Tanks a Lot : Lumbering Relics of War--and 5 Puppies--Are on View at Museum

Don Michelson works every day at breathing new life into old weapons at his military museum in South El Monte.

So he took special delight last week when five new “weapons” drew first breath at the sprawling American Society of Military History park nine miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

A stray dog had crept among the World War II tanks and armored personnel carriers parked at the outdoor museum and given birth to a litter of squeaking puppies.

“Call ‘em watchdogs,” said Michelson as he stood in the shadow of a 30-ton Sherman tank and cradled one of the tiny, brown-faced pups in his hands. “We’ve got five very vicious watchdogs here. Five watchdogs and one mommy.”

Michelson tries to keep security tight at his unusual 7 1/2-acre display of military hardware at the northern edge of the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area.

The huge guns that poke from the turrets of the drab-green tanks and aim skyward from rusting 40-millimeter antiaircraft batteries have been welded shut so they cannot fire.

But 15 of the aging tanks, troop carriers and self-propelled antitank guns have been restored to running order by Michelson and his son, Craig, the museum’s operations manager. Some sport heavy steel treads that would rip Rosemead Boulevard to shreds if sneaked outside for a joy ride.

Michelson, 73, started the museum in 1962 by collecting old uniforms and insignias at the Los Angeles armory where he worked as post exchange manager for the National Guard.

The collection expanded to include weapons and vehicles after Michelson, of Westwood, bought a few surplus Army vehicles. He said his interest in rolling stock stems from service as an Army quartermaster supply officer for desert training in World War II.

The display now includes equipment from that war, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam War. All but about 20 of 100 vehicles have been loaned to the nonprofit society by the armed forces.

The equipment was moved to Whittier Narrows land leased from the Army Corps of Engineers seven years ago.

Most of it is so old that it will never run again.

“They have very simple engines that are easy to fix. These engines are very tough; they were built to last,” said Craig Michelson, 32. “But there aren’t any parts.”

Some prizes, such as an M-47 tank used in Korea, sit idle for that reason. It needs six oil coolers that the Michelsons have been unable to find.

Unlike his father, Craig Michelson never served in the military. But he grew up around the war machines and later earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Cal State Los Angeles.

“There’s the Army way to fix engines and the correct way,” he said. “The Army did R and R. They removed and replaced engines when something went wrong. I do it the correct way. I repair.”

The museum loans out its drivable tanks and trucks to the American Legion, the VFW and Vietnam veterans groups to use in parades. Organizations are required to have enough liability insurance to cover such things as damage to street pavement before they can borrow them.

Liability problems keep the 200 or so people who visit the museum each week from climbing aboard the old tanks and assault vehicles, Don Michelson said. Exceptions are occasionally made for veterans who delightedly discover equipment they used while in military service.

For the past four years, the Army camp-like museum has been open Saturday and Sunday afternoons to the public for a $2 admission fee.

Some of the visitors volunteer to help refurbish their favorite piece of equipment. About 230 have joined the society.

“One man has come out every Thursday afternoon to work on the same type of landing craft he used in four Pacific invasions in World War II,” Don Michelson said. “He’s sandblasting it down to the wood and metal and repainting it.”

Along with land and equipment for the museum, the government also has donated the fence that encircles it. Navy Seabees did the installation.

But it wasn’t secure enough to keep the museum’s old watchdog in. Or to keep out the stray dog that the Michelsons have named “Momma.”

The pups will be given away. But the Michelsons plan to keep “Momma.”

Every Army unit needs a dogface.