A monumental flight over Mojave Trails

Mojave Desert Land Trust aerial tour shows splendor of national monument whose status could be reassessed

Amboy Crater is a significant geological feature of the Mojave Trails National Monument. Last week, the Mojave Desert Land Trust hosted an aerial tour as part of the third anniversary of the monument. [James Quigg, Daily Press]

By Matthew Cabe
Victor Valley Daily News

PALM SPRINGS — Storm clouds hovered over the city and patches of rain fell from above the nearby San Jacinto Mountains, but two Mojave Desert Land Trust officials arrived at the international airport here last week ready for a celebration.

Staff at the Joshua Tree-based nonprofit recently completed plans to commemorate the upcoming third anniversary of Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains national monuments.

All three were established Feb. 12, 2016, by former President Barack Obama through use of the Antiquities Act. Combined, they encompass nearly 1.8 million acres in the Mojave, Colorado and Sonoran deserts.

To offer a comprehensive view, MDLT partnered with the nonprofit EcoFlight for a series of flyovers within the Mojave Trails National Monument, which boasts 1.6 million acres and is the largest national monument in the 48 contiguous states, according to MDLT Communications Director Jessica Dacey.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dacey and MDLT Education Coordinator Adam Henne briefed a group of passengers that included a Daily Press reporter and photographer.

“You get a bit of a buzz when you go up there,” Dacey said. “Especially coming from this angle ... you start to understand the seamlessness between the parks.”

Tuesday’s flight traveled first above Joshua Tree National Park, then over Sheep Hole Pass, which served as the Cessna 210′s entrance into Mojave Trails.

For Dacey and others, part of the monument’s importance is its function as a wildlife corridor connecting the national park and the Mojave National Preserve, the more than 1.5-million-acre swath of National Park Service land between interstates 15 and 40.

Within the monument, the Cady Mountains serve as one of the best areas in the Mojave Desert to see bighorn sheep, according to MDLT.

The North American population of the muscular animal with curved horns was once estimated in the millions. By 1900, human encroachment diminished bighorn sheep numbers to several thousand, National Wildlife Federation statistics show. Conservation efforts have since brought those numbers up to nearly 8,000.

Bonanza Spring, located near the monument’s northern border, is the only wetland for 1,000 square miles. Like the Cady Mountains, the spring is also home to bighorns and 70 bird species.

Dacey said the habitat connectivity created with the monument’s establishment allows many animals to roam, helps increase their populations and protects plant life they need to survive.

There are also unique historical and cultural aspects to the monument’s significance, she said.

Mojave Trails is home to the longest undeveloped section of U.S. Route 66. Preservation of the “Mother Road,” according to the World Monuments Fund, would equal positive economic effects like “sustainable tourism.”

The monument also includes some of the best-preserved sites from the World War II-era Desert Training Center where, under the command of Gen. George S. Patton, more than a million troops were trained on 18,000 square miles for desert combat in North Africa.

Deep within the vast expanse visible through the Cessna’s starboard-side windows, another geographical feature appeared, albeit inconspicuously from 2,500 feet above the desert floor.

The Cadiz Dunes Wilderness spans nearly 20,000 acres in the heart of the monument. The dunes appear to “hum in the wind,” Dacey told passengers.

“I think they’re more majestic than the Kelso Dunes in the Preserve,” she said.

Bruce Gordon, who piloted the Cessna, nodded in agreement from behind his aviators. Gordon founded EcoFlight in 2002 to advocate for environmental protection via programs and aerial visuals that expand public awareness of wild lands.

He couldn’t help but take his hands off the Cessna’s yoke to capture photographs of the pristine topography below. He used the 80-minute flight to share his own knowledge of the region.

Several concerns were noted, as well.

One, MDLT contends, is Cadiz Inc.’s planned water project, which would pull 50,000-acre-feet of water a year from an ancient aquifer beneath the Mojave Desert. The water would later be sold in Southern California.

Cadiz owns roughly 34,000 acres within Mojave Trails, Dacey said. Company officials have said the pumping would not harm the environment. Rather, the project would conserve surplus water lost to evaporation at nearby dry lakes.

