Camp Desert Center
Camp Desert Center was a sub camp of the U.S. Army’s Desert Training Center in Riverside County, California. The Desert Training Center’s main headquarters was Camp Young, where General Patton’s 3rd Armored Division was stationed. Camp Desert Center sits in the Colorado Desert at Desert Center, California, between Indio and Blythe, near the junction of Interstate 10 and State Route 177, roughly halfway between Phoenix and Los Angeles. It’s just south of Joshua Tree National Park near the Colorado River Aqueduct and is listed as California Historic Landmark No. 985.
The camp did not house divisions. Instead, it served as a supply depot, maintenance repair depot, and a 300-bed evacuation hospital run by the 92nd Medical Unit. It was built in April 1942 to prepare troops for battles in North Africa during World War II. When finished, it had showers, latrines, an evacuation hospital, a weather station, wooden tent frames, an ammo depot, a Quartermaster store, water storage tanks, and a water treatment plant. The 18th Ordnance Battalion operated there. Camp Desert Center closed on December 16, 1944, and the Army buildings were removed.
The 92nd Evacuation Hospital at Camp Desert Center operated from May to December 1943 and could treat a range of injuries, from dehydration to surgery. Before arriving at Camp Desert Center, the 92nd Medical Unit was at Camp Freda. The unit did not move to the North Africa campaign; it later fought in the South Pacific (New Guinea, Luzon, Leyte) and was part of the occupation of Japan after the war.
The Desert Center Army Air Field was built in 1942 near the camp, with two 5,500-foot runways about five miles northeast of Camp Desert Center. It hosted the 74th Reconnaissance Group, then the 377th Service Squadron, the 475th Base Headquarters, and the 1111th Guard Squadron, with more than 40 buildings to support desert training. Planes used there included the Curtiss O-52 Owl, Stinson L-1 Vigilant, Piper L-4, North American B-25 Mitchell, Bell P-39 Airacobra, and Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. After the camp closed in 1944, the air field was turned over to the Fourth Air Force and saw only rare B-24 flights from March Field. After the war, the field became Desert Center Airport (CN64), later transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers, sold, and is now a private-use airport.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:09 (CET).