They are former military watch towers for enemy ships and submarines. There is one at Cape Henlopen that is open on scheduled days that you can go inside. There are also a number of munitions batteries throughout the park and the Hawk watch is built on top of one.
These are called Fire Control Towers (FCT). During WWII, Fort Miles used 16 FCT positioned from South Bethany to North Wildwood in NJ and one at Fort Saulsbury at Slaughter Beach. These FCT's have slots called Observation Slots ranging from two to three slots, and each slot supported a gun battery. The higher the slot, the longer the range it could observe. The outer most towers supported the long and medium range guns, and the FCT closest to the fort supported medium range guns and the underwater Mine Field. Fire Control Tower #7 located at Fort Miles in the Cape Henlopen State Park is open to the public year round (weather pending) and provides an overview of the Park. Fire Control Tower #23 located at the Cape May Point State Park, Cape May NJ and is open to the public (paid admission). Fire Control Tower #3 located at the Delaware Seashore State Park (south Dewey Beach, DE) is going through renovation to open it to the public (paid admission unknown).
They are former military spotting towers, cross utilized for aiming the cannons during WW2
Theyre for spotting submarines
The German subs would sit off the shore of Rehoboth and use the lights of the “city” to target marine traffic coming out of the Delaware Bay (supply ships out of Philly). Many old timers remember having blackout curtains on their east windows. The spotting towers. get coordinates so the military could shoot the big gun @ fort miles or Bethany at the subs
Big use was spotting German Subs.
They are old military towers and you can climb to the top
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