Patton's pride

Patton's Pride 04/08/2013

By Courtney Jason On December 10, 2012, a shipment of 20 flags arrived at the MTS from Fort Knox, KY. These flags have a particularly interesting history, as many hail from the personal collection of General George Patton. They belong to the General George Patton Museum of Leadership, which is undergoing a major renovation and reinterpretation.

Camille Myers Breeze examining the Nazi flag on site at the Patton Museum in September, 2012. All images courtesy of the General George Patton Museum of Leadership.

The Ft. Knox flags range from a 11.5" x 17" Confederate Calvary guide on to an 80" x 130" Nazi flag. The collection also includes several WWII Army flags, and a North Vietnamese flag that was recovered from a booby-trapped location. The collection is here to be cleaned, stabilized and mounted for display when the Patton Museum reopens later this year.

Gen. Patton wrote on many of his flags. This note explains that this is the first Nazi flag ever captured by US forces, on Nov 11, 1942.

So far we have vacuumed the flags with a HEPA filtering vacuum to remove any particulate matter. Next we will humidify those with planar distortions using the GoreTex system described in a previous blog about the Orra White Hitchcock textiles from Amherst College.

Gen. Patton's inscription on the WTF flag, stating that it landed with him on Nov 8, 1942.

This two-star flag bears the initials of the Western Task Force. Wrinkles and folds will be relaxed using the Gore-Tex humidification system.

The majority of the flags will be mounted on aluminum solid-support panels manufactured for us by Small Corp, Inc in Greenfield, MA. Each panel will have a layer of 1/4-inch Polyfelt from University Products in Holyoke, MA, covered with khakicolored cotton poplin from Phillips-Boyne in Farmingdale, NY. All of the flags except for the Nazi flag will be pressure mounted on a solid-support panel. They will be centered on the panel and hand stitched to the cotton using a curved needle. Only minimal stitching around the perimeter, along several strategic points in the body, and along the fringe, is required.

The Second Corps Flag has a heavy bullion fringe that will require thorough stitching before pressure mounting.

A sheet of UV-filtering acrylic will provide the rest of the support for the mount. The museum has chosen Small Corp's powder-coated aluminum frames to complete the mount system. The first batch of eight flags will undergo this process through mid to late April, before being shipped back in early May by US Art of Randolph, MA.

Gen. Patton wrote "II Corps Tunesia 43" on the hoist binding of this flag. Image courtesy of the General George Patton Museum of Leadership.

The Nazi flag will receive a different treatment due to its large size. A future blog will highlight this highly-technical process. We hope you're looking forward to seeing more of these flags as much as we're looking forward to working on them.