During the opening days of the World War II, more than 18,000 square miles of the Arizona and California desert were designated by the U.S. Army as a military training facility. The facility, conceived by General George Patton and referred to as the Desert Training Center (DTC), was designed to prepare troops for the rigors of desert warfare in the invasion of North Africa. Operating from 1942-1944, the DTC expanded far beyond its original scope, and became known as the California-Arizona Maneuver Area (C-AMA) in 1943. Numerous camps were established throughout the desert, in addition to airfields, supply depots, hospitals, firing ranges, and maneuver areas. Over the two year life of the Desert Training Center, more than 1.2 million troops were hardened for battle in the deserts of California and Arizona.
Located just to the north are the archaeological remnants of the evacuation hospital camp site. The 36th Evacuation Hospital was stationed here for training from May to December 1943. Evacuation hospitals were 400 bed facilities that provided care to sick and wounded soldiers under combat conditions. The 36th was located at this site until it participated in IX Corps maneuvers, whereupon it moved by Camp Dunlap, near Niland. During this time it maintained a 100-bed base hospital here while the rest of the unit was deployed elsewhere. At the end of maneuvers, the entire hospital was relocated to this original site. The 36th Evacuation Hospital served in the Pacific Theater of Operations where it took part in the New Guinea, Luzon and Leyte Campaigns and the occupation of Japan and was stationed in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969.
This monument is dedicated to the men and women who served in this unit by the Billy Holcomb Chapter of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus and the Bureau of Land Management.
May 2nd 2009
Re-Erected April 19th 2014/6019
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