Yesterday's Weapons Forums

During WW2, General George S. Patton, Jr. set up training camps in the eastern Mojave Desert of California and western Arizona. The idea was to get US Army forces ready for combat in north Africa. If you go on Google Earth and know where to look, you can still see the camp layouts from the air. I drove by a few of these on my trip across the west recently. When I was a teenager roaming around the desert, I didn't know where these were located. Now, the Bureau of Land Management has erected plaques at all their locations. Veterans organizations have put up plaques at some of them.

One that I passed was off the road 30 miles away, but along the highway memorial plaques had been erected. This was near Camp Bouse, Arizona, near the town of Bouse. Here are pictures from that location:



















Another location that I drove by along Calif. Hwy. 62 at Iron Mountain was Camp Iron Mountain. Here is a picture of the BLM monument and also a picture of where the camp used to sit, located next to the mountain. The roads are still all layed out there. At this site was a large sand table map of the entire eastern Mojave Desert which has been fenced off for protection by the BLM.

very interesting gary , id heard of this aspect of the war years ago but hadnt thought of it in a very long time ,

You guys "back there" could take similar trips to similar places nearer to you, like Camp Atterbury, Ind., Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky, or Camp Pickett, Va., for example. I've taken trips back east and visited some of these places, but I don't know them as well as places out west.

I used to run into soldiers in the Army who had been at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind. or "Fort Ben" as they sometimes called it. I guess it's to clerks and finance corps people as Fort Benning is to the infantry.

Thanks for the info, never knew.