The USS Connecticut (BB-18) was a pre-dreadnought battleship completed in 1906 and sold for scrap in 1923 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. But her guns were kept in storage, and in 1942, eight of the 7-inch guns were mounted in four two-gun batteries on the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia, to protect the fuelling depot that the USN was developing there.
In 2022 I had the opportunity to inspect all four battery sites. Seven of the guns are still mounted in their original positions, with just the carriage left from the missing eighth gun.
The guns are still reasonably intact, and constitute an ongoing memorial to both the USS Connecticut, and the US servicemen who were based in Bora Bora from 1942-46.
