For example, one time Gen Patton ordered, Col Blank, you are removed from command! If you know what is good for you, you will stay away from me for a week.

The CG was uncompromising. Firstly, he was not easy on his men. When they did not drill they policed. He was a driver and a disciplinarian. Secondly, he was uncompromising with himself as well. He demanded that his men appear in uniform. Despite the heat and sand, he himself wore his uniform in a military manner. He did not live in Indio but in a tent at Camp Young. In fact, one of the first things he did when he reported to the desert area was empty out of the hotel at Indio. Only one officer was left behind and it was said that he was sick and could not be moved. In the third place, he wanted housekeeping arrangements to be minimal and tactical and technical instruction to be at the maximum.

It was initially planned that there would be a maneuver of troops in the area on July 15, but due to the logistics snarl, and the late arrival of troops, it was postponed until October 18. Gen Patton prepared for the first DTC maneuvers but he was not to command them. He was relieved and his I Armored Corps was needed for action in North Africa. As one review various facets of the development of this maneuver area, it seems almost incredible that within a period of six to eight months, in spite of the fact that it was never fully operable under Patton, he left his lasting imprint. His technique of training continued until the maneuver area was closed.

The Desert Training Center was a war baby and it was a thorn to the spirit with its isolation, evasive dust and extreme shifts in temperature. Men had to be acclimated. The 3rd Armored Division suffered many casualties from heat prostration. Other units did too, but it is very little in the official reports on this subject. The surgeon under Gen Patton warned the command that danger lurked in reaching for an object on the ground unless you were sure that a rattlesnake wasn’t coiled around it. He advised that liquids be drunk slowly and in small amounts, but with an eventually increased intake over a 24 hour period and to avoid over-exposure in the sun. Three 10-grain salt tablets were to be taken daily.

Problems with the civilian population in the area were not particularly unique. These camps which sprang up all over the zone of the interior in the States created a great deal of stress on adjacent communities, many of which were small. There was a flood of wives and families trying to follow their loved ones as they trained, discovering that housing, food, the whole bit was very difficult. The official history relates that the situation in Indio was deplorable. Initially, the train transportation was snarled and deficient, which delayed proper distribution of food, water, and other supplies; however, in time this was corrected. Water supplies were increased after wells were completed. Generally, rations were the modified B ration with fresh milk and frozen beef added at a later date. The latter must have been the exception for the majority of those interviewed recalled that two of the camps on the Arizona side were forbidden to have ice for long periods and they were not permitted fresh fruit or vegetables.

The beer ration, when available, was served warm. Equipment was in very short supply during the major portion of the maneuver area activation. The 5th Armored Division which had been activated a year earlier still lacked 40 percent of its equipment at the time it maneuvered in the desert. Service units were in very short supply and all vehicles were used to their limits without proper maintenance. The original concept was for units not to bring new equipment, other than personal, into the maneuver area. Instead, an outgoing division was to leave its trucks, tanks, signal equipment, and all of that type of field material properly serviced so as to be used by an incoming division. Gen George Ruhlen, now retired remembers, the 4th Armored Division’s unit issue of tanks, trucks, and the like being in horrible condition and it was in even worse shape when the 4th Armored Division left Camp Ibis. The idea of leaving equipment for the following unit at least relieved the strain on the supply and rail services.

The Desert Training Center severely taxed civilians as well as the military. It doesn’t make much difference if one is talking about Indio, Yuma, Blythe or the larger towns such as Phoenix, the civilians learned that when the troops were on leave, especially weekends, the civilians were not going to get into restaurants, movie theaters, trains, and busses.

The increased demand sometimes deprived the local civilian population of certain foods. In Yuma, after the 6th Armored Division spent a weekend, eggs and beef were in very short supply.

