Sunday, September 30, 2012

Photo Radar in 1961

  I get the biggest kick out of people complaining about their loss of privacy because of photo radar.  In Snotsdale (Scottsdale, AZ) the folks absolutely come un hinged about photo radar.  What does photo radar have to do with privacy?

  I can see the attorney when a young Boomer comes in ranting about a Photo Rader Ticket.  Regardless of what the attorney says, all he sees is a young idiot and $$$$ signs.

  My friend Harry wasn’t exactly a lead foot, he was THE LEAD FOOT.  He scared the hell out of me more than once.

  The Polizei cars in town looked a lot like the car below on the left. The one on the right looks like the Autobahn Polizei Porsches.

POLIZEIAUTOBAHN POLIZEI

  One morning he came into the office complaining that he had received a speeding ticket in the mail.  He explained that the Polizei no longer chased speeders because it was too dangerous.  I asked how that worked and he showed me a picture that was attached to his ticket.  It had a very clear photo showing the rear of Harry’s car in the upper portion of the photo and the lower portion showed a picture of the Polizei’s speedometer with date and time.

  He had 7 days to pay the fine or they came and impounded his car!

Monday, September 24, 2012

A Major Good Deed

  During the winter of 1962-63 parts or all of the Rhine River froze over!  Not unheard of but the first time in modern history.  The major problem for the Germans was that coal and fuel oil were shipped on barges down the Rhine river.  Big problem for the US bases also. Coal fired electric plants would not be able to supply electricity for heating.  There was a big panic.

FROZEN RHINE RIVER

  The US Forces jumped in and started hauling coal by truck and train. While we were busy with large military exercises we also scheduled hundreds of military trucks and other resources to get the coal to the right places. Hundreds of trucks were temporarily reassigned from France to Germany to help with the loads.

  As I recall LTC Moran at 594th Trans Group headquarters in Orleans spearheaded to operation.  I was amazed how well the operation went considering we had Wintershield II maneuvers running at pretty much the same time.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

NATO Hawk Transfers

  Early in 1962 LTC Alexander told me to head up to Trier. Trier is the oldest city in Germany and is a major border crossing point.  I was to meet a truck shipment that was to be escorted to Ulm.  The truck was pulling a regular stake and platform trailer with two rather large, custom wooden crates. Once we got the shipment to Ulm I had the Telefunken plant manager sign for the boxes.

  On the shipments we escorted all the boxes had a large US shield with two hands shaking superimposed over the shield.  The shield was similar to the one below.

US SHIELD

Over a years period of time I escorted maybe 5 shipments to Telefunken GMBH in Ulm.  Not always from Trier. Other shipments I met had originated in Bremerhaven and Hanover.  On the third or fourth shipment it was me killing to know what was in the boxes.  It couldn’t be too sensitive since we had no guards.  Once I got to know the plant manager I asked him what was in the boxes.  He was surprised that I didn’t know. He told me the crates contained radar units and others had parts for the radar units.

I know that Germany had some rudimentary radar as far back as the 1930’s so I guess we were helping them with newer technology.  I also know that Frankfurt was one of the first international airports to land planes in zero visibility.

  I asked the plant manager what they did with the radar units. He said. “Vee take dem apart and put dem back together besser.”

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Would You Believe… POW’s in 1961

RUSSIAN GULAG

  Harry Wickart never took a day off.  I don’t recall his ever being sick so when he asked the CO for a day off we were all surprised.  When he came back the next day I asked if he had had a good day off. He said no and that he had spent the day interviewing a returning POW from Russia.

  I had no idea that there were still German POW’s in Russia.  Harry said that originally there were around 100,000 Germans being held by the Russians. He thought, based on interviews, that there were still between 5,000 and 10,000 Germans being held in Russia as late as 1960.

  He said that the returning prisoners were usually released from the concentration camp and told to go home.  Most were in very poor physical condition and many never made it back to Germany. Needless to say the Russian people weren’t friendly and didn’t help in their travels.  Imagine being 500 to 1,000 miles from home, no money, rotten clothing, poor health and absolutely no help!

  If they arrived home the ex POW’s were interviewed by people like Harry. Harry said that many still had their memories and had memorized all the names of the prisoners in their respective camps.  Many had also memorized all those who had died in the camps.

