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Patton Desert Warfare Training Camp Finds


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Wow - beautiful collection! We also used to go out there often in the 70's and I have fond memories of the group campouts my detecting friends and I had. Several years ago and the last time I went out there I made a video:

Good times!

media-center-public-room-california-desert-training-center-brochure.pdf

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Very good topic with an interesting history and excellent finds as well. It's always good to see something just a little different. 

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Interesting finds for sure!  My father and 2 uncles were there, uncle Gandy went to Italy.  A P-38 crashed and i remember they said a prop hit the ground about every nine feet before impact. 

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What camps are these?

I had an uncle that was training for the Pacific at the end of the war.  His eyesight was not good enough to be a pilot so he trained on radar which was new at the time.

After my mom passed I found a group of about 40 letters from him where he stayed and trained at camps in California and Arizona.  Most of those fields are gone now and I don't really know where the exact location would be.

Sadly he was young and was in a plane that was shot down in the last couple of months of the war in the Philippines.  Jolo Island was where it crashed.

I've thought about going to Camp Clipper but it is quite a drive for a day trip.

Mitchel

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Thanks everyone! In reply to mn90403, we hunted mostly Camps Coxcomb, Granite and Iron Mountain. They are relatively close together. We did hunt the others, Bouse, Hyder, Horn and Laguna. But, the three is where almost all of what I posted were found. As I get time I'll put up some of my finds from Fortuna Mine and Camp Hualapai. 

On the three dog tags shown, my daughter was able to locate relatives of the soldiers in hopes of passing them on. Unfortunately, she never got a reply. Would have been nice to to return something lost. 

Now to see about getting on to an area outside Datelined, AZ that was an old airbase!

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