{"id":10,"featured":0,"modified":"2022-04-25 06:38:07","latitude":33.6610040999999995392499840818345546722412109375,"longitude":-115.7206814999999977544575813226401805877685546875,"title":"General Patton Memorial Museum","address":"62-510 Chiriaco Rd Chiriaco Summit, CA 92201","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/1c263b8ef359068e3bb83db3e667c93e.jpg","creator":["William Maynard"],"description":"The General Patton Memorial Museum in Chiriaco Summit, California, was established in 1988. It is dedicated primarily to honoring Patton and the soldiers who trained there, displaying war items related to the general and the hundreds of thousands of men and women who trained at the facility between 1942-1944. The museum sits within what was once known as 'U.S Army Camp Young,' a swath of desert comprising over eighteen thousand square miles. Even today, it is still considered the world's largest military training installation.
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\r\nA native of San Marino, California, General Patton returned to his home state in early 1942, shortly after America's entry into World War II, to set up a desert training center for U.S. soldiers heading into combat. The facility's primary purpose was to prepare young men for desert tank warfare before being sent to North Africa and Italy. Although General Patton was only at Camp Young for four months before heading overseas, it continued its heavy-armor tank training until December 1944.
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\r\nAt the camp's creation, history was about to be made in a place where only cactus and scrub survived, where unrelenting heat and sand were the norms of the day. It is here, in the middle of the Mojave Desert in Southeastern California, that this forsaken land would become Patton's \"paradise, exactly what he was looking for.\" Acquiring the land in the desert by the U.S. Army is a tale the locals enjoy relaying to tourists today. The story tells of General Patton personally walking into the Indio office of surveyor Michael Rusche in early 1942, saying, \"I hear you've been around here for a while. I hope you can help me out.\" What soon transpired under the General's direction was the building of eleven separate camps, which comprised the training facility at Camp Young. Patton's headquarters were stationed in the middle and used as the focal point, with the surrounding miles of the desert used to train tank warfare. \"We cannot train troops to fight in the desert of North Africa by training them in the swamps of Georgia,\" Patton was to proclaim. Over the next two years, over one million Americans, both male and female, prepared for battle here under the ghastliest of conditions.
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\r\nMany first-hand accounts relate, \"as the first commanding general of the training facility, Patton certainly stamped his brand on the training center.\" The hill from which he could observe the wide range of tank exercises was called 'The King's Throne.' It was a lower elevation within the surrounding mountains where he could critically scrutinize the formation of the tanks and motorized units below. Detecting a mistake or way to improve, he would shout instructions into his radio, \"many of which were expletives.\" An official Army historian named Porter B. Williamson wrote, \"on a number of occasions, Patton would extoll a particular soldier or unit via his radio communications so everyone could hear.\" However, more than once, his harsh words would announce something such as, \"Colonel Blank, you are removed from command. If you know what is good for you, you will stay away from me for a week,\" prompting laughter from the men.
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\r\nThe General George Patton Memorial Museum, outside Luxembourg City, in the small town of Hamm, Luxembourg, is also the site of an American cemetery where over five-thousand U.S. servicemen are buried, most of them killed in the Battle of the Bulge. Located among these men is the grave of General Patton. When he died in late 1945, one of his last requests was \"to be buried among his men.\" Luxembourg celebrates General Patton and the American troops that liberated the city every year on the last Sunday in June, calling the holiday 'Remembrance Day.' This holiday was conceived shortly after the war by the townspeople and continues to this day. At the ceremony's close, the city's mayor takes center stage. The concluding remarks remain the same, \"Luxembourg will never forget what General Patton and the United States did for us. God bless America, and God bless our little Grand Duchy.\"
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\r\nThe General George Patton Museum of Leadership in Fort Knox, Kentucky, was once the largest Patton museum in the United States. In the mid-1990s, the outdoor tank exhibits and many statues and monuments transferred to military museums in Fort Benning, Georgia, and West Point, New York. However, the Kentucky museum still garners over 350,000 visitors each year. This complex was developed shortly after World War II and has been \"a work in progress ever since.\" Managed by the U.S. Army Accessions Command in Fort Monroe, Virginia, it contains several of Patton's personal effects, including items from his childhood in California, his revolvers, touring car, and even the 1938 Cadillac in which he took his final ride. Rather than glorifying war, this museum presents Patton's complex, emotional, and intellectual history and armored warfare through the ages. Every July 4, this museum comes alive and celebrates General Patton by hosting a re-enactment based loosely on the type of combat that occurred in Northern Europe in the spring of 1945.
