A Stone's Throw from Patton Traditional Geocache
A Stone's Throw from Patton
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This geocache placement takes you to a little-traveled corner of Bradley Palmer State Park, a DCR property. This trek will take you close enough to almost literally throw a stone onto the old Patton property. We have included all of the Bradley Palmer waypoints for parking and trail access to help acquaint newcomers to the lay of the land here. Trail marker 73 will be your guide today.
The above Related Web Page link takes you to the Official Patton web site. There is a Sherman tank in downtown Hamilton (follow Asbury Street southeast from here) to commemorate Patton's service in WWII. For downloadable trail maps, go here (visit link) .
When the German Blitzkrieg began on Europe, General George Smith Patton convinced Congress that the United States needed a more powerful armored striking force. With the formation of the Armored Force in 1940, he was transferred to the Second Armored Division at Fort Benning, Georgia and named Commanding General on April 11, 1941. Two months later, Patton appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Also during this time, Patton began giving his famous "Blood and Guts" speeches in an amphitheater he had built to accommodate the entire division.
The United States officially entered World War II in December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By November 8, 1942, Patton was commanding the Western Task Force, the only all-American force landing for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. After succeeding there, Patton commanded the Seventh Army during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and in conjunction with the British Eighth Army restored Sicily to its citizens.
Patton commanded the Seventh Army until 1944, when he was given command of the Third Army in France. Patton and his troops dashed across Europe after the battle of Normandy and exploited German weaknesses with great success, covering the 600 miles across France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. When the Third Army liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp, Patton slowed his pace. He instituted a policy, later adopted by other commanders, of making local German civilians tour the camps. By the time WWII was over, the Third Army had liberated or conquered 81,522 square miles of territory.
In October 1945, Patton assumed command of the Fifteenth Army in American-occupied Germany. On December 9, he suffered injuries as the result of an automobile accident. He died 12 days later, on December 21, 1945 and is buried among the soldiers who died in the Battle of the Bulge in Hamm, Luxembourg.
A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm is part of what was the Patton estate, more history can be found here (visit link) .
The Patton Homestead was recently gifted to the Town of Hamilton. What will Hamilton do with it? Here's an idea... While interned in a POW camp during WWI, Louis Marquis designed a .22 belt buckle gun. He later received a patent the design and during WWII was commissioned by Himmler to produce prototypes. It is thought that about 12 were made (see the gallery for a photo). During the 50s and 60s many copies were made in German machine shops, possibly to cash in on the rarity of the originals. An original can fetch $15,000 or more! If the Town of Hamilton ever turns Patton's house into a museum, this is the kind of artifact that could be on display...
As we've had to shrink the container size for our nearby cache "Patton Park" GC2FQ34 (visit link) , we offer this container of size to allow for swag and trackables to acknowledge and thank veterans and active soldiers for their service. The First-To-Find prize here consists of two coins rarer than our usual leave, a WWII-era cent and nickel in a viewing box. Perhaps General Patton himself used these to purchase one of his favorite Cuban cigars! Who gives the marching orders in the Clana Cana? Doesn't matter, congrats again to Lasa, Froedo Bagginz, WINDWAKER1 and WolfTamer! for their FTF prowess!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nfvqr n 'snyyra fbyqvre'