Desert Training Center The Desert Training Center ( DTC ) was a World War II training facility established in the Mojave Desert ; largely in Southern California and Western Arizona in 1942 . Its mission was to train United States Army and Army Air Corps units and personnel to live and fight in the desert , to test and develop suitable equipment , and to develop tactical doctrines , techniques and training methods . It was a key training facility for units engaged in combat during the 1942 – 1943 North African campaign . It stretched from the outskirts of Pomona , California eastward to within 50 miles of Phoenix , Arizona , southward to the suburbs of Yuma , Arizona and northward into the southern tip of Nevada . Overview . This simulated theater of operation was the largest military training ground in the history of military maneuvers . A site near Shavers Summit ( now known as Chiriaco Summit ) between Indio and Desert Center , was selected as the headquarters of the DTC . The site , called Camp Young , was the world ' s largest army post . Major General George S . Patton Jr . came to Camp Young as the first commanding general of the DTC . As a native of southern California Patton , knew the area well from his youth and from having participated in army maneuvers in the Mojave Desert in the 1930s . His first orders were to select other areas within the desert that would be suitable for the large - scale maneuvers necessary to prepare American soldiers for combat against the German Afrika Korps in the North African desert . Patton and his advanced team designated various locations within the area where tent camps would be built . The camps were situated so that each unit could train individually without interfering with the other . Airfields , hospitals , supply depots and sites for other support services were selected as was a corps maneuvering area . The plan was that each division and or major unit would train in its own area , and near the end of its training period would participate in a corps ( two divisions or more ) exercise in the corps maneuvering area at Palen Pass . Upon completion of the corps exercise , the trained units would leave the DTC , and new units would arrive to begin their training and the process repeated . By March 1943 , the North African campaign was in its final stages and the primary mission of the DTC had changed . By the middle of 1943 , the troops who originally came for desert training maneuvers , were now deployed worldwide . Therefore , to reflect that change in mission , the name of the center was changed to the California - Arizona Maneuver Area ( C - AMA or CAMA ) . The CAMA was to serve as a theater of operations to train combat troops , service units and staffs under conditions similar to those which might be encountered overseas . The CAMA was enlarged to include both a communications zone and combat zone , approximately 350 miles wide and 250 miles long . Most of the sites can be visited , but some are difficult to reach . In most cases the only things that remain at the camp sites are streets , sidewalks , building foundations , patterns of hand - laid rocks for various purposes and trash dumps . Monuments have been erected at some of the camp sites and there are areas within CAMA that are fenced off with danger signs warning of unexploded ordnance . The General George S . Patton Memorial Museum is located near the former entrance of Camp Young .