Cadiz’s research maintains that Bonanza Spring would not be impacted by pumping. Other research published in 2018 called the company’s findings into question and said the project would threaten Bonanza Spring, according to MDLT, which funded some of the research.

Cadiz CEO and President Scott Slater has stated the company is confident of no interconnection between groundwater and water levels in Bonanza Spring, the company’s website shows.

MDLT officials say the project could harm the bighorns that use Bonanza Spring. Dacey said a pipeline for the project has not yet been constructed.

Gordon navigated the plane toward Amboy Crater, situated about three miles southwest of Roy’s Motel and Cafe. At 80,000 years old, Amboy is “North America’s youngest volcano,” Dacey said.

MDLT is one of several environmental groups working to secure Mojave Trails’ status, which Dacey said is “in limbo.”

In April 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke — who resigned his post last month — to review national monuments of at least 100,000 acres that have been designated since 1996.

Trump’s goal was to determine whether the monuments needed reduction or elimination. Mojave Trails was subsequently included for review. Trump called the monuments, particularly Bear Ears National Monument in Utah, a “massive federal land grab.”

An initial report released in December 2017 included changes to 10 monuments. That same month, Trump signed proclamations that scaled back Bear Ears, as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In doing so, he declared, “Public lands will once again be for public use.”

Mojave Trails has not been altered, but Dacey said it’s never officially been declared safe.

When the monument was established, a management plan had to be drawn up by this month. That process was halted amid the Interior Department’s review. MDLT is part of a coalition working on a community proposal for a management plan. Dacey said the expectation is for it to guide future planning for Mojave Trails.

In 2016, visitors to Joshua Tree National Park more than doubled to over 2.5 million, prompting Park Superintendent David Smith to declare it was being “loved to death.” Dacey said attendance now is well over 3 million per year.

Amid the rise in popularity, as well as a massive clean-up effort underway in the damaged park following the partial federal government shutdown, groups are hoping to increase awareness of places like Mojave Trails as alternative destinations.

The question MDLT wants people to ask is, “What do these other public lands have to offer?” Dacey said.

From overhead, the answer seems simple enough.

ECV dedicates Desert Training Center monument

Clamper officials pose with pride, after their latest historical monument installation.

D. Westermeyer, BLM
NewsBytes Issue 374

On May 1-3, 2009, the Ancient and Honorable Order of E. Clampus Vitus, Billy Holcomb Chapter 109, descended upon the small town of Desert Center, California for their annual Spring Clampout event. Four hundred and twelve members in black hats and red shirts adorned with tin badges, buttons and pins gathered to initiate fifty three “Poor Blind Candidates” (PBC’s) into the organization under the reign of Noble Grand Humbug, Rick Gavigan.

For the unknowing, E. Clampus Vitus (members are commonly referred to as Clampers) is a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of western heritage that is active in state, local, and county Historical Societies. The Holcomb Chapter has worked with the Bureau of Land Management and the California Department of Transportation to place roadside plaques at--as E. Clampus Vitus describes them--“greater and lesser historical sites within San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

Since October 1969, they have erected and dedicated 109 plaques, including those along parts of the Mojave Road, The Patton Desert Training Center (C.A.M.A.), Route 66, Speed of Light Experiments, various historical buildings and other edifices, local native sites and ruins, and other varied and sundry persons, places and events of historical significance.”

Besides initiating new members during the Clampout, the Clampers erected a concrete monument and brass plaque commemorating the site of the 36th Evacuation Hospital for the Desert Training Center (DTC). Later renamed the California-Arizona Maneuver Area, the training center encompassed an 18,000 square mile area in the Mojave Desert and served as the country’s foremost armor training facility and maneuver area where American soldiers were trained in ground and air combat as well as desert warfare from 1942 to 1944.

The size of the training center made it the largest military installation and maneuver area in the world. It was eventually to become the training ground for more than a million troops in seven armored and thirteen infantry divisions. Major General George S. Patton Jr. was the first Commanding General of the DTC tasked with organizing large scale maneuvers necessary to prepare American soldiers for combat against the German Afrika Korps in the North African desert.

