Roosevelt Roads Naval Station

NS Roosevelt Roads Department of United States Navy
Roosevelt Roads NS logo
IATA: NRR ICAO: TJNR FAA LID: NRR
Summary
Airport type	Military: Naval Air Station
Operator	United States Navy
Location	Ceiba, Puerto Rico
Built	1943
In use	until 2004
Elevation AMSL	38 ft / 11.58 m
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 7/25 11,000 3,352.8 Concrete 18/36 CLOSED indef. 5,800 100 Concrete Helipad Concrete

Coordinates: 18°14′17″N 65°37′40″W / 18.23806°N 65.62778°W / 18.23806; -65.62778

Roosevelt Roads Naval Station is a former United States Navy base in the town of Ceiba, Puerto Rico. The site is run today as José Aponte de la Torre Airport, a public use airport.

In 1919, the future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, toured Puerto Rico, visiting Ceiba. When he returned to Washington, D.C., he expressed a liking for the terrain where the base now is. This was during the World War I era, and the United States could benefit from an air field in Ceiba. While Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, its territorial rights belong to the United States, which made it perfectly feasible, and ideal, for the American government to build an airplane base in Ceiba.

It took many years for the United States Government to become convinced of the need for an air base in Ceiba. When Adolf Hitler and Nazi-led Germany began to invade other European countries, the US, led by then President Roosevelt, entertained the idea of a Naval air station in Ceiba. With war in the European and Pacific theatres, they saw an airbase in the Caribbean as necessary. The base had been inaugurated, but scaled down to maintenance status with a public works office in 1944. From then until 1957, the base went through many shifts, being opened seven times and closed eight times. Meanwhile, it continued as a source of employment for the citizens of Ceiba.