Original 1950s caption: “The main gate of the new Marine Corps Training Center, located four miles north of the small desert community of Twentynine Palms, housed a 70-man detachment from Camp Pendleton tasked with preparing the base for the complement of permanent personnel.” Photo/Top: Main Gate, Marine Corps Historical Collection. A search for better military training areas led the Marine Corps to “a weird hunk of desert where gliders once soared, and where Navy fliers later strafed and bombed.”* It was Twentynine Palms. forces sent to South Korea in 1950 by President Truman, the Marines and reservists returning to the re-opened Camp Pendleton, California, soon found they were running out of room for training with artillery and rockets (later missiles). After that, Condor Field went into caretaker status, then was given over to San Bernardino County for several years.įollowing World War II, and a return of U.S. Then, in 1944, the Navy took over, adding the field to their gunnery and bombing ranges in the California/Arizona region, and operating the base as the Twentynine Palms Naval Auxiliary Air Station until summer 1945, when World War II ended. In its first 15 months of operation, the air academy trained 1,600 glider pilots.īy early 1943, the glider training began to wind down, and Condor Field became an Army Air Corps flight training school, with “motor-powered planes.” The 17th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment continued for about a year with radial engine Stearman trainers. ![]() The 17th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment began training in January 1942 in TG-1 and TG-2 gliders. It was established in 1941-1942 as the Twentynine Palms Air Academy, a glider training facility for the Army Air Forces. Originally, the site was Condor Field (named after the birds, “best flying machines ever created.”)*. Today the 935-square-mile base is the Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, and it is the premier live-fire, combined arms training facility in the world. A civilian construction firm built the new base, supervised by Naval Lt. Army glider base at Condor Field in Twentynine Palms to oversee the building of the new Marine Corps Training Center. ![]() Scantling brought a detachment of two dozen Marines from Camp Pendleton, California, to the former U.S.
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