As part of the DTC, the 36th Evacuation Hospital was a 400-bed unit that provided care to sick and wounded soldiers under combat conditions. The unit was instrumental in developing procedures for training doctors and nurses and later served in the Pacific theater of operations where it took part in the New Guinea, Luzon, and Leyte campaigns, the occupation of Japan, and was stationed in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969.

The BLM now manages the majority of the land where the training camps existed. While little remains of the original encampment of the 36th Evacuation Hospital, the layout of streets, tent sites, and patterns of hand-laid rocks for unit insignias can still be seen on the ground.

The site is located along Interstate 10 near the town of Desert Center and can be reached by traveling east of Indio or west of Blythe. The monument is located at the northeast corner at the intersection of Ragsdale and Eagle Mountain Roads at the Eagle Mountain offramp

While visiting the area, please remember that the camp sites are considered Historical Period Archaeological sites eligible for the National Register. The use of metal detectors and the collection of artifacts by individuals are strictly prohibited. Visitors are welcome to walk through the area after parking near the monument or along Eagle Mountain Road but please refrain from driving off the paved roads.

While the BLM completed the required paperwork, environmental review and provide archeological assistance, the Billy Holcomb Chapter was responsible for organizing and funding the monument construction and dedication.

For addition information on the Billy Holcomb Chapter of ECV, visit their website.

In the Mojave, an oasis turns 75

On Aug. 15, 1933, Joseph Chiriaco built a gas station on a two-lane highway in Riverside County. He and his wife raised a family there. Today, the outpost is a booming hamlet along Interstate 10.

Pleas Uhlhorn, 87, a retired Marine, attends the gathering marking the 75th anniversary of Chiriaco Summit.jpg

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

CHIRIACO SUMMIT, CALIF. -- As desert rats go, few are hardier than the Chiriaco clan.

They came to this lonesome hilltop when it was little more than sand, scrub and venomous reptiles. Brooding mountains stared down from above while a handful of residents huddled in remote towns below.

"My father always wanted to go into business for himself, and this was where he chose to do it," said Margit Chiriaco-Rushe.

And so Chiriaco Summit was born, a desolate outpost of howling winds and Spartan comforts, offering what founder Joseph Chiriaco said were "all the necessities and a few of the luxuries" of life. That meant gas, water, a hamburger and maybe a bed in a creaky cabin.

Yet times have changed.

What began as a rough-and-tumble gas station is now a community of some 60 full-time residents. And this month, the now-booming hamlet along Interstate 10 celebrated its 75th anniversary as a landmark way station for travelers heading through the Mojave Desert to Phoenix.

The old Chiriaco family home is now a post office. A modern Chevron station dispenses gas and organic coffee. The General Patton Memorial Museum is open, with an array of vintage tanks on display. There is a Vietnam Memorial Wall, a cafe, classic car garage, trailer park and even an airport.

"We have come through a lot of hard times here, some really lean times," said Chiriaco-Rushe, 70, sitting in a back booth of the coffee shop. "I don't think just anyone can live in the desert. It takes a certain person to see the beauty here."

Appreciating the desert is often an acquired taste, and there were times when she yearned for a change. She once moved to Bloomington, near Fontana.

"One of the reasons I came back is because my family needed me," said Chiriaco-Rushe, chief executive officer of the business. "I wanted to be an artist. I dreamed about maybe moving to New York, but I felt the pull to stay here. It really has been a wonderful life."

And one that has touched many others.

On Aug. 15, hundreds of travelers stopped by to congratulate Chiriaco-Rushe and her extended family on the anniversary.

"We go to the river a lot and always stop in for dinner or a malt," said Nancy Barnes, 77, of Riverside. "It's a unique place with a personal touch. There is a pull that makes you want to come in. I can't go by without stopping."

Judy Duff drove by without stopping for decades until learning that she shared the same birthday -- Aug. 15, 1933 -- with the summit. The retired Riverside nurse felt the story was too good to keep to herself, so she drove up to share it.

