Some years ago I was in the Mojave desert in Sothern California not all that far from Edwards AFB. The boy scout troop that my son belonged to had journeyed to a dry lake bed to shoot off Estes rockets. The lake bed would be periodically flooded each winter (yes it does rain in the desert!) and things covered and uncovered. On this trip we found WW2 era .50 cal cases and bullets that had dropped to the desert apparently lengthwise.
I can only assume that the airspace over the lake bed was used for aerial gunnery training either during WW2 or the 1950s. I have one of the cases I picked up then, it is headstamped DM and I believe 1942. Since I fired WW2 era .50 ball at Graf in the early 80s and my son fired WW2 era .50 ball when training up for OIF in 2007 finding WW2 cases doesn't positively mean that the rounds were fired during the war but there is a good chance they were.
Several years later I returned to the lake bed but it had once again been scoured clean. About three years ago another visit turned up what looked like a meteorite laying on the virgin white salt expanse. There was a spray of very small blackened fragments that attracted a magnet. Pretty cool stuff in a not so cool spot.
I can only assume that the airspace over the lake bed was used for aerial gunnery training either during WW2 or the 1950s. I have one of the cases I picked up then, it is headstamped DM and I believe 1942. Since I fired WW2 era .50 ball at Graf in the early 80s and my son fired WW2 era .50 ball when training up for OIF in 2007 finding WW2 cases doesn't positively mean that the rounds were fired during the war but there is a good chance they were.
Several years later I returned to the lake bed but it had once again been scoured clean. About three years ago another visit turned up what looked like a meteorite laying on the virgin white salt expanse. There was a spray of very small blackened fragments that attracted a magnet. Pretty cool stuff in a not so cool spot.
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