, recasting of the handwheels, sight rings, and other components, the installation of visitor safety shields, and all-weather painting. Additionally, Battleship Cove installed four-color interpretive panels describing the mounts in their historical context.

Favorites among visiting schoolchildren, these interactive mounts have been refurbished to full "local mode" working order. "Unlike with other museum exhibits, the kids are encouraged to sit where a World War II crewmember sat, see through the sights and crank the handles," states Battleship Cove Preservation Officer Strafford Morss, "all for the purpose of saving the ship and crew from enemy aircraft."