"I used to see this place all the time on the way to Phoenix, but I never went in," she said. "I thought it was fascinating that we shared the same birthday. I worried though, what if I got there and Margit wasn't there? Who would I tell? The cook?"

Chiriaco-Rushe circulated among the local dignitaries like the chieftain of a small kingdom. She hugged Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff and posed under the cannon of a Sherman tank.

"Hurry up, I think I'm going to melt," she told a photographer as the sun beat down relentlessly.

The garrulous Huell Howser, host of KCET-TV Channel 28's "California's Gold," showed up with a camera crew and embraced her.

"Margit is a piece of history," he declared. "In a place like this, that seems so empty, you have two people who came out to find their dream. If that's not an example of California's gold, I don't know what is."

Chiriaco-Rushe smiled broadly, then ducked into a back room of the post office.

"This used to be our bedroom when we were kids," she said, standing in the narrow room now serving as her office. "We had four cots lined up in here. Each day we would take the school bus down to Indio."

Her father came from Alabama, working as a surveyor for the Los Angeles Bureau of Water and Power and then the Metropolitan Water District. His wife, Ruth, was a Minnesotan. They built their gas station along a two-lane highway about 30 miles east of Indio.

"My mom was a Norwegian blond, my dad was an Italian, and they both loved the desert," she said.

"We grew up without air conditioning in pretty crunched conditions. People out here made their houses from boxes and their fences from ocotillo sticks. But we had good values, and we were all straight-A students."

In 1942, Gen. George S. Patton came calling. He had chosen a site just a mile east of the summit as headquarters for an 18,000-square-mile training site designed to prepare soldiers for desert combat. When he died in 1945, the family erected a monument in his honor and donated the land where the museum now sits.

Joseph and Ruth Chiriaco died within months of each other in 1996. Their children took over and continue to run the summit, along with their children.

Many of the cooks, waitresses and clerks live in trailers behind the post office. Chiriaco-Rushe also lives on the property.

Over the years, the community has seen a parade of celebrities come through. President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, stopped in for ice cream. Basketball star Shaquille O'Neal ate a hamburger in the cafe.

Chiriaco-Rushe wants to put in a motel and maybe an RV park. But for now she is savoring the present.

"I am sure Joe and Ruth are here with us today," she told a small crowd as she teared up.

At the outdoor chapel, the Rev. Jack Keefe offered a blessing.

"May this be a place where people can shelter a little and then move on feeling renewed," he said. "May they not only find shelter but a home."

Battle Ready: How the desert helped win WWII

ABOUT THE TRAINING AREA
At its peak of operation in 1943, the Desert Training Center had 190,000 troops in training. That compares to about 11,000 men and women at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms today.

Keith Matheny
The Desert Sun
Veterans Day

CHIRIACO SUMMIT - A vast expanse of unforgiving desert just east of the Coachella Valley helped save the world two generations ago.

It was here in 1942, during some of the darkest days of World War II, that the Desert Training Center was created.

Developed by one of America's most demanding generals, George S. Patton Jr., the center is considered the largest military training facility in the history of mankind, stretching over 18,000 square miles of rugged terrain from Southern California into Arizona and Nevada.

From 1942 to 1944, some 1.8 million young American men were forged into soldiers here under hellish-by-design training conditions.

From this desert, these hardened and tested men left California to confront legendary German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the deserts of North Africa, to help free Europe from the Nazis' tightening grip and to fight Imperial Japan to a standstill in grim battles on Pacific islands.

"The men that were trained there helped bring the peace we've enjoyed for so many years," said Margit Rusche, board member and co-founder of the Gen. Patton Memorial Museum at the small desert outpost of Chiriaco Summit. It sits off Interstate 10, about 30 miles east of Indio.

Patton's history at the Desert Training Center is the Coachella Valley's history as well, said former Indian Wells Mayor Walter McIntyre, a Patton museum supporter. Many men and women who trained or worked at the desert camps lived in valley towns, he said.

