While immigration to Ellis Island decreased the population continued to grow, in part due to the Great Migration. Upon entry to World War I the US government took the Hamburg-American Line piers in Hoboken under eminent domain, and which became the major point of embarkation for more than three million soldiers, known as "doughboys". Camp Merritt was established in Cresskill for troop staging. In 1916, an act of sabotage literally and figuratively shook the region when German agents set off bombs at the munitions depot in New York Bay at Black Tom. Another act of sabotage known as the Kingsland Explosion occurred on January 11, 1917. The T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion, though not considered sabotage, also caused tremendous damage.