  Harry said that one person they had interviewed the previous year had memorized over 1,000 names.  That would be 1960, 15 years after the end of WWII… 

Sunday, September 16, 2012

One of the first to arrive

175TH COA

   The 175th Military Police Battalion was one of the first units to arrive at Grenadier Kaserne.  By the time I arrived at Grenadier in 1961 there were no MP’s based there.  As I recall the closest MP’s were located at Wilkins Barracks only a few miles away in Kornwestheim.  I think there were more MP’s located on the south side of Stuttgart in the town of Nellingen.

175th MPs grenadier

  The picture above is of the main entry to Grenadier Kaserne. These were soldiers of the 175th MP Battalion.  The 175th was part of the Missouri National Guard and they were called up in 1951. Below is a picture of the entry to their service club. They arrived at Grenadier Kaserne in August 1951. After early Fall maneuvers they moved their headquarters to Fliegerhorst Kaserne in Boblingen.

175TH SERVICE CLUB

  There was no service club at Grenadier Kaserne when I was there. I am assuming that it left with the MP’s or when Robinson Barracks opened its doors.  We did open up a small “bottle club” in one of the building across the street.  Any enlisted man, E-4 or higher could join.  It was a great room and everyone had their own bottle of whatever they drank.  We ended up closing the room in late 1962 because we had a number of ‘in waiting’ NCO’s that started their drinking too early.  One took up sleeping there.  We are talking about the WWII Cannon Fodder folks.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

You Gotta Love Munich

  No matter where I went there was always plenty to do besides work. Munich made a great base to work from.  You could be in Garmisch Partenkirchen in an hour or so depending on weather. Garmisch was a great place.  Skiing in the winter boating and swimming in the summer.  The US government took over the Eibsee hotel after the war and it was used as a recreation area for US troops.

  EIBSEE HOTEL

  Before and during the war it was used as an R&R location for German troops.  The ski area was great and you could rent a complete skiing outfit for a $1.50 a day. I tried but I never got the hang of skiing.

  McGraw Kaserne was where our office was located.  I didn’t have a lot of reason to spend a lot of time in Munch.  The people we had there were good and had been doing their job longer than I had been in the Army.  They always welcomed me to Munich, then we went and played.  The Englischer Garden was always a stop for lunch during the summer.  The Garden was a clothing optional location and there were  probably more American GI’s watching than there were topless and bottomless bathers.

  The top listened to radio programs on all of AFN were “Luncheon in Munchin” and “Bouncing in Bavaria.”  I don’t remember the guys names but they were good and funny and you could hear him all over Germany.  Kinda like Robin Williams and Good Morning Viet Nam. The picture below is the Englischer Garden. When I was managing in Europe in the 80’s one of my salesmen took me here for lunch. He was disappointed when he found out I had been there many times. With all the miles I had driven I also showed him some short cuts to the different bases.

ENGLISCHER GARDENS

  The other obvious stop if you are in Munich is the Hofbrauhaus. Check the grip this gal has.

HOFBRAUHAUS WAITRESSHOFBRAUHAUS CROWD

  There was always a rather large crowd and if you were inclined to pick a fight you could always find a drunk German kid or two that were ready to fight.  Speaking of fighting, one corner of the building on the outside still had bullet holes where a machine gun had strafed the side of the building.

  Besides our office at McGraw, AFFES Headquarters was located there also the 66th MI (The guys you never saw) as well and a number of other medium sized units.

  One other place that was close to Munich was the Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden.

EAGLES NEST

It was Hitler’s retreat.  The views were spectacular and you could see for miles. Not sure what they have done with it.  Most of the areas in and around Munich have been given back to the German government.  The Eibsee Hotel where I stayed a number of times for only $3.00 per night, cost almost $80.00 a night when I was back there in the mid 1980’s.  The “club house” where they rented out ski equipment is now an old storage building.

IT YOU WERE HERE OR IN STUTTGART IN THE ARMY I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Grenadier Castle

Yes there really was a Grenadier Castle.  Apparently it was built right after the war by the first US Army soldiers stationed at Grenadier Kaserne.

GRENADIER CASTLE

  It was all of about 5 or 6 feet high with a moat filled with water.  It was lighted for a while but when the wiring failed we never got it fixed.  The picture above features Harry Wickart and myself making some minor repairs.  We were featured in Stars and Stripes and then again in my hometown newspaper in Fort Bragg, CA. When I visited the Kaserne in the mid 80’s it was gone so I am sure some gung ho officer saw it as an eyesore.

