Camp Bouse was home to a secret program to see if a very bright arc lamp could be used to temporarily blind the enemy in battle at night.

The Desert Training Center was built to prepare troops to do battle in North Africa to fight the Nazis during World War II.

When completed the camp had shower buildings, latrines, wooden tent frames, and a 500,000 gallon water reservoir.

The top secret weapon was a 13 million candlepower carbon arc lamp mounted on US Medium Tank M3 Canal Defence Light (CDL).

Troops that worked with the new secret weapon CDL at Camp Bouse were from the 526th Armored Infantry Battalion, the 554th Ordnance Heavy Maintenance Company, the 9th Tank Group and the 701st.