After the second World War, during the Cold War, and in the context
of the NATO accords between the American and French governments, two
American army sites left their mark on the life and the landscape in
and around Chinon. The two sites were the Chinon Engineer Depot (later
known as the Chinon General Depot) and the U.S. Army Hospital.
Ten kilometers to the east of Chinon, along the road to Tours, the General
Depot occupied an area of 800 hectares (almost 2000 acres) of the National
Forest in the municipality of Saint-Benoît la Forêt. The General Depot
stocked all the supplies (700,000 tons!) that were necessary for a modern
army, with the exception of arms and munitions. To aid the U.S. military
personnel in their mission, more than one thousand French civilians
worked there daily. This Depot, opened in 1951, was officially closed
February 28, 1967 after the decision of General de Gaulle to bring France
back to a position of national sovereignty.
Today, there are only vestiges of the immense installations that made
up this military base, which marked the memory of many Chinon residents.
Nature and vegetation have claimed their rights to this territory that,
for a time, was American.
From 1954 to 1957, four kilometers from Chinon, along this same road
to Tours, the American Armed Forces built the U.S. Army Hospital. For
its time, this hospital was gigantic, housing a thousand beds. It was
here that 1847 military wives gave birth to their children, whose birth
records were recorded in the civil registry of the town hall of Saint-Benoît.
Unlike the outcome that was destined for the General Depot, the U.S.
Army Hospital was not torn down when the U.S. troops left France in
1967. Having kept it original purpose, yet completely remodeled in order
to adapt to the needs of modern medicine, it is still a medical center
for the Chinon area.
Thousands of American Military personnel lived in Chinon and the surrounding
towns. The housing projects that were built to lodge them were "
Rochambeau " in Chinon and " La Durandière " in Beaumont
en Véron
These sixteen years of American presence have left many memories for
the area. They were marked by many happy occasions, such as the hundreds
of French/American marriages.
It never fails that each year the Tourist Office in Chinon has the pleasure
of welcoming former U.S. military personnel making a pilgrimage to the
places in the Chinon area where they spent a part of their youth.