IF YOU WERE STATIONED AT GRENADIER KASERNE OR IN ONE OF THE UNITS IN THE AREA LEAVE A COMMENT.

I liked the small towns

  I traveled a lot in the two years I was in Germany.  Most of the travel involved work; however, most of the time I stayed in local hotels or gasthaus accommodations. Occasionally I would use military housing but during maneuvers there were never enough rooms available.  I figure I drove a little over 100,000 miles in the two years I was there. Drove all over Germany, west into France, south into Italy and southwest into Spain.  Also got into Belgium and Luxemburg and Switzerland.

  I’m still amazed at the number of service personnel (even today) that rarely leave their assigned base.  They go to the movie, bowl, play sports, eat at Burger King or McDonalds and take part in all the Special Services things available to them – BUT they only leave base when their unit goes somewhere. What a waste. Shown below is the Robinson Barracks PX and Theater.  There was also an NCO club and other facilities for the soldiers and their families.

RB PX

  I loved what I did but I also couldn’t wait for the evenings and weekends. A couple of my favorite towns near Zuffenhausen were Calw, Marbach am Neckar and Tubingen.  Calw because it was beautiful, Marbach because it was old and close by and Tubingen because it was a University town and had girls from all over the world. Picture below is the main street in Calw.

CALW GERMANY

  Calw was just south of Stuttgart and was at the very northern end of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest).  I rarely saw any GI’s roaming around Calw. I did see an occasional American family.  My other favorite small town was Marbach am   MARBACH AM NECKAR

Neckar.  It wasn’t far from Zuffenhausen and there was a very small gasthaus just off the main plaza downtown.  It took a few trips to be accepted and then later I was invited to sit at the owners table near the back by the kitchen.

  My other favorite town was Tubingen which was due south and had a University with lots of girls from all over Europe.

TUBINGEN TOWN HALLTUBINGEN ALONG THE NECKAR

  The pictures above show the town hall and a view from across the Neckar river.  I never scored with any gals from Tubingen but I kept  going back because of the college atmosphere and people (girl) watching.

  IF YOU WERE IN STUTTGART OR THE 594TH PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT.  WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM OTHERS WHO SERVED. TSD

Monday, September 10, 2012

The WALL

  I guess you had to be there. I had been in Germany for all of about 6 weeks when the shit hit the fan!  They started building the WALL.  I wasn’t scared or worried that we were going to have WWIII, but life wasn’t the same for about 3-4 months.

THE WALLTHE WALL - BUILDING

  The U.S. starting moving men and equipment to Europe.  It got to the point that Bremerhaven and our two major ports in France couldn’t handle the massive amounts of equipment and personnel being sent to Europe.  The U.S. opened offices in Rotterdam and began receiving large shipments through Holland.

THE WALL LEAVING

  We had so many troops showing up that it was becoming a problem finding a place to put them.  At one point we had close to 5,000 troops scattered all over the training centers at Grafenwohr and Hohenfels.  We had already filled up the existing housing and billets at all the military facilities in Germany. As we reached mid-winter the snow was falling and so was the temperature.  I was in Hohenfels in January or February of 1962 meeting a train with some 200 military personnel. It was all of 4 degrees at 1500 hours. The camp commander, I think he was a Lt. Col.,  asked me where he was going to put these new men.  I don’t think he expected an answer. I explained that my job was get them here not house them!  I don’t know how many troops were in tents but it was a lot.  You have to remember these posts were training centers.  When people trained here they came with their own housing = called tents.

  After a few months it was somewhat apparent that we weren’t going to war.  Once that realization dawned on everyone it started getting back to normal.  From mid August 1961through about September 15th I slept on my desk or on a cot in my office.  Military movements became a 24/7 operation.  Besides the troops coming from the U.S. we had armored outfits heading to the border.  Passau was getting crowded!

KENNEDY

  Even Kennedy decided to show. Scheduling one of the General’s command diesels to transportation the President wasn’t any fun.  Especially when we moved him to a siding to let a “Fast Freight” pass by.  The Bundesbahn Fast Freight had priority over all rail traffic and that included our president.  There was a lot of pissing and moaning but by the time a colonel got out to complain he almost missed his ride.

