With the US Navy’s newest submarine, the New Jersey, (SSN 796) scheduled to be commissioned at NWS Earle’s pier in Leonardo on September 14, it is interesting to look back on the history of this naval installation that was built during World War II and encompasses 11,027.44 acres between Middletown and Colts Neck, with headquarters in Colts Neck and the world’s longest three vessel pier in Leonardo.
In its book containing maps, letters, documents and comments from crew, employees, and local residents at the onset of the base, the description of how Colts Neck and Leonardo appeared before construction began is interesting poetic and would most likely be criticized in the 21st century. But it is a charming piece of American and local history.
The book begins, as written shortly after the base opened:
“Earle was, in the beginning, largely oak forest and woodland swamp, glen paradise for deer and other game. Pheasant and fox, deer and rabbit dwelt here in a world of their own, with only the baying of an occasional hound or the tread of an occasional hunter to astound them into seeking cover. Even now, on bleak winter mornings, as we sit comfortably at breakfast in the windowed wardroom of our BOQ, we can smile to see a hen quail,; like a plump little bandy-legged woman, waddling over the crusted snow to our charitable handout of bread crumbs, her little family aligned behind her. Even now, on hot summer nights, as we return tired through the magazine areas, we may stop breathless as a stag, head lifted at the sound of our voices, stands in majesty, silhouetted against the rising moon atop a magazine.
Along its fringes and roadways a few ‘blind pigs’ had blinked their pale eyes during the Volstead Era and stories of violence in its quicksands are not yet entirely forgotten. Two of these legendary establishments still remained when the leveling of the land for what was to be the Main Gate commenced.
Leonardo, too, was not without its romantic history. Skirting its shoes had stood a cluster of gay little houses of prostitution to which harried New York business ladies were wont to retire during the summer months in order to play their trade in a cooler, quieter atmosphere.
It was June 23, 1943, when the Secretary of the Navy approved an ammunition depot in the New York area at an estimated cost of $14,000,000. The Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance urged that the cost be increased in order to provide a depot which would be adequate to meet the needs of the Port of New York and the logistics of this war. Final costs, including Army expansion, were $58,000,000. The Bureau of Ordnance named this depot after Rear Admiral Ralph A. Earle, the Chief of the Bureau during the First World War.
Of the total acreage, Leonardo includes 81.16 acres and the railroad right of way between headquarters and the waterfront base is 200 acres. The railroad is 125 miles long to cover the 14-mile distance between the two sites. The pier is two and a half miles long.
Earle Naval Ammunition Depot was officially established December. 13, 1943, and had its own post office and telegraph office as well as fire department.
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