Camp Ibis

Read this plaque against the one at Camp Clipper and the register argues with itself: eleven camps here, twelve there. The count depends on where you draw the Desert Training Center's edge, and nobody has settled it. What is not in dispute is what came out of these camps. The 440th Anti-Aircraft Battalion trained at Ibis among others, shipped for England in December 1943, landed in Normandy three days after the invasion began and finished the war with five battle stars.

What the plaque says

Camp Ibis was established at this site in the spring of 1942—one of eleven such camps built in the California—Arizona Desert to harden and train United States Troops for service on the battlefields of World War II. The 440th AAA AW Battalion was activated per General Order No. 1 at Camp Haan, CA. on July 1, 1942. It trained at Camp M.A.A.R. (Irwin), Camps Young, Iron Mountain, Ibis, and then Camps Pickett, VA. & Stewart, GA. The battalion shipped out to England in December, 1943 & landed in Normandy on D+3. The unit earned 5 battle stars & 2 foreign awards while serving with the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 9th U.S. Armies, the 1st French Army & the 2nd British Army, 7 different corps & 5 different divisions. The 440th AAA AW BN was deactivated in December 1945.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goffs — 14 mi
  A near-ghost on the pre-1931 Route 66 alignment, keeper of a 1914 desert schoolhouse and a WWII Army camp.
• Needles — 16 mi
  Route 66's Colorado River gateway into California, anchored by El Garces, the Harvey House that Mojave hands built.
• Oatman — 26 mi
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.

More markers nearby

• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 10 mi
• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 10 mi
• The Garcés Expedition — 14 mi
• National Old Trails Monument — 15 mi