IF YOU WERE AT GRENADIER KASERNE, IN THE 594TH TRANS GROUP OR WOULD JUST LIKE TO COMMENT PLEASE DO SO. THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT. TSD

Wild Boar Hunting

  One of the things I will always be grateful for is colonel Alexander’s insistence that I know my counter parts in the German and French armies. He said the French army wasn’t all that important because, “all they know how to do is wave a white flag, surrender or defect.”  I did meet my French counter part at the Canadian base near Baden Baden but never had to work with him.

  My counter part in the German Army was Feldwebel Heinrich Goetz and he was stationed at one of the largest German Army bases in Southern Germany. He was in Weiden which was only a few miles from Grafenwohr.  Weiden is quite often where I stayed during the large maneuvers at Grafenwohr. Heinrich was a nice guy and we became good friends. Between boar hunting, foosball, German girl friends and great drinking joints in Weiden we had great times.

  When I had first met him on my short intro-tour with my CO he had invited me to go hunting.  He mentioned there were a number of places to go but that the backside of Grafenwohr was a great place to hunt.  I showed up early on a Sunday morning and he had us each outfitted with a 45 pistol and an M1 rifle.  Not sure where he got the  U.S, weapons but it wasn’t a problem with me.

  Headed out to middle of nowhere and eventually heard a number of boar. Didn’t see any for a while then we were confronted with a rather large, ugly beast and as it turned out a mean SOB. There were four of us. Heinrich and I had the rifles and pistols. The other two had pistols only. One of the Germans shot the pig and it charged. I dropped my rifle and we all scattered for the trees.  We all ended up in different trees anywhere between 4 and 6 feet off the ground.  I am proud to say I was higher than anyone else!  The picture below is what a cleanly killed boar looks like. It bears no resemblance to what ours looked like when we were done with it.

image

  I was made fun of for dropping my rifle. It didn’t make any difference because I hadn’t loaded it yet! The one German who didn’t speak any English was, I am sure, swearing at me. Heinrich was just laughing. He circled below my tree for a while but decided I was too high up so moved on to the next tree. We took turns shooting the thing.  All we seemed to do was make it madder. Finally Heinrich shot it between the eyes and killed it.  I’m not sure how many rounds we used but it was well tenderized.

  I think Heinrich had paid for a hunting license and he wasn’t going to waste the meat.  We loaded the hulk in the back of one of the jeeps and took it to an orphanage near Weiden.

My cars…

  As I mentioned before, the exchange rate was almost always 4 to 1 or better while I stationed there.  The car below was my first car. I think it was a 1948 or 1949 Mercedes 170D. The paint on the car shown here is a lot better than what I had.  I would love to know the genealogy on that car.  God knows how many GI’s had owned this car before me. The only problem was I always had problems with it so I ended up selling it after only a few months.  As I recall I paid $350.00 for it and sold it for about the same.

1948 MERCEDES 170D

My next car was a little more practical.  Major Adams was selling his 1953 Dodge. It had everything on it and was in excellent shape. He sold it to me for $350.00 and told me that if anything went wrong in the first 6 months he would pay for the repairs. Nothing went wrong and I had the car for about a year and a half then sold it for $400.00 to another soldier.

1953 DODGE CORONET

It was a 1953 Dodge Coronet and it was fully loaded.  The only difference was that my car had a two-tone green finish.  The same green as shown as well as a lighter green on the sides. Great car.  It was a head turner in Germany in the early 60’s especially in the smaller towns I used to frequent.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

After market jeep enhancements

  The CO wandered into my office one morning and said he and I were going on a road trip.  We were headed to Grafenwohr and Hohenfels. Nothing was happening at the time but he said we need to know these training areas better than the people we were sending there.

  image

  We headed out and the lessons began – where to park when you were checking a railhead was number one.  If you were checking railheads and an armored unit was unloading off a train you didn’t want to be blocked in while they unloaded tanks. We covered where to stay when on the road. While some installations had in-transit barracks many did not or they were full.  Best to stay on the economy in a gasthaus.  Also how to use the phone.  Sounds funny but there were at least three phone systems available to me.  The normal German telephone system, the U.S. military phone system and then the BASA phone system.

  The BASA phone system was the one I usually used.  The German system wanted money just like AT&T.  The U.S. military phone system was sometimes hard to access from small villages in Bavaria or anywhere else.  The BASA phone system was the German Federal Bundesbahn (railroad) phone system.  There were BASA phones everywhere including my office in Stuttgart.  The nice thing about the BASA phones is that they were at railheads, train stations and even some large sidings.

