USS Rancocas

 military, radar station, training center, United States Navy

Site for 1959-76 FPS-49 prototype and test/training BMEWS test facility.

Known to locals as the “Cruiser in the Cornfield”—or the USS Rancocas, for its closest body of water, Rancocas Creek—the facility is officially called the Vice Admiral James H. Doyle Combat Systems Engineering Development Site (CSEDS). Housing both Navy and Lockheed Martin personnel, the research and development facility is devoted to the AEGIS Combat System, a revolutionary naval air defense system capable of guarding against missile threats from land, sea and air.

Originally owned by the Air Force, the building was constructed in the 1950s. For years it was an Air Force-operated radar site, operating a ballistic missile early warning system. The warehouse-like gray building was topped by a radome, a large golf ball-like structure that protected its radar from volatile weather conditions. This giant golf ball was a familiar sight to travelers along I-295 until 1977, when the Air Force sought to close the site down.

That’s when Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer stepped in. Often called the “Father of AEGIS,” Rear Admiral Meyer believed the facility could provide an opportunity the Navy was looking for. He convinced his superiors to buy the building from the Air Force. They did, for $1.

Formally commissioned as a Navy facility in 1977, the CSEDS gained a new, even more striking feature in place of the radome: the 122-foot-high forward deckhouse of a nuclear strike class cruiser. Renamed in 2008 in honor of Vice Admiral Doyle, who first oversaw the development, construction and introduction of AEGIS-equipped cruisers and destroyers to the fleet, the facility has supported the successful fielding and maintenance of AEGIS systems on more than 100 ships for the U.S. Navy and its allies around the globe.