INS Angre, the shore logistic support establishment of the Western Naval Command, is a giant organisation like the famous ship Titanic with the exception that it will never go under water. If the Western Fleet is the sword arm of the Western Naval Command, INS Angre is the administrative and logistic support arm.

A Naval officer, before he lands in Mumbai, looks up to Angre so that his road journey from the airport or railway station is comfortably made in a Naval transport and, on arrival, he is provided a cosy roof in poetic greenery of the southernmost tip of Mumbai, known as Navy Nagar.

Work with no fun and joy cannot maintain motivated men. While Sagar, the erstwhile sailor's home, continues to provide recreation to single sailors, all-round entertainment to sailors and their families is provided in Tarang Complex, situated right at the doorstep. The complex has taken a new lead in providing swimming, music, dance, IT training, recreation and educational facilities to the sailors’ families.

While evenings are dull without entertainment, life is incomplete without basic need of education. Angre is responsible to administer Naval Schools and Kendriya Vidyalayas. During the International Fleet Review in February 2001 conducted at Marine Drive of Mumbai, the multinational parade was conducted by the unit which was witnessed by the largest ever public in the history of Mumbai. Such a multidirectional growth in the responsibilities of Angre has been synonymous with the growth of Mumbai city around the Naval establishment, historically known as 'Castle Barracks'. The Castle Barracks has a chequered history. The history of the erstwhile Bombay is incomplete without the Barracks.

In the 16th century AD, Bombay was an archipelago of seven marshy islands which was leased by the King of Portugal, who got possession of the island from Gujarat monarchy in 1534, to his compatriot Garcia de Orta, a famous botanist-physician in 1548. He built a wooden Manor House, where the sick quarters (MI Room) exist today.

During early times, the area around the Manor House consisted of a sea front wall and four guns mounted on it and it became known as Castle Barracks. The Britishers became the masters of the island when the Portuguese gave it in dowry to his Majesty King Charles II for the marriage of Catherine of Braganza, Portugal and the Manor House became officially the seat of power of the British Empire when Humphrey Cook signed the Instrument of Possession on February 18, 1665.

Humphrey Cook fortified the area around the Manor House with ramparts and the walls. The walls were 2 feet high and the ramparts 42 feet wide to defend the island against marauding sea pirates attacking British ships and boats at anchorage. The island came into the possession of the East India Company on September 23, 1668. The Company shifted its headquarters from Surat to Castle Barracks in 1686, and its flag flew from the flagstaff which now flies the flag of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command.

Earlier in 1830, the naval ensign known as the ‘Company Jack’ was hoisted on the Castle for the first time when the Bombay Marine was re-designated as the Indian Navy. It was hauled down in April 1863 when the government decided to abolish the Indian Navy. The Castle Barracks temporarily lost its glory with the shifting of political power from the East India Company to the British Empire after the first war of independence in 1857.

The white ensign was hoisted again in the Castle Barrack on the flag- staff on January 14, 1941 when the re-constructed buildings were taken into use for the Royal Indian Navy and declared open by Vice Admiral Herbert Fitzherbert, the Flag Officer Commanding, Royal Indian Navy. In 1940, the Castle was commissioned as HMIS Dalhousie and renamed as INS Dalhousie on January 26, 1950, the day India became republic. The establishment was renamed as INS Angre on September 15, 1951 in the honour of great Maratha Admiral Kanhoji Angre.

Even after more than four centuries, the Castle Barracks retains some of the original structures and relics. The three ramparts and the fort walls, the four bastions called Tank Bastion (present base sick quarters), Cavalier Bastion (present Command Meteorological Office), Flagstaff Bastion (present office of Commodore, Naval Barracks) and Barb Tree Bastion (present Court-martial Room), massive wooden gates at two entrances and a ten-feet Portuguese sun dial remind the visitors to this historic establishment of its rich history.