  HOHENFELS SNOW 1964

  The picture above is what Hohenfels usually looked like when I was there for maneuvers.When we were approaching Hohenfels training area I noticed a U.S. Army jeep with top off, windshield laying flat to the hood and metal pipe that had been welded to the front bumper. The pipe stuck up 4 to 5 feet above the hood level.  I thought it was some pompous officer’s flag holder.

JEEP WITH DECAP BAR

  After the 3rd or 4th pipe I asked the colonel what the pipes were for.  He said right after the war there were still some Nazi sympathizers in Germany and they would string wire across back roads to decapitate soldiers driving to and from maneuvers!  A number of the generals required that the tops be off jeeps and the windshields laid flat even during winter training.  Not all jeeps had the pipes welded to the front but the lead vehicles all had some sort of wire breaker on the front of their vehicle.  Hard to believe but it had only been 16 years since we won the war and there were still a lot of missing Nazi’s. Never heard of anyone actually losing their head.

  We stopped in Weiden, Germany to meet our counterparts in the German Army. I have no idea who colonel Alexander met with but I met Feldwebel Heinrich Goetz. I was an E-4 at the time and he was, I think, an E-6.  He was also 15 years older than me.  We hit it off and over time became good friends.  He offered to take me wild boar hunting at Grafenwohr and then gave me an off handed challenge to a soccer match with his unit.  We eventually did both and will talk about them later.

  By the time we got back home 3-4 days later we had accomplished a lot. The colonel said, “Daugherty, when I tell you to shag your ass to Hohenfels or Graf to meet a unit you will know where to go – no excuses.” We had marked out routes, places to stay, places to park so as not to get blocked in.  This was importatnt since I quite often ended up checking 3-4 rails heads each day.  The permanent cadre at Grafenwohr was probably 300-400 personnel and on any given weekend or manuever you could have 15,000 to 20,000 American, German and sometimes British troops. It got damned crowded around there and the fact that the tankers thought they owned the road you best know where you are going.

  Today Grafenwohr and Hohenfels are huge by comparison.  If I had my guess the town of Grafenwohr was probably about 1,000 population and Hohenfels was a wide spot in the road.  By comparison Weiden, where the Germany army was based, was about 10,000.  Today Weiden is probably 35,000 to 40,000, Graf is 4-5,000 and Hohenfels in 2-3,000.

It just went Poof!

GRAFENWOHR

  Sometimes one just can’t help oneself…

  On any given day you could usually find 5 to 10 tanks on the firing range. One morning during the Spring of 1962 Heinrich Goetz, my counter part in the German Army', and I were meeting with the Grafenwohr post people.  After the meeting Heinrich wanted to go by the tank range and see a friend of his who was a German tank commander, another Feldwebel.  On the range there were 4 or 5 German tanks, 2 or 3 US tanks and 2 British tanks.

  The tanks were there “sighting” their tanks in on the range. While we were visiting with Heinrich’s tank buddy the radio chatter got loud and the tank commander pointed out that there was some idiot down range that had driven on the range and parked his car.  It was an old car and I’m not sure what kind it was.

  The range officer was on the loud speaker yelling at the idiot and telling him that he was on a live firing range.  He announced this in German, English and French. The guy just stood there and looked at the tanks. After the 3rd of 4th announcement, in all languages, the guy gives what looks like an “up yours” hand and arm signal and marches off across the field and up the side of the mountain.

  The time to start firing was getting closer and there was a lot of discussion going on at the  range officer’s stand. More announcements, more yelling, and tank commanders getting antsy and pissed because they are burning diesel and time.

  Then God opened the heavens and rained all over the idiot at the other end of the firing range.  A German tank put one high explosive round right into the car. No more car.  The idiot is running down off the ridge – two German Army jeeps head to the smoke where the car was and Heinrich says, “we have another meeting in Weiden.” Let’s go mach schnell!

  It was a great morning. No one was hurt, the German Army only used one HE round, the tank commander felt good, he was sighted in,  and the two jeeps and the idiot were last seen leaving the training area.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

I’ll have a Dinky Bitte…

DINKELACKERFLIP TOP BEER

  Dinkelacker was the beer of choice.  Only because it was the local beer since 1888. All who served in Stuttgart have seen the Dinkelacker Biere coaster above. The only thing missing is the tally along the side indicating how many you had.

