President Roosevelt and Major General George S. Patton, Jr.
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In this photo, President Franklin D. Roosevelt is sitting in a jeep while Major General George S. Patton, Jr. looks on, standing. The photo may have been taken at the Desert Training Center in Eastern California where Patton worked to establish and improve the methods of the armored units of the U.S. Army. As a Major General, Patton commanded that center from March to July 1942. In this photo Patton wears the two stars of a Major General on his service cap.
In March 1942, the War Department tasked Gen. Patton to find a desert training site that met all the criteria of the planned campaign in North Africa. The Desert Training Center (DTC), also called the California-Arizona Maneuver Area (CAMA), resulted from General Patton's reconnoitering. The training area encompassed approximately 11 million acres within three states.