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\r\nThe perspectives of memory vary between these three museums in Luxembourg, Fort Knox, and Chiriaco Summit. From yearly ceremonies in Europe, specifically Luxembourg, we know that Patton is still considered a gallant hero and truly celebrated. But what about in America? Could Patton's 'star power' or popularity in the United States be waning or changing somehow? Does the recent movement of 230 large Patton artifacts from the Fort Knox museum in Kentucky to a more secular and less-visited army base at Fort Benning, Georgia, suggest in some way that Americans today feel differently about Patton?
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\r\nMirna Flores, Director of the California memorial, has been with the Patton museum for over twenty years. Although she was not aware of what the Fort Knox museum had done, she is confident that \"although Patton was a complicated military figure, the museum believes his star has not tarnished in any way.\" In recent decades, the museum enjoyed record yearly increases in visitors to the facility. When asked how the museum has changed, grown, and evolved during her tenure, she noted she was most proud of two things: securing a very hard-to-find original German Tiger Tank and formatting a school children's tour. Flores added, \"Education of the war itself along with Patton's life has always been the focus of the museum,\" but fashioning the information for young children became a goal and a reality for the museum in just the last few years.
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\r\nRemembering Camp Young in the California desert historically and through collective memory is equally as important as honoring the countless men and women trained there. The soldiers who initially trained at the camp became the first American forces deployed to combat against the Germans in North Africa.
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\r\nIn 1988, over four decades since the end of World War II, many old soldiers and their families returned and gathered in the hot California desert for the dedication of the Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit. Two aging veterans, Charles Jeglinski, 74, of Venice, California, and Frank Carroll, 75, of Phoenix, Arizona, pulled aside a couple of journalists covering the event. They both had trained at Camp Young with Patton and followed him into battle in North Africa and Europe. Said Carroll to the journalists, \"Here's a picture I bet you fella's don't have.\" They went on to say General Patton told them he was going to do this when they arrived in Germany, and they both claimed he always kept his word. The photograph showed a smiling General Patton on a small hilltop as he urinated into the Rhine River below.
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\r\n(edited by Laura Bailey)","sponsor":"","subtitle":"The Stories Behind the Man","accessinfo":"","lede":"General George S. Patton was undoubtedly one of the most colorful yet controversial American military leaders of the twentieth century. Appropriately enough, he has been the subject of innumerable profiles, movies, and full-scale biographies during his lifetime and since his death. Many memorials, statues, schools, and museums exist in his honor and dedication to his memory. The name General George Smith Patton Jr. does not necessarily evoke the same memories overseas as in America. While there are many monuments and statues of Patton located throughout the world, only three major locations are 'biographical museums.' Located in Fort Knox, Kentucky, Ettelbruck, Belgium, and Chiriaco, California, each focuses upon the General and his exploits in North Africa, Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany during the Second World War. ","website":"https:\/\/generalpattonmuseum.com\/","related_resources":["Callen, K., \u2018Desert Site near Indio Was Training Camp For Patton\u2019, Los Angeles Times, December 1987.","Hillanger, Charles, \u2018V-E Day Plus 40-GI\u2019s Return to Patton\u2019s Camp\u2019, Home Edition. The Los Angeles Times, May 1985.","Interview by phone with Director Mirna Flores, George S. Patton Museum, Chiriaco Summit, California. March 2, 2021.","Linhardt Gannett, Becky, \u2018Fort Knox Museum Pays Homage to Patton\u2019, Air Force Times News Service, 2001. Page 57.