But it's a part of history that's largely forgotten, generally preserved in black-and-white images and fleeting passages in American history books.

And the training center area today reflects that.

Patchy shrubs and plants dot endless stretches of desert sand under the shadow of distant mountains. The only sounds are of insects, a scampering lizard, an occasional bird. Not a single person can be seen for miles.

The scene contrasts greatly from 65 years ago when thousands of tanks, trucks and self-propelled artillery units thundered across the desert. Roaring units crisscrossed the rugged terrain in a training ground the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

Almost all facilities at the camp were nonpermanent, tent cities designed to move. Much of what was left behind was looted, vandalized or lost to the desert sands over the decades since.

Modest monuments to training center camps can be found along rural highways such as state routes 177 and 62. And the careful observer can still find vestiges of the days when tanks rumbled here, artillery was fired, warplanes flew and soldiers marched and camped.

Rusche and other museum supporters, as well as the federal Bureau of Land Management, are fighting to protect the last physical remnants of the desert's role in World War II.

"There's actually a tremendous amount of stuff that's still left out there," BLM archaeologist Rolla Queen said.

"The archaeological remnants of the camp are pretty spectacular. "If you really want to experience what World War II was like, the battlefield experience, the Desert Training Center is probably the closest you can come to it without leaving the United States."

Less than a month after the Japanese, in a shocking attack on Pearl Harbor, had thrust the U.S. into World War II, the War Department saw a need for a specialized training center to organize, train and equip troops to operate in difficult terrain.

The Germans were moving through the deserts of North Africa, threatening to meet up with the Japanese fighting in India. If they joined forces and supply lines, the Axis powers would be in position to attack the Soviet Union from the east, west and south - a possible point of no return for the Allied forces.

The crisis forced top allied leaders to take action. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed Nazi advances could be blunted by Americans trained in desert warfare and then shipped to fight in North Africa.

On Feb. 5, 1942, Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, chief of staff of the Army's General Headquarters, approved the concept of the Desert Training Center. One of his first moves: Giving command of the facility to Maj. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

'A pint of sweat'

The ex-cavalryman was the nation's first expert in armor warfare. He chose the location for the center in the Southern California desert within a few days.

"This was an area that was just massive," said retired Army Brig. Gen. David C. Henley, a part-time Rancho Mirage resident and author of "The Land that God Forgot - The Saga of Gen. George Patton's Desert Training Camps."

"It was sandy with valleys, rocks, gorges. The summer temperature goes up to 120. In the winter, it gets down to freezing. It paralleled the type of geography and weather we found in North Africa."

Patton's mantra was "a pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood." That creed defined the training center he created.

Soldiers lived in some 100,000 tents, not barracks. They slept on canvas cots or the ground.

They dealt with rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions - and the hard-driving demands of Patton.

Within a month, they were expected to run a mile through the desert in less than 10 minutes with full packs.

Soldiers were allowed one canteen of water a day in soaring summer temperatures.

"The whole idea was you're not going to get a PX (U.S. military base store), you're not going to get all of these amenities when you get to North Africa," said retired Army Lt. Col. Carlo D'Este. The noted World War II historian's books include the biography, "Patton: A Genius for War."

"It all goes back to the way Patton approached war - with proper training, his troops could prevail in any situation they could find themselves in. And to do that, you had to toughen them up."

Patton put it in his own colorful way: "If you can work successfully here, in this country, it will be no difficulty at all to kill the assorted sons of bitches you meet in any other country," he told officers.

This wasn't Hollywood

Charles Markovitz remembered feeling excited that his 6th Armored Division was leaving Fort Chaffee, Ark., for training in California in late fall 1942.

"Everybody was so happy - 'We're going to go to Hollywood,'" said Markovitz, now 87 and living in Hemet.

Their enthusiasm evaporated, however, when their train arrived at the one-building outpost of Rice. There, the men boarded trucks and were driven to Camp Coxcomb north of the small community of Desert Center.

"We dismounted and the officer in charge said, 'There's your new camp,'" Markovitz said.