  I can’t count the number of times, just before payday, that four of us would pool our money buy a couple of cases of Dinky’s, two or three loaves of Schwarzes Brot and a pound of butter and play double deck pinochle for a penny a point and a nickel a game.  The game would go on from Friday night until mid-day on Sunday.  My friend Cpl. Jones, AKA, “Jonesy” said, “We got us the trifecta brother and it covers all the food groups.” I am sure Cpl. Jones had no clue as to food groups – he couldn’t read or write and was what we considered WWII cannon fodder.  He could carry a rifle and shoot = fodder.  More about Jonesy later.

Grenadier Kaserne

   GRENADIER 594TH BUILDING (1950'S)

  The picture above shows our buildings during the late 50’s.  Our building is in the foreground.  The matching large building in the background is all that is left. Everything else has been torn down and turned into a civilian housing area.

  This Kaserne was under military control as early as 1927 when the Germany Army confiscated local farm land to build a military facility.  They also took all the land that now encompasses Robinson Barracks.  I was very lucky being stationed here.  Grenadier was a small post.  The aerial shot above is hard to see but basically the Kaserne had very few U.S. Military units. As you entered the front gate there as a mess hall to the immediate right.  The mess hall served the any U.S. Army personnel but was probably assigned to the signal unit next door.

  You will notice four rather large buildings to the left and two large buildings that parallel the road.  I’m not sure what was in the first building on the left.  The second building housed the Signal group mentioned.  The third building is where the 594th, 5th RTMO was located.  In our building we had our outfit which was  most of the first floor and most of the basement. The Stars and Stripes had a very small office in the basement at the far north end.  The entire second floor was used by Civilian hiring.  Made for great people watching during the day when German civilians came to apply for work with the U.S. Army.

  The top floor was occupied by the 66th MI (Military Intelligence).  Walked up to to say hi and no one would come to the barred doors at the top of the stairs.  I think these people arrived and departed by osmosis.  Rarely saw anyone coming of going.

  The last building was used by German Civilian Engineers.  They were in charge of all the maintenance and repairs at Grenadier and Robinson Barracks.  There was a small motor pool (Signal Corps) behind the two buildings on the right of the road. There was also a small repair shop and motor pool behind the fourth (last) building. One of the pluses of having the Germans there is that we had a snack shop in the basement of the fourth building.  It was open from about 6am through normal working hours. Great food when you got tired of the mess hall.

GRENADEIR ENTRY

  The picture above shows the Nazi insignia on the front wall at the guard gate/main entrance to Grenadier Kaserne.  Guess they forgot that one!

GRENADIER AERIAL

  The aerial photo above is the Robinson Barracks/Grenadier Kaserne area of Stuttgart Zuffenhausen.  Hard to see all the detail but I was limited to what is currently available and a lot has changed since I was stationed there.

Lt. Col. Lawrence H. Alexander

  ALEXANDER

  The picture above shows Lt. Col. Alexander and Major General Anderson during a transportation briefing at the 5th RTMO, following Wintershield exercises.

  We got our new commanding officer almost immediately after Polumbo’s departure.  Lt. Col. Alexander had been in theater and was transferred to Stuttgart. I really liked this guy.  He didn’t suffer any fools and told me more than once that, '”Daugherty, you can make as many mistakes as you want, just never make the same one twice.”  And I didn’t. In fact we made few mistakes over the years. We mostly came along behind and repaired other peoples errors – this included losing three railcars carrying two small groups of MP’s and sandwiched in between the two MP cars was a railcar carrying super sensitive artillery warheads. Will cover this escapade in another entry.

  Lt. Col. Alexander had been in the U.S. Army for about 27 years when he arrived at Stuttgart. During discussions over the years I found that he had been an infantry officer, a port commander, a tug boat captain, a pilot, a personnel officer and been briefly in Armored.  He had been passed over for Colonel twice and had no blind ambitions about becoming a Colonel or General. He just wanted our unit to do its job and do it very well.  One thing I found out was that he knew the Army and he knew a lot of people.  He knew where to go to get things done and the people and places to avoid.

