Experiment in Armor

Patton's June 1941 victory was an audition. The Army chose Middle Tennessee for later war games because its terrain resembled France, Belgium and Germany, and in June 1942 Governor Prentice Cooper announced nine counties for the Second Army, with Cumberland University in Lebanon as headquarters. By 1944 the maneuver area covered twenty-one counties, and seven large exercises trained more than 850,000 soldiers. Camp Forrest, near Tullahoma, supported the exercises. Training stopped in March 1944 as units shipped overseas ahead of D-Day.

What the plaque says

Experiment in Armor Hereabouts, on June 20, 1941, Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., personally led his 2nd Armored Division across several fords of Duck River, quickly surrounding and defeating his maneuver opponents in the Manchester vicinity, thus proving that modern armor, by its speed and power, can be employed in battle with decisive effect. Pioneer Armored Maneuvers Maneuvering in this vicinity, June, 1941, the 2nd Armored Division, USA, commanded by Maj. Gen. George Smith Patton, Jr., gave the first demonstration in America of the mobility and decisive power of armor in large-scale combat operations. Maneuver headquarters were in the school building.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 0.8 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 20 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• Tims Ford State Park — 21 mi
  A lake park on the Elk River below the Cumberland Plateau, made by a 1970 TVA dam on land the Cherokee and Chickasaw ceded by treaty in the early 1800s.
• Jack Daniel Distillery — 21 mi
  The oldest registered distillery in the United States, in a limestone hollow outside Lynchburg, where the tour now names Nathan Nearest Green, an enslaved man, as the first master distiller.

More markers nearby

• General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold — 5.8 mi
• Camp Forrest — 11 mi
• Isham G. Harris — 11 mi
• Justice John Catron — 11 mi