"All you saw was desert. It was just a wasteland."

Freezing nights, blowing sand

Markovitz recalled nights of marching through the desert.

"We left at about 6 p.m. and marched all night," he said. "You'd march and get a five-minute break every hour. A 25-mile hike.

"When we got back to camp in the morning, we figured we'd have the whole day off. Hell, no. Without any sleep, we'd have to do our regular duties."

Though many soldiers went through the training center in oppressive summer heat, those there in the winter remember bitterly cold nights.

Palm Desert veteran Lyle Sparks remembered sleeping on the ground for three days in December 1942 at Camp Young, the training center's headquarters near Chiriaco Summit, while awaiting transfer to San Bernardino.

"We only got two blankets," he said. "I put paper down, my raincoat, got between my two blankets and short-sheeted myself so my feet wouldn't stick out. Fully dressed and still froze.

"Even though there were empty barracks near San Bernardino, they made us put tents up. They were preparing us to go overseas."

Christmas Day 1943, the troops at the center were looking forward to a special dinner - turkey and all the trimmings - when a huge windstorm hit, Markovitz said.

"The cooks had to set up a big canvas to block the wind while they were serving the food," he said. "We got the food in our mess kits, covered it up in our jackets and ran back to our tents. There were tents blowing over, sand in our food."

The camps were virtual cities in desert nothingness - more than 100,000 aligned tents creating road grids; 190,000 troops and 27,000 tanks and half-tracks at the training center's peak.

"I remember seeing the tanks take off below me in the desert, just a big cloud of dust," said Indio resident and World War II veteran Ben Beal, who served as company clerk for the Army's 487th Engineers.

Training Patton's best

Just months after forming the center, Patton was ordered to relinquish his command of the Desert Training Center and lead "Operation Torch." It was the English-American invasion of Nazi-held French North Africa.

Patton never returned to Indio. But he shared this message with his troops: "Having shared your labors, I know the extreme difficulties under which we worked and I know also how splendidly and self-sacrificingly you did your full duty.

"It was an unparalleled honor to have commanded such men."

By March 1943, the North African campaign for which the Desert Training Center was created neared an end.

But the center continued providing tough training to troops headed for Europe, Asia and other theaters around the world.

Preparations for the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, finally forced the center's closure due to a lack of available personnel.

The center ceased operating at midnight April 30, 1944.

Some of Patton's best desert-hardened troops accompanied him on his exploits throughout the war, said retired Army Col. Jerry Morelock, editor-in-chief of Armchair General Magazine.

The 4th Armored Division, dubbed "Patton's Best," trained for two years at the Desert Training Center and was the lead unit in Patton's Third Army's race across France in July and August 1944, Morelock said.

"Essentially the 4th Armored made Patton's reputation as a blitzkrieg-type armored commander," he said.

An officer under Patton's command, Col. Bruce C. Clarke, helped lead the way in the French campaign, Morelock said. Clarke was later promoted to Brigadier General and placed in charge of Combat Command B, 7th Armored Division, where he became known as the "hero of St. Vith" Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.

"I think much of Clarke's success as an armored commander can be tracked back directly to his time at the Desert Training Center," Morelock said.

As much as Patton put his imprint on the Desert Training Center, it impacted him as well, Henley said.

"Patton many times in his career said what he learned out in the desert with extreme temperatures, maintenance of vehicles in those conditions, helped him all the way through Europe," Henley said.

All told, 20 of the 87 divisions the Army used in World War II passed through the Desert Training Center. The young men who visited Southern California's desert went on to distinguish themselves in battles that now resonate in history.

Markovitz earned a Bronze Star for meritorious service. His 6th Armored Division joined the 4th on Patton's race through France. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Beal landed on Utah beach shortly after D-Day and endured the bloody Battle of the Hedgerows.

Markovitz called his training in the desert "very useful" in his later wartime experience.

"It toughened us up," he said.

Patton had accomplished his desert mission.

