75,000 troops, 10,000 square miles, 3 months, 8 battles . . . and Only a Handful of Archaeological Sites? Reassessing Archaeology of the World War II Oregon Maneuver Training Exercise

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1943, 75,000 US military troops descended on the small town of Bend in central Oregon to engage in a corps-on-corps training exercise in preparation for overseas battle. The Oregon Maneuver consisted of eight mock battles, or “problems,” that pitted Red Force against Blue Force teams—including infantry, engineers, tank battalions, and air support—throughout a 10,000-square-mile area, over a 3-month period. In spite of its massive scale, there are currently few archaeological sites attributed to this wartime training exercise. The purpose of this presentation is to raise awareness of the archaeology of the Oregon Maneuver, to discuss why these sites may go unrecognized, and to present a case study where rock features at an Oregon Army National Guard installation have been adaptably reused by high school students over the past 30 years.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37103.0