Graupmann, Joseph, PFC

a brief history of Camp Bouse

September 1, 1939 - World War II breaks out in Europe
December 7, 1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
1942 - Poston Japanese Internment Camp opens along the Colorado River
1942 - General George S. Patton, Jr. led a reconnaissance party through the desert Southwest in the autumn of 1942 and reported not seeing one inhabitant in four days. This led to the establishment of the Desert Training Center (DTC) and California-Arizona Maneuver Area (C-AMA): 31,500 square miles, or 35 million acres, of desert in southeastern California, western Arizona and southern Nevada.
1943 - Fighting ends in North Africa
1943 - Desert Training Center annexes an additional 11,000 square miles.
August, 1943 - Troops begin arriving in Bouse, Arizona. One trooper reported, "It was so hot, you could fry an egg in your hand."

Paranoia and deep secrecy were the orders in Bouse. Camp Bouse was so top-secret it was not listed among the training camps of the Desert Training Center's (DTC) California-Arizona Maneuver Area (C-AMA). Troop movement was extremely restricted -- once in Camp Bouse, there was no chance of transferring out. Gold miners working active claims in the mountains around Camp Bouse were encouraged to evacuate -- usually a little over-their-heads target practice encouraged their departure. Even all the dogs in Bouse, 25 miles away, were rounded up and relocated. To this day, researchers often miss Camp Bouse *.

Our Bouse troopers were deployed in Europe, but The Gizmo never got a chance to prove its worth in battle -- the powerful light was used for night advances, stream crossing and to identify and seek out the enemy. The tanks were later exchanged for a different model. One report said the Gizmo-fitted tanks sank in the mud in France and were left to rot.

For more on Camp Bouse, read Where Heroes Trained, written by the troops who were stationed here.

1944    1-Apr    
   Camp Bouse declared surplus
1944    30-Apr    
   Desert Training Center land returned to
   Department of Interior and private landowners
1945    8-May    
   Germany surrendered
1945    6-Aug    
   United States bombed Hiroshima
1945    9-Aug    
   United States bombed Nagasaki
1945    14-Aug    
   Japan surrendered

_______________________________________________________________________________
During the night the First Army fed reinforcements into Malmédy, for it seemed impossible that the Germans could forfeit the opportunity to seize the town. As part of the defense being organized here a company of the 526th Armored Infantry Battalion and a platoon of 3-inch towed tank destroyers were ordered to outpost Stavelot. Maj. Paul J. Solis, commanding this detachment, began moving his troops into position just before daybreak: two platoons on the south bank of the river (with a section of tank destroyers at the old roadblock); one platoon with three 57-mm. antitank guns and the second section of tank destroyers in reserve around the town square north of the river.

Before the riflemen could organize a defense the German infantry attacked, captured the tank destroyers south of the river, and drove the two platoons back across the bridge. Taken by surprise, the Americans failed to destroy the bridge structure, and a Panther made a dash about 0800 which carried it onto the north bank. More tanks followed. For some while the Germans were held in the houses next to the river; an antiaircraft artillery battery from the 7th Armored Division wandered into the fire fight and did considerable damage before it went on its way. A company from the 202d Engineer Combat Battalion entered the town and joined in the fray. By the end of the morning, however, the German firing line had been built up to the point where the Americans could no longer hold inside the village proper, particularly since the hostile tanks were roving at will in the streets.

Solis ordered his detachment to retire to the top of the hill above Stavelot, but in the confusion of disengagement the remaining antitank weapons and all but one of the rifle platoons fell back along the Malmédy road. With German tanks climbing behind the lone platoon and without any means of antitank defense, Solis seized some of the gasoline from the Francorchamps dump, had his men pour it out in a deep road cut, where there was no turn-out, and set it ablaze. The result was a perfect antitank barrier. The German tanks turned back to Stavelot-this was the closest that Kampfgruppe Peiper ever came to the great stores of gasoline which might have taken the 1st SS Panzer Division to the Meuse River. Solis had burned 124,000 gallons for his improvised roadblock, but this was the only part of the First Army's POL reserve lost during the entire Ardennes operation.