The Model 1917A1 155 mm GPF was the standard long-range mobile field artillery piece of the U.S. Army from 1917 through World War II. It was a direct copy of the French army's Canon de 155 mm Grande Puissance Filloux modèle 1917, developed by French Lieutenant Colonel Louis J. F. Filloux, and was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1917 because it lacked a heavy field artillery piece when it entered World War I, then produced afterward as its own Model 1918 or M1918. The 155 mm GPF remained in service through much of World War II before being replaced by the 155 mm M1 Long Tom cannon. At the beginning of World War II, mobile Coast Artillery battalions armed with the 155 mm GPF were deployed to defend small harbors and strategic points along the coast of the United States, including Beaufort Inlet, where three batteries provided the main weapons of the Harbor Defenses of Beaufort Inlet during the height of German submarine operations against Allied shipping offshore in 1942. The original Fort Macon battery positions in World War II were one-quarter mile southwest. This original cannon barrel was made at the French state arsenal at Puteaux in 1919, and its U.S. M1918A1 gun carriage retains French-style recoil spades.