STUTTGART, Germany – U.S. European Command moved from Paris in 1967, making Patch Barracks its home and completing what future EUCOM Commander, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, would call “the largest single peacetime movement of men and materiel that the U.S. military had ever undertaken.”
To commemorate 50 years in Stuttgart, a cake-cutting ceremony at EUCOM was officiated by chief of staff Rear Adm. John W. Smith, who spoke to the magnitude of the move in 1967. “Fifty years ago today, the U.S. flag was unfurled here at Patch Barracks -- and ever since then, the men and women of EUCOM remain postured and ready to face a rapidly changing international security environment,” said Rear Adm. Smith.
Patch Barracks had been home to U.S. 7th Army, from 1950 to 1967, which boasted the combat power of two heavy corps, five divisions, and numerous support units. All this changed in 1967 when EUCOM moved from Camp des Loges to Patch Barracks, which forced 7th Army to move to Heidelberg, Germany.
According to an official report, in most cases, staff files were released in Paris one afternoon and were available for use by advance personnel in Stuttgart the next afternoon.
“The 1960s was a time of tension within the Atlantic Alliance. As a result of concerns over America’s growing involvement in Vietnam, a former French colony, France pulled out of the NATO integrated military command structure and ordered the United States and NATO to remove all troops and headquarters from French soil by March 31, 1967,” said EUCOM’s historian, Dan Fitzpatrick.
EUCOM was given a budget of $62 million for moving and reestablishing itself. USAFE’s 322nd Air Division used C-130s and C-124s to move 200 tons of files and office equipment. Another 720 tons were moved by military trucks and vans, in addition to 100 tons moved by commercial contractors.
Patch Barracks did not forget 7th Army, which is remembered in the post’s name (Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch was 7th Army’s commander in World War II) and its sports field (Operation Husky was 7th Army’s first operation in Sicily in 1943). Today Patch Barracks is best known as the home of USEUCOM, a place of comfort for thousands of service members, civilians, contractors, and their families.
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