Patton Desert Warfare Training Camp Finds

[GotAU?]

Wow, those are really nice collection of artifacts from the camps. Being that it was found just 20-some years after the camps were active, your collection is in one of the best conditions and most interesting I’ve ever seen. 

I’ve conducted surveys and mapping at the Desert Training Center (DTC) under contract for BLM, including at Iron Mountain. Due to their historical significance, the DTC camps have been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places to ensure better protection against (now illegal) collecting and other disturbances.

The desert in these areas still contains artifacts and has sites left from past military exercises performed out there, but unfortunately, like the Sherman tank tracks left from General Patton’s North Africa Campaign practices, they're rapidly deteriorating due to the passage of time, as well as from looting and off-road vehicles damaging the landscape.

If anyone is interested in helping to preserve the history of these camps, please consider anonymously donating (or bequeathing) your collection of DTC artifacts to the General Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit, CA. They will accept donations for curation without asking any questions.

Thank you!

[mn90403]

That is a good idea and I wish I had known about it earlier.  I found some live ammo rounds and some other artifacts I would have dropped off.  I've only been out to that one spot and found the buttons I posted and the one lapel pin.

[GotAU?]

I don’t think they’ll take the ammo rounds, but other items would be nice.

They once accidentally had some what is known as DU ammunition on display not knowing what it was, and it had to be removed by some specialists because it was scratched due to being fired. Military guys will know what I’m talking about. It’s a good idea not to dig up any military ammo at all, and as there were some more recent exercises after DTC during the Vietnam era and later, they practiced with more potent stuff than what they used during the WWII era.

[Swegin]

10 hours ago, AZSilver said:

Wow! It's been well over a year since I posted to the forum! Anyway, I came across two other finds detecting in Patton's Training camps in CA. A bayonet and jungle knife. right now I'm waiting on snowbirds to clear from one camp out by Pilot Knob, CA to detect.

Very nice finds.  Looks like a Bolo knife. 

[MSC]

Wow, nice cool finds. 

[AZSilver]

It was unbelievable the amount of blank and live rounds we found. From .45 to 50 cal. We would empty the powder, put in coffee can and then light the powder. The brass we would sell for scrap. Even found a fired tank round and fired artillery round. At one camp someone found a frag grenade. Fortunately it didn't have a fuse or powder! A few times a fuse/detonator to a mine would be found. On one trip a guy had a tire blown off from driving over one. Found a 5 gal gas can buried several feet down. Couldn't figure out why it was buried. Tons of coins! Sometimes just lying on the surface. Someone even lost a 1803 large cent. And, a replica of a 1857 CA gold coin.

[Tom_in_CA]

On 4/24/2024 at 10:27 PM, GotAU? said:

Wow, those are really nice collection of artifacts from the camps. Being that it was found just 20-some years after the camps were active, your collection is in one of the best conditions and most interesting I’ve ever seen. 

I’ve conducted surveys and mapping at the Desert Training Center (DTC) under contract for BLM, including at Iron Mountain. Due to their historical significance, the DTC camps have been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places to ensure better protection against (now illegal) collecting and other disturbances.

The desert in these areas still contains artifacts and has sites left from past military exercises performed out there, but unfortunately, like the Sherman tank tracks left from General Patton’s North Africa Campaign practices, they're rapidly deteriorating due to the passage of time, as well as from looting and off-road vehicles damaging the landscape.

If anyone is interested in helping to preserve the history of these camps, please consider anonymously donating (or bequeathing) your collection of DTC artifacts to the General Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit, CA. They will accept donations for curation without asking any questions.

Thank you!

 

This is sort of ironic ^ ^   A place that is , as you say ... "now illegal" for private sector digging/collecting/disturbing.  Yet will gladly accept donations for their museum, from (wait for it, wait for it) : The Private sector digger/collector/disturbers.    🤣

 

And yes :  The private sector hobbyist does indeed love to donate, show & tell, etc....   So contrary to purist archie notion:   The objects we find don't always-necessarily sit forever on private mantle places.  

 

Rather ironic, eh ?   Ie.:  If it has always been a "no-no", then there'd be no cool history objects to display .

 

Don't get me wrong :  I agree that that there are some obvious off-limits historic sensitive monuments that ought-to-be off-limits.   Sure.   But WWII stuff ?  NNnnnaaahhh..    I live right next to a defunct WWII army base, and can dig that WWII accoutrements stuff (and wheaties and bullet shells, etc...) till my arms fall off.   No big deal.   Same for the museum of this southern CA situation :   After getting a few cabinet displays of these-type-items for the public displays, then let's be honest :  Everything else will be a repeat.   Telling nothing more than is already known.  

[GotAU?]

Hi Tom,

Museums share their collections to other museums quite often, and some of the DTC collections went to the Smithsonian as well.

I know World War II vets are still around us and the artifacts from the war may not seem that significant as they are not as old as others, however, as those vets are quickly passing with age,  their story will be better told by what they’ve left behind if it is preserved.

[Tom_in_CA]

5 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

......  their story will be better told by what they’ve left behind if it is preserved.

Which is exactly why I was pointing to the irony of them , yes, "accepting donations from us md'rs" .   Who got the targets from these places : ".... (now illegal) collecting and other disturbances....."  

 

So it's like this :  I guess it's good that it didn't USED TO BE illegal .  Lest they couldn't be soliciting/accepting donations, and better-telling-the-preserved story that we helped-them preserve.

 

I'm just pointing out the irony here.

 

[GotAU?]

32 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Which is exactly why I was pointing to the irony of them , yes, "accepting donations from us md'rs" .   Who got the targets from these places : ".... (now illegal) collecting and other disturbances....."  

 

So it's like this :  I guess it's good that it didn't USED TO BE illegal .  Lest they couldn't be soliciting/accepting donations, and better-telling-the-preserved story that we helped-them preserve.

 

I'm just pointing out the irony here.

 

You are right, as most of the surface materials in the DTC were collected in the 70’s, they did not yet qualify as a Federal historic resource (less than 50 years old), so most museums would accept these provided there is some provenience information documented for them (location they were found).  As there are maps available for the camps, they can even identify which units and sometimes even whom the artifacts were from in this case.

There are some very interesting sites still left out there- and it’s good they are now protected. Sites including the giant topographic scale map model that is over 100 feet wide of the surrounding mountains and valley, a giant end of training party site where 100’s of beer bottles are still lined up in the sand and standing as if still in their crates that have already disintegrated, the fox holes still strewn with 50ca machine gun shells, and the rock alignments that were once painted white marking the camp driveways and pullouts where military tents used to be. It’s stuff like that along with the occasional personal belongings and other artifacts one can see that give visitors a sense of the significance of what happened there. Those things should be preserved.