DISCOVERING GEN. PATTON'S BATTLEFIELD IN MOJAVE DESERT : ON LOCATION.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

-Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

The landscape is barren, sandy brown with rocky purple outcroppings in the distance. And as far as you can see through the desert haze, faded Army tanks and Jeeps stand as if the drivers had just set the brakes and gone to wolf down a quick lunch of C-rations or catch a fitful nap.

This ghostly spot is where Gen. George S. Patton Jr. - that larger-than-life warrior with his pearl-handled revolvers and profanity-laced speech - chose to train more than 1 million men to do battle against German Gen. Erwin Rommel's dreaded Afrika Korps during World War II.

The desert site, a half-hour's hot, dusty drive east of Indio in the Mojave Desert, was abandoned in 1944 as war in North Africa wound down. But a group of Patton admirers - many of whom trained at the sun-blasted site - raised money to build a museum to their hero and the men he led.

The site was named a California Historic Landmark in 1985, and the non-profit Gen. George Patton Memorial Museum opened in 1988, on the site of the desert training center the leader - known irreverently by his troops as ``Old Blood and Guts'' - established in 1942.

It has since become a mecca for war buffs and veterans.

``There are thousands of people here on the weekends,'' said Carol Rector, the museum's director. ``Boy Scout troops, Girl Scout troops, senior bus tours - you name it. A lot of them are World War II veterans and, unlike veterans of some other wars, they seem to relish reliving the past. They say being here really brings back memories. One man said, `My wife still has all the letters I wrote her from here.' ''

More than 50 years ago, tents stretched into the desert and tanks and low-flying aircraft engaged in mock battles over the desolate landscape that made up the largest simulated battlefield in the world.

Today, little of what helped the Allies win the war is left standing. A few rows of white-painted rocks line what once were camp streets. The back wall and altar of a stone church, where soldiers prayed to return alive from battle, still stand in a kind of mute shrine, just down the road from a modern truck stop and gas station.

Standing in the remains of the church, on the edge of the open desert, the only sound is the whistling of the wind that always seems to blow here. There's an eeriness about this place, a feeling that you're picking your way through a graveyard - yet at the same time, a sense that the tanks and jeeps, declared surplus by the Army, could roar to life any minute, set in motion by the gravelly voice of their commander.

``A lot of people say, `Why in the world did you put this (museum) here?' '' Rector said. ``Then they learn that this was where Patton trained troops for desert combat and they understand.''

The sounds of the bombing at Pearl Harbor had barely died down when the War Department chose Patton, then a little-known major general from San Gabriel, to train troops in the art of tank warfare. He shunned established training camps in favor of a site where the climate and terrain would duplicate the conditions troops would face in Africa.

``We cannot train troops to fight in the desert of North Africa by training in the swamps of Georgia,'' Patton told his superiors. In a small plane, he flew low over the deserts of California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico before finding exactly the site he was looking for.

Nearly 200,000 men at a time lived in tents at night and spent the hot, dry days in mock battles. Daytime temperatures in the summer crept past 120 degrees; winter nighttime temperatures plunged below freezing. There was no electricity. At first, there was no water except what was trucked in; later, the Metropolitan Water District provided water from the new California Aqueduct.

Soldiers were required to run a mile in 10 minutes while carrying rifles and full packs - no matter what the weather. Food consisted of standard field rations. Scorpions, tarantulas and rattlesnakes were held at bay by pouring diesel fuel on the ground near mess tents and living areas.

Officially, the spot was named Camp Young, after an 1880s cavalry hero. But the men who trained there would later call it ``the place God forgot'' and ``18,000 square miles of nothing, a desert designed for hell.''

Today's museum - fronted by a bronze statue of Patton and his ugly bull terrier, Willie - is crammed with souvenirs of those arduous long-ago days - guns, uniforms, captured Nazi battle flags, some of Patton's own possessions (including replicas of those fancy revolvers), jeeps, radio gear, battle maps and more. There are plans to include exhibits on the Holocaust and the postwar Nuremberg war crimes trials. A bulletin board gives updates on Army unit reunions. A continuously running film tells about Patton's choice of the site as a battle training ground and about his later exploits.

In the film, men who served with Patton talk about the soldier, his zeal and his vision.

``He was daring,'' relates retired Lt. Col. Lester Nichols, who trained at the desert center. ``He wasn't afraid to take chances. He trained us so we could live to come home after the war.''

``One thing he always told us was, `I'm not training you to die for your country. I'm training you to make other people die for their country,' '' retired Sgt. Leonard Hackett says on the tape.

Patton set up the tent city, but served as its commander for only four months before leading an American task force ashore in Morocco in November 1942 and commanding the Allied troops who won the Tunisian campaign in 1943. Put in command of the 3rd Army in Europe and using battle strategies devised centuries ago by Alexander the Great and Carthaginian commander Hannibal, Patton led his troops through the German defenses at St. Lo, advancing up to 60 miles a day (slowed only by lack of supplies) to liberate Paris from the Nazis, then to fight in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

``Gen. Patton wanted to get the war over with sooner than anybody,'' Sgt. Leonard Harper, a retired tank commander, says on the museum film. By the time the war was over, Patton's troops had taken more prisoners, liberated more occupied territory and advanced more miles against the enemy than any army in history.

Once the Italians and Germans were defeated, Patton wanted to go to the Pacific to battle the Japanese, but was ordered to remain in Europe to aid in the postwar occupation. In spite of his belief that a soldier should be felled ``by the last bullet in the last battle of the last war,'' he died in December 1945 from injuries suffered in an auto accident in Germany.

Patton's grave is in an Army cemetery in Luxembourg. But his spirit still lingers in the California desert, with the wind and the dusty tanks.

The Gen. George Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit is about 30 miles east of Indio just off Interstate 10, about 90 miles west of Blythe.

The nonprofit museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. There is no admission charge, but a $4 donation is suggested. In addition to exhibits memorializing World War II and Gen. George S. Patton Jr., a tiny gift shop sells replicas of military insigna in the form of buttons and patches, hats and other gear, plus books about Patton and the war.

Even when the museum is not open, visitors can wander among the tanks and jeeps that surround the museum on 18 acres of desert. Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) A statue of Gen. George S. Patton Jr. and Willie stands atop a tank tread.

(2) The stone altar and back wall are all that's left of the church at Patton's desert training ground.

Carol Bidwell/Daily News

(3) Gen. George S. Patton Jr. talks with a soldier in Messina, Sicily, in 1943.

U.S. Army photo

Box: On Location (See Text)