General Patton’s Desert Shrine

By Valerie Porter
American Heritage

A visitor examines a World War II tank at the General Patton Memorial Museum, in California. (Nik Wheeler/Corbis)

CHIRIACO SUMMIT -- The middle of the Mojave Desert might seem an unlikely place for a museum dedicated to Gen. George Patton, “Old Blood and Guts.” But Patton himself became linked to the desolate area in southeastern California, now known as Chiriaco Summit, when he chose it as the headquarters for the Desert Training Center during World War II. It played a major role in preparing soldiers before they marched into the North African desert to stop Germany’s onslaught. During the two years it was operational, nearly a million soldiers took a six-week course there.

Wandering through the General Patton Memorial Museum and the remains of the Desert Training Center makes for a fascinating if somewhat eerie history lesson. Much of the outdoor section remains untouched since Patton’s time.

In January 1942 the Germans had recaptured the Libyan port of Benghazi. Troops under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel were pushing toward Egypt and threatening the safety and future of the Suez Canal. British troops couldn’t stop their progress, and the U.S. War Department determined that American soldiers needed to be quickly trained in desert fighting and deployed to the area.

In February 1942 Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, soon to become commander of the Army Ground Forces, appointed General Patton to establish and act as first commander of the Desert Training Center. Approximately 18,000 square miles of land in California, Nevada, and Arizona were chosen as home to the base, the largest in the world.

Having been born in California, Patton knew where he wanted the headquarters to be—Shavers Summit, as Chiriaco was then called. It’s about 50 miles from Palm Springs, and 30 miles east of Indio. He named the headquarters Camp Young, in honor of Lt. Gen. Samuel B. M. Young, who in 1903 became the Army’s first chief of staff.

The soldiers called the Desert Training Center “the place that God forgot,” because of its harsh living conditions. The temperature ranged from 120 degrees in the shade (where there was any) during the summer to below freezing in the winter. Dust storms frequently swept through, and diesel fuel had to be poured on the ground to ward off rattlesnakes, scorpions, and tarantulas. Living alongside the soldiers, Patton found the area ideal. He said it prevented “soft living.”

That couldn’t have been truer. Men often napped under their equipment after going 36 hours without sleep. Food and water were rationed in order to duplicate desert fighting conditions. Soldiers shaved while sitting in the dirt, their shaving water often at 100 degrees without being heated.

The training center closed in April 1944 and was left abandoned for many years. But in 1988 private donors joined up and reopened it as a museum, with the cooperation of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Joseph Chiriaco, a major landowner in the area who had been one of the first locals to meet Patton when he arrived to set up the training center, was instrumental in establishing the museum.

The former camp entrance is now the museum entrance. Outside are stone boundaries that once marked tent sites. A particularly poignant sight is the partial remains of a stone chapel, where soldiers often prayed before being called to fight overseas.

Tanks are scattered on the grounds as though soldiers might return at any moment to use them. They’re mostly World War II–era, but there are also several from the Vietnam and Korean wars. They give you an excellent chance to see a Patton, Pershing, Sherman, and Stuart up close.

Inside, you can view a 26-minute film on the center’s history and Patton’s life, and watch Patton tell the soldiers at the center, “I’m not training you to die for your country. I’m training you to make other people die for their country.”

Throughout the museum, remnants of soldiers’ lives past and present, including uniforms, a chaplain’s case, typewriters, a night-vision periscope, saddles, communications equipment, cots, surgical instruments, and ammunition can be viewed. There’s even a jukebox around which men would gather for entertainment on rare occasions when that was possible.

Patton memorabilia abounds, including photos, letters, and one of his jeeps whose license plate reads “4 WILLY 3,” honoring his pet bull terrier. There’s a guest book at the museum’s entrance that’s reserved for vets who served with Patton. The touching and patriotic comments, many from men who trained at Camp Young, are well worth reading.

Soldiers may have thought God forgot the place, but it’s not likely you will forget it.

The General Patton Memorial Museum is at Exit 173 on Interstate 10, 47 miles east of Palm Springs, California. It’s open 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is $4 for adults, $3.50 for seniors. For more information visit www.generalpattonmuseum.com or call 760-227-3483.