  He tried to get me to reenlist in early 1963 when I made E-5.  He said, “Daugherty, If you reenlist for six years I’ll guarantee you stay here in Europe and make E-7 before you go home.  It sounded good and I really enjoyed the service. I talked with my Dad and he asked how much longer the colonel was going to be there.  The colonel only had another year and a half to retirement so I passed on the guarantee of advancement.  If he was going to be my Rabbi I wanted him there not in retirement. We also just got a new 1st Lt. assigned. He was taking my place and I couldn’t stand the guy. The colonel didn’t care for him  either.  I couldn’t see serving the next few years with the jerk.  He also screwed up my last leave which is another story to be told later.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Meeting the new people…

ADAMS 

  When I arrived in late June I was the first “Newby” to arrive in quite sometime. I will never remember all of the people and many of them left in the next few months. The people that were there and stand out in my memory were Major Dexter Adams, Corporal Blair, PFC Jack Compton, PFC Eugene Della Rocca,  SP5 Donald A. Douglas, MSGT Eugene Duch. SP4 Tony Filigno, SP4 Stephen Fuchick, SFC Lake, SP5 Lucky Lukowski who I was replacing, PFC McDermott, SSGT Jose Melendez-Garcia, !st Lt. Harlen E. Gray, SP5 Manfred Schweitzer, SGT David Hunt and SP4 Larry Star.

  Some of the other people that arrived over the next two years stayed in Stuttgart and others were transferred to other locations.  As Grafenwohr became a fulltime TMO effort Don Douglass and his German wife Mary Lou moved the Grafenwohr. Another soldier that came through and spent a brief time in Stuttgart was Eugene Della Rocca.  He also was transferred to Grafenwohr. SP4 Yutaka ‘Rich’ Seino dropped in for a few weeks and then was transferred somewhere. Rich was from the Los Angeles area and we shared a room while he was there. Mike Sampson from San Francisco was with us a for a while and then got transferred to France.

  Most everyone was rather young like me.  Most were doing their 2 or 3 years service and then going home.  We had a few retreads come through the unit and will be the cause for some great stories.  Will probably have to leave their names out of the stories for fear that their friends and relatives would be offended.

  A few of the others that were in Stuttgart were SP4 Raymond Verdugo; SGT Thomas M. Lacy, who continues to be a very good friend; 1ts Lt. James L. May, SP4 Nussbaum and PFC Perry both of whom worked in Personnel. We also had a PFC Snell and I’m not sure how long he was there or when he arrived.

  Some of the names from the TMO’s were Major Clyde D. Johnson the OIC in the Munich office, SFC Robert ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins was also in Munich and drove race cars. PFC Jesse McCreary was also in Munich. Capt. Patrick Gorman was the OIC in Nuremburg and had SSGT George W. Pellet working for him.  George was “in waiting.”  He had just a short time remaining and didn’t have much clue as to what was going on. Had a date early each day with his favorite liquid!

  The two other civilian employees were Frau Schlayert and Art Wenhuda.   Frau Schlayert was the CO’s secretary and a good one.  Wenhuda commuted each day from the town of Aalen.  He was probably 65 years old when I arrived and I know that some of the guys used to rib him about how many Americans he had killed during the war.  He always swore that he was on the Russian front. No matter, he did his job without the benefit of frequent showers.

  If you read this blog and you were there leave a comment and let me know your name, when you were there and what you job was.

Harald Wickart

 WICKART

If you were in Stuttgart at the 594th, 5th RTMO you knew Harry!

  Harry was one of the German civilian employees working at the 5th RTMO. I am guessing that Harry was born around 1922 in Holland. His father was German and his mother was Dutch and he grew up in Germany. He learned English from his mother who spoke Dutch, German and English. He also had an opportunity to polish his English skills as a POW!

  During WWII he was in the German Army.  He was about 18 years old and literally walked into a U.S. Army camp and surrendered.  By late 1944 he was a POW in Georgia chopping firewood. After the war he was returned to Germany and eventually got a job with the U.S. Army in Stuttgart.

  Harry is the basic reason for my success at the 5th RTMO.  I was the first American soldier to take him out and buy him a beer! Think of all the years and no one offered. Eventually I met his wife Mariann and his daughter Connie.  Prior to me they hadn’t met anyone in our unit. Life was GOOD.  The exchange rate was 4.25 DM to the U.S. Dollar. I was rich!

