Evening star., 1943-05-17
BY JOHN H. CLINE,
Star staff Correspondent.


DESERT CITY, Calf. (By MaiD
in the heat OF this Southern
California desert country the Army
during the past year, has built one
OF the biggest and toughest training
centers In the country. A year ago
there was literally nothing here but
miles and miles of sand, its desola =
ton broken only by scrubby growth
Of greasewood and cactus. When
the first contingent Of Army trucks
churned their way into Desert City,
the men were eight miles from the
nearest water and they stayed caked
with the desert dust for days at 4
time.
But all that is changed. The
training area runs about lSO miles
north and south, east and west, with
the Colorado River dividing the
$4,000 square miles in California
from the 1000 square miles in
Arizona. As one general said, there
Is room here for the men to get
around-plenty of 1t. Yet there is
none too much, for there are more
than 1000 men here to be tough
ened and perfected in training be-
fore moving out to the ba tile fronts
Three Impressive Things.
At least three things are certain
to be impressed on any visitor when
he steps from a plane for the first
time at the local air base.
First, there Is the neat. rising to
a recorded maximum of 100 degrees.
Next Is the remarkable cleanliness,
both At this central point and at all
the scattered posts throughout the
desert.
Finally, and perhaps most striking
OF all, there is the lean. tanned
hardness of these men, from the
lowliest private up to and including
the commanding general.
It simply is not possible for a man
to spend '13 weeks at Desert City
without sluf1ing of any remaining
vestiges OF softness chat he may have
brought with him.
Maj. Gen. Charles H. White, who
Is In command of the training the
ater, believes this is the best train
ing aera in the country, especially
for armored divisions and the units
attached to them. From Monday
through Thursday the men in task
force groups are sent out into the
desert, where they have to learn to
maintain themselves. This often
means cooking their. own meals.
washing their own dishes and. most
important of all, policing their own
camps.
A carelessly policed desert camp
would be swarming with flies. but
there are virtually none here. This
is because the men are drilled ana
drilled in the importance of leaving
nothing around to attract flies.
Evidence Of Traininx.
This correspondent saw a sergeant
climb out OF a tank after completing
a hot and dusty mission far from
any camp area. He was munchine
an apple and when he had finished,
instead Of casually tossing the core
away he scraped q hole in. the sand
with the toe of his shoe and buried
1t. There was nothing staged"
about this little incident, the SER
geant was merely doing almost au-
tomatically, what he had been care
fully trained to do.
The maintenance OF supply is one
OF the most difficult phases of desert
operation and for the benefit OF
visiting correspondents a demon
stration of the technique of bring
ing in food had been set up.
This is done entirely at night
under blackout conditions. Big
trucks move out toea railhead. which
must not be more than IS miles
from the Kitchens, and bring a
days food supply into a well-de-
tended truck head. There the food
is unloaded in the dark. sorted for
unit distribution, reloaded and
trucked to the points Of final dis
tribution.
This sounds simple and dull but
1t is one OF the most difficult and i'm.
portant Of all divisional operations.
During training the men engaged in
1t work from Is to 40 hours 4 day.
and under combat conditions they
would be pushed harder than that.
The ultimate purpose of supply in
the desert or any other place OBJ
viously is to enable the combat units
to fight-to bring up the food water,
ammunition, etc. without which no
unit could function more than 4 few
hours.
Impressive Show.
For the instruction Of the visitors,
Maj. Gen. L. Med. Sylvester, who
was graduated from the University
Of Maryland in 1911, and who COM
mands an armored divisions here.
staged an attack demonstrate by
an armored combat team. In timing
and execution, this probably was the
most impressive show witnessed On 4
tour, OF halt dozen Army bases.
The object Of the naneuver was to
smash an enemy" force which had
dug in on the slope of one Of the
, scores Of mountains scattered
through the desert area.
At about . O'Clock In the morning
the attack was launched. First. an
A-20 low-level bomber swung around
the end OF q mountain ana laid down