Naval Outlying Field Clark's Dry Lake was a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

facility built for

World War 2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The site had two

runways According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete, o ...

and a bombing range for training. The base was a subcamp of

NAS San Diego Naval Air Station North Island or NAS North Island , at the north end of the Coronado peninsula on San Diego Bay in San Diego, California, is part of the largest aerospace-industrial complex in the United States Navy – Naval Base Coronado (NB ...

. The site was built in 1938 and closed in 1962, but not used continuously. The range is in the

Anza-Borrego Desert Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (, '' AN-zə bə-RAY-goh'') is a California State Park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, United States. The park takes its name from 18th century Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and ...

, west of

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf o ...

, north of

Borrego Springs, California Borrego Springs (''Borrego'', Spanish for "Sheep") is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Diego County, California. The population was 3,429 at the 2010 census, up from 2,535 at the 2000 census, made up of both seasonal and year-round reside ...

. The Field Clark's Dry Lake was supported and used by

Naval Auxiliary Air Station Salton Sea Naval Auxiliary Air Station Salton Sea, was a United States Navy military facility located eight miles south of Salton City, California on the west shore of the Salton Sea. History It was an auxiliary field to Naval Air Station San Diego commissio ...

27 miles away. The

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

was on the western side of Clark's Dry Lake. The airfield was mostly used as an Emergency Landing strip. The bombing target range was northeast of the runways. When in use the ground staff had a radio communication station to talk the

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

. In addition to bombing training, the base had gunnery and rocketry targets for training. The main runway was 7,500-feet, the other 5,000-feet, and both not usable when wet. Clark Lake Radio Observatory (CLRO) was a deep-space

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

observatory center with a large

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

array that opened in 1959 by the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. This large array had 720 antennas that were 26 feet tall, they were lined up across the desert two miles long and one mile wide. The site was picked in 1958 as the lake is very flat, remote, and shielded by mountain ranges. The Observatory closed in 1986. One runway was used to support the Observatory, the runway was abandoned in the 1990s and is now gone. The site is now part of the

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (, '' AN-zə bə-RAY-goh'') is a California State Park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, United States. The park takes its name from 18th century Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and ...

References

1939 establishments in California Installations of the United States Navy in California Salton Sea History of Imperial County, California Buildings and structures in Imperial County, California

Field Clark's Dry Lake Naval Outlying Field Clark's Dry Lake was a United States Navy facility built for World War 2. The site had two runways and a bombing range for training. The base was a subcamp of NAS San Diego. The site was built in 1938 and closed in 1962, but ...

{{ImperialCountyCA-geo-stub Closed installations of the United States Navy

See also

References