  Harry introduced me to all the German players in the Movement Control business.  Where he had always been the go between he was making me learn the business by working directly with the German civilians working for the 594th as well as the Rail Yard Masters in the major cities in Southern German.  Hans Braunlein in Regensburg, Fritz in Munich, Bernie in Nuremburg and so many others. They started out by making me give them the railcar or clearance numbers in German. Then made me give them the routing in German. I really got frustrated at times but even when I made a mistake they corrected me and never left me hanging out to dry.

  I’ll talk more about Harry later as we proceed through my two years in Stuttgart. He was a blessing and we kept in touch until his death almost 30 years later.  I visited him a couple of times and I am still saddened that I didn’t get back that last time before he passed away. I had planned on visiting him in the later 1980’s but became ill and couldn’t get there.  By the time I had gotten better and ready to travel again Harry had passed away.  My last letter was returned so I am assuming that Mariann is also gone.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

 STUTTGART HAUPTBAHNHOF

Most of the military personnel and their dependents arriving in Stuttgart arrived by train.  Shown here is the Hauptbahnhof as it looked in 1962. Looked pretty much the same in the 30’s and it’s still the same today.  Once you arrived you made your way to your new unit.

  There were more than 15 military facilities within a 5-10 mile radius of the station. Some units sent their own transportation to pick up their personnel the smaller units relied on a military bus system.

  Needless to say with two major military headquarters located in the area the train station was always busy. 7th Army Headquarters was located at Patch Barracks in Vaihingen on the south side of Stuttgart.  The other major unit was VII Corps Headquarters at Kelley Barracks in Mohringen, also on the south side.

  Most of the other military facilities were located in the northern suburbs of Zuffenhausen, Kornwestheim and Ludwigsburg.  Stuttgart Post was located at Robinson Barracks where the main PX was located as well as housing for Stuttgart Post personnel. While most of the facilities were north, the 5th General Hospital was located in the eastern suburbs in Bad Cannstatt.

  I would guess that if you spent your entire tour of duty in the area you probably saw the Hauptbahnhof only once or twice during your tour.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Arriving at Stuttgart Germany

  I arrived at Stuttgart on Thursday, 29 June 1961.  As I recall it was early afternoon and not having planned my arrival well I had to use the latrine immediately on debarking the train.  This is where I encountered my first trough to take a leak in.  It was also my first encounter with a putzfrau.  As we were relieving ourselves in walks a cleaning woman who proceeds to mop bathroom floor all around us.  Difficult to concentrate, aim and hide all at the same time!

  After using the bathroom we headed out for a ride to our various posts.  I was headed for the 594th Transportation Group, 5th Regional Transportation Movement Office (RTMO) headquartered at Grenadier Kaserne.  I found out that Grenadier Kaserne was located in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen a northern suburb of Stuttgart proper.

  No welcoming bands or hoopla, just reported in to the commanding office Lt. Col. Polumbo.  Colonel Polumbo was marking time until he retired and as I recall he left a month or two later.  Got my room assignment and started meeting fellow members of the 5th RTMO.

594th Transportation Group (Movement Control)

  The mission of the 594th was the control of all U.S. military movements in Western Europe.  The Group was headquartered in Orleans, France with five regional offices. Region 1 in La Rochelle; Region 2 in Metz; Region 3 in Frankfurt; Region 4 in Paris and Region 5 in Stuttgart.  Numerous smaller offices (TMO’s)were spread through out France and Germany.
  I was assigned to the 5th RTMO in Stuttgart, Germany.  We initially had three TMO’s and added the 4th about the time I arrived in the Summer of 1961.  The offices were at McGraw Kaserne in Munich; in the Palace of Justice in Nuremburg; in an office building in downtown Regensburg and finally at post headquarters in Grafenwohr.
  My job entailed scheduling of troops and entire units with tanks, etc. from their home base to anyone of three training areas located at Baumholder, Hohenfels and Grafenwohr.  Quite often I would be there when they loaded up or I would meet them on arrival at the training area.
  With all the large maneuvers as well as the building of the wall we had some close calls as well as some very funny incidents – which weren’t so funny at the time.
  This blog is to put down in writing what I did in the Army around 50 years ago.  Good times and Bad they all helped me grow up.  Arrive when I was an 18 year old PFC and left two years later as a SP5 and all of 20 years old.
  If you were in the 594th regardless of location or stationed in one of the other units at Grenadier Kaserne feel free to leave a comment and a brief story of your stay in Europe.