Camp Roberts, California

From the California State Military Museum site.

March 9th, I wrote about a World War II letter finally arriving at Cap Roberts in California, some 67 years late.

I'd never heard of the camp and from the article thought it was a Red Cross camp or hospital. I did some more research and found it was actually one very large military training base during World War II and then continued in service until 1970.

It is located on US-101 twelve miles north of Paso Robles, about half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

There is a museum dedicated to it and located in the former Red Cross Headquarters at the camp. The museum's annex is located in the World War II post office (what did you guys do?) The museum contains around 3,000 items.

It was used as a training base during World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War and Iraqi Freedom.

Camp Roberts was named after Corporal Harold Roberts who survived the San Francisco Earthquake and died while a tank driver in World War I.

Construction began on it in 1940 as the US prepared for war. In March 1941 it became a replacement training center and was constructed to hold 23,000 troops at any one time. Some 436,000 World War II soldiers and Field Artillery personnel passed through it.

The base also had a 750 bed hospital (where the letter's recipient worked) and it also served as an internment camp for Italian and German prisoners.

Sure Never Heard of It Before. --DaCoot