Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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Military training taking place during World War II in Fort Pierce.
National Archives |
As you probably know, a lot of military training took place on the Treasure Coast beaches and a lot of World War II artifacts have been found over the years. Anti-aircraft shells In recent years I didn't run across those as much.
A Fort Pierce South Beach photo I found on a beach cam and posted in this blog just a few days ago, broughtt back memories of one time when the area was producing a lot of WWII dog tags where there was some good erosilon.
I knew one fellow that as a youth sold newspapers and he told me at the end of the day if he had some left, would take them down to the beach and sell them to the soldiers, and would sell many of them to the soldiers who were wet and cold and would burn them to warm up.
Besides the dog tags and 35mm shells, occasionally other artifacts would be found, such as the hat badge shown below.
Or the nice canteen shown below that cleaned up very nicely other than the rusty chain. It is marked 1943 on the bottom with the maker's mark.
But more amazing is this Browning machine gun dug by Dustin P.
Here is a nice article that was written a few years ago describing a project to remove items from World War II.
VERO BEACH — Dozens of residences will be evacuated Thursday as the Army Corps of Engineers searches for remains that might have been left behind during World War II-era military training exercises."We've identified these areas where we know the military used the site for practice," said Amanda Parker, a spokeswoman for the Corps. "We've done a number of investigations out in this area and this is just a continuation of that."
Parker said Army Corps workers have been mapping with what is essentially a high-tech metal detector the area that was home to the Fort Pierce Naval Amphibious Training Base. The site stretched nearly 20,000 acres from Vero Beach to near Jensen Beach....
And here is the link for more about that.
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During World War II, Miami Beach transformed from a tourist haven to military training ground. Tens of thousands of troops passed through South Florida to prepare for combat.
“America’s winter playground, home of the press agent and the bathing beauty, has gone to war,” LIFE reported “…instead of tourists in gay sports clothes, young men of the U.S. Army Air Forces, dressed in drab khaki, drill on the green golf courses and live in hotels. For now Miami Beach is a vast army training center.”
The military was drawn to Miami for much the same reasons that vacationers have been for decades—they liked the climate as well as flat terrain. Within a year of the United States joining World War II, the army’s Air Forces (what it was called before the Air Force became a separate branch, had leased “almost all of the 332 resort hotels” in Miami Beach, according to LIFE....
“America’s winter playground, home of the press agent and the bathing beauty, has gone to war,” LIFE reported “…instead of tourists in gay sports clothes, young men of the U.S. Army Air Forces, dressed in drab khaki, drill on the green golf courses and live in hotels. For now Miami Beach is a vast army training center.”
The military was drawn to Miami for much the same reasons that vacationers have been for decades—they liked the climate as well as flat terrain. Within a year of the United States joining World War II, the army’s Air Forces (what it was called before the Air Force became a separate branch, had leased “almost all of the 332 resort hotels” in Miami Beach, according to LIFE....
Here is the link for more of that article.
When Miami Beach Went to War - LIFE
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TreasureGuide@comcast.net