Corps Maneuvers

While the maneuver area was active the following Corps commanders and their staffs cycled through one after the other:

I-AC, Gen George S. Patton, Apr 1942 to Aug 1942
II AC, Gen Alvan Gillem, Aug 1942 to Oct 1942
IV AC, Gen William W. Walker, Nov 1942 to Mar 1943
IX Corps, Gen Charles H. White, Mar 1943 to Jul 1943
XV Corps, Gen Wade H. Haislip, Jul 1943 to Nov 1943
IV Corps, Gen Alexander M. Patch, Nov 1943 to Jan 1944
X Corps, Gen Jonathon W. Anderson, Jan 1944 to Apr 1944

IX Corps
March 29 – July 23 1943

Under Gen Charles H. White the area of the Center was enlarged into the rough oval of its final shape. Its military population soared to almost 190.000, the elements of which were scattered through an area exceeding in size the state of Pennsylvania. Much construction was necessary. Roads were always being built or repaired. Hospitals were badly needed. In June 1943, although but 90 percent complete, the general hospital at Spadra, California, was occupied by more than 1000 patients.

After engineer troops had completed projects of higher priority such as hospitals, they built open-air theaters of simple design at Base General Depot and Pomona. Movement in and out of the Center by large numbers of units and the load the railroads were forced to bear in supplying them led Joseph B. Eastman, director of the Office of Defense Transportation to request the Under Secretary of War to have activities in the Center decreased.

The greatest rail congestion in the country existed in this western region. The War Department wished the western railroads to improve and increase their facilities in preparation for the war effort in the Pacific, but it believed that the point had been reached, especially on the Santa Fe, when an interval for recovery must be allowed. Since curtailment of the Center must be counterbalanced by the acquisition of equal facilities in another locality, the Army Ground Forces met the problem in three ways. In the first place, the Center was not further expanded. Secondly, the movement of large units was arranged so as to cause the least possible interference with other activities of the railroads. Wherever possible rolling stock bringing in a unit was used to carry a similar unit from the Center. Finally, the equipment was exchanged. With the exception of the armored division which left the Center in August, an exchange of equipment was made in all cases.

A vehicle pool was introduced. In general, after a unit arrived at the Center it borrowed equipment and vehicles from pools in the Center; before it left, it returned equipment and vehicles to the pools. The major units involved in the maneuvers under the IX Corps, from June 27 until July 15, were the 7th Armored Division, the 8th and 77th Infantry Divisions and the 76th Field Artillery Brigade. In the maneuvers also were the 114th Coast Artillery (AAA), the 4th Mechanized Cavalry, the 5th and 6th Tank Destroyer Groups, the 144th Field Artillery Group, the 8th Reconnaissance Squadron, and the 6th Tank Group composed of its headquarters and the 742nd Tank Battalion (Light) and the 743d Tank Battalion (Medium).

An Army Ground Forces directive of July 16, 1943, did not seek to revolutionize but to refine the structure of the Center. The system of administering the communications zone which had originated with Gen William W. Walker was incorporated into the directive. Large changes came about not as an alteration in the purpose or plan of the Center, but rather as a better means of fulfillment of that plan. Thus the communications zone was given a boundary and no longer surrounded the combat zone.

XV Corps
July 23 – November 13 1944

On July 23, 1943, one week after the AGF directive was issued, Gen Wade H. Haislip, commanding the XV Corps, assumed command of the Center. To him and his staff fell the responsibility for realizing the provisions of the directive. The administration was simplified for Headquarters and realism was enhanced, attention again focused on training. Haislip inherited vexing problems. One was the allotment of personnel for overhead. A request had been submitted for an increased allotment for Headquarters, the Communications Zone, and for the Base General Depot. A lesser increase than asked for was granted by Headquarters, Army Ground Forces. Another problem was the lack of service units. A staff study made under the direction of the G-4, DTC was sent by Haislip to Headquarters, Army Ground Forces, for reorganizing certain phases of the Center. Its major element was a listing of the number and types of service units needed for the operation of the Center and which were thereafter to be assigned to it. This feature was not approved by Headquarters, Army Ground Forces, which was itself considering the problem. Gen Lesley J. McNair felt strongly that an effort had to be made to stabilize the service units at the Center and other maneuver areas. He believed that the ideal system would be one where the necessary operating service units would be established as an element of the troops’ basis – in the same manner as school troops. Then the service units destined for overseas could flow through the Center without affecting operations.

