There were several WW-II Desert Training Centers in Southern California and Utah.
Camp Young was the headquarters for all of them. These others included Camp Coxcomb, Camp Iron Mountain, Camp Granite, Camp Rice, Camp Ibis, Camp Pilot Knob, Camp Esex, and Camp Clipper.
There were also four airfields associated with the Desert Camps: Rice, Blythe, Desert Center, and Thermal.
Desert Training Center Camps in Arizona were Camp Huder, Camp Horn, Camp Bouse, and Camp Laguna.
There were also a number of Quartermaster Supply Depots and Railroad sidings.
The area was chosen because it resembled North Africa, there were good rail lines, and the California Aqueduct was closeby which provided the large amount of water that was needed.
After the war effort moved out of North Africa, the Desert Training Centers were closed. Quartermaster troops cleaned up the areas, and removed tents, structures, and debris.
After that, they lay as they were, allowing time, scavengers, and the needs for new interstates, gas lines, power lines, etc. to destroy what was left.
In 1985, the Bureau of Land Management did a comprehensive assessment of the state of these Desert Training Centers.
The report can be summarized as follows:
These Training Centers were in horrible shape.
What the 1985 report stated:
That was 30 years ago. It is in even worse shape now.
The report provided several recommendations for halting the deterioration. To our eyes, none of these recommendations were followed, and the only action taken was that monuments were placed on the highways near them.
We have spent several days at Camp Young, alternating hikes into Joshua Tree National Park with hikes into the former camp area.
We had three maps of this camp. We used them to try to find the original roads. We were reasonably successful, thanks to our GPS device.
One of the interesting features of the roads in this camp is that many were asphalt. The asphalt was not of high quality, but was enough for the time. There was no asphalt on any of the roads of the other three camps were have explored. The asphalt was probably used because it was the headquarters area for all of the camps, so the roads got a lot of use.
As the 1985 report indicates, since WWII an interstate was built right through the camp, as well as a power line installed (and a road to service it) and a gas line.
The General Patton museum is close by, but interestingly isn’t even on the land for the original camp. Some private citizen donated the land for it.
It was difficult to find the original roads, and many could not be identified. As the 1985 report indicates, the rock formations have been destroyed by the construction in the area and by the rains that have washed them out.
One has the inescapable conclusion that nobody cared about this camp, and that almost nobody cares now.
Here are the roads we found. We had to work hard at times to identify them. We were pleased we could still, with effort, identify as much as we did.
The week we were at this place was like the approximately three weeks we spent near or at the other three Desert Training Centers—nobody but us in the camps.
As was our policy for the other camps, when we found something we photographed it and then returned it to its original place, a bit more hidden. A couple of the artifacts were ones that we would loved to have taken home, but didn’t. In 10 years they will be gone forever.
Is it right to just leave them or is it more respectful to take them home and preserve them? I think it’s wrong to let them deteriorate completely, as they most assuredly will, but that is not for us to say. We have to trust the process, I think, as foolish as that appears to us. The artifacts don’t belong to us, So we have left them.
Old fountain pen jar
1940s Pepsi bottle
What looks to be an old battery:
The flagpole area:
Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
Old street markers. The paint is almost gone, but we could barely make them out.
An old freezer. Some people view our public lands as their private dump
Rock lined walls, etc.
Over the years people have taken the rocks and built firepits.
The monument. It can't be on the road because the road is an interstate. Instead, it is on an access road. Nobody would ever see it.
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