","Lynch, John. \u2018Patton\u2019s Desert Training Center\u2019, Council on America\u2019s Military Past, University of Illinois Archives, 1982. Page 8.","Portman, Jaime, \u2018General Patton Museum, An Eerie Tourist Attraction: Old Blood and Guts Legend Lives\u2019, Toronto Star, 1996.","Wojtas, Edward J., \u2018War and Remembrance in Luxembourg- Monuments in Luxembourg City\u2019, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, 1991. Pages 1-2."],"files":{"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/1c263b8ef359068e3bb83db3e667c93e.jpg":{"id":58,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Patton and the Sunset","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/1c263b8ef359068e3bb83db3e667c93e.jpg","description":"A statue of Patton and his dog Willie at sunset in front of the museum in Chiriaco Summit, CA. | Facebook<\/a> \/ Permalink<\/a> | General Patton Memorial Museum in Chiriaco Summit, California"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/2bfdc107edd4027d97fc785dfd56eb36.jpg":{"id":56,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Statue of General Patton and his bull terrier Willie in front of the museum","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/2bfdc107edd4027d97fc785dfd56eb36.jpg","description":"Patton and his dog Willie - statue at Memorial in Chiriaco Summit, CA | <\/a>Warfare History Network: General Patton Memorial Mueseum<\/a> \/ Permalink<\/a><\/a> | General Patton Museum"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/a7c0e12ae96b92d02640f555b9678d78.jpg":{"id":55,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Patton at the Rhine River","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/a7c0e12ae96b92d02640f555b9678d78.jpg","description":"Patton 'Pays Respects' by Supposedly Urinating in the Rhine River | World War Two Photographs: Patton<\/a>
\/ Permalink<\/a> | Unknown"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/32cbc41d3350903cd97e7ae7aa52ad6c.jpg":{"id":59,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Patton's 1938 Cadillac Limo","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/32cbc41d3350903cd97e7ae7aa52ad6c.jpg","description":"Located at the General George Patton Museum and Center of Leadership, Fort Knox, KY | The American Automobile Industry in World War Two<\/a> \/ Permalink<\/a> | David D. Jackson"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/aa8de1b5250c1803f22430ac5342d491.jpg":{"id":60,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"General Patton Memorial Museum - Belgium","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/aa8de1b5250c1803f22430ac5342d491.jpg","description":"Exterior entrance to the Patton Museum in Ettelbruck, Belgium | Ettel Bruck: Luxembourg Museum Days<\/a> \/ Permalink<\/a> | Ettelbruck City Tourist Office"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/35ac562805b1aa459f1df24eafaa86a1.jpg":{"id":61,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"General Patton's Helmet","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/35ac562805b1aa459f1df24eafaa86a1.jpg","description":"As displayed at Fort Knox, KY in the General George Patton Museum | U.S. Army Center of Military History: General George Patton Museum<\/a> \/ Permalink<\/a> | General George Patton Museum"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/091e1e39b1b119ab44656c67d1c1afb8.jpg":{"id":62,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"General Patton's Revolver","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/091e1e39b1b119ab44656c67d1c1afb8.jpg","description":"As displayed in Fort Knox, KY at the General George Patton Museum | U.S. Army Center of Military History: General George Patton Museum<\/a>\/ Permalink<\/a> | General George Patton Museum"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/original\/b89cc691cd569b4db33ce5be55210cd6.mp4":{"id":63,"mime-type":"video\/mp4","title":"Patton Visits the Rhine (No Audio)","description":"Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Tour Rhine Bridgehead, Remagen Area, Germany | Internet Archive: Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Tour Rhine Bridgehead, Remagen Area, Germany, 03\/26\/1945<\/a>"},"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/fullsize\/daec98c4af44eb4b3d901af39dbf3b4d.jpg":{"id":64,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"General George S. Patton","thumbnail":"https:\/\/worldwariimonuments.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/daec98c4af44eb4b3d901af39dbf3b4d.jpg","description":"The grave marker for General George S. Patton in Hamm, Luxembourg. | Wikimedia Commons: General Patton\u00a0<\/a>\/ Permalink<\/a>"}}}