But the overall requirements of the Army here and abroad did not permit the assignment of an adequate number of service units to the Desert Training Center – California Arizona Maneuver Area. The maneuvers under the XV Corps were held from October 25 until November 13 1943. The major units involved were the 81st and 79th Infantry Divisions, the 15th Cavalry (Mechanized), and 182d and 119th Field Artillery Groups, each group including 52 155-MM howitzer battalions and one 155-MM gun battalion, the 3rd Field Artillery Observation Battalion, the 185th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and two AAA Groups, one with two battalions and one with three. During this period, September 22, 1943, Col James B. Edmunds became commander of the communications zone.

IV Corps
November 13 1943 – January 17 1944

On November 13, 1943, five days before the maneuvers, Gen Alexander M. Patch and the IV Corps took command of the California Arizona Maneuver Area. The maneuvers, from November 20 until December 11, involved the 90th Infantry Division, the 93d Infantry Division, the 11th Cavalry Group, the 22nd AAA Group, and the 33rd AAA Group, the 12th Tank Destroyer Group and the 711th Tank Battalion.

The process towards greater realism continued except in one particular, and that was air. The unity of command with the CAMA was broken when the War Department assigned the III Tactical Air Division (previously the IV Air Support Command), including supporting service units and airdromes, to the Third Air Force. The Commanding General of the Third Air Force was made responsible for providing the units required for air-ground training in the CAMA.

More serious was the deteriorating situation involving service units. Towards the end of 1943 shipments of service units overseas were increasing, and the situation for CAMA looked hopeless. Gen McNair, therefore, recommended to the War Department that the CAMA be closed!

X Corps
January 17 – April 30 1944

On January 17, 1944, amid maneuvers between the 11th Armored Division and the 104th Infantry Division, Gen Jonathan W. Andersen and the X Corps took command of the CAMA. On January 21, Headquarters, Army Ground Forces, phoned that the CAMA would be discontinued as soon as practicable after April 15. The message was later elaborated: the CAMA was to be discontinued as a maneuver area as of April 15, 1944, to cease internal operations as a training theater as of May 1, 1944. The X Corps directed the last maneuvers held at CAMA. The major participating units were the 9th and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 15th Tank Destroyer Group.

April 20 1942 - US Army Maj Gen George s. Patton's headquarters during training exercises in the California desert.At midnight, May 1, 1944, Andersen turned over the installations and a modicum of personnel in the Ninth Service Command, representing the Army Ground Forces and the Desert Training Center California-Arizona Maneuver Area was at an end. All senior officers who participated in this maneuver area training agreed that the experience was extremely valuable for them later in combat. Gen Patton stated that except for his World War I combat experience this was the most valuable training that he undertook.

With the deactivation of CAMA, there remained a concentrated effort to police up the area, close the camps, collect, salvage and ship to outside depots thousands of pieces of equipment and tons of material. The location and disposal of any non-exploded shells presented a problem and in some instances, these fields simply had to be marked with warning signs and left for future deposition. The fortified area at Palen Pass presented such a problem that any hope of restoring it to its pre-maneuver condition was abandoned.

By April 15, only Camp Young, Headquarters of the Communication Zone, the Base General Hospital Depot, and the Pomona Ordnance base remained open with service troops. A partial list of the materials which had been turned in by April 15, 1945, is as follows: 1239 pieces of artillery, 43708 small arms weapons, and 6110 tons of serviceable parts (automotive and weapons). The list goes on and on, including six division camps and two temporary non-divisional camps. Four hundred and fourteen organizational units, with a total strength of approximately 130.000 were moved from the area and released to the Army Service Forces or disbanded.



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