Grenadier Kaserne security?

   Until they started building the wall in August 1961 no one seemed too concerned about security at Grenadier.  Before I had a car and when I wanted to go to Robinson Barracks I either hitched a ride or went through the hole in the fence between building 5 and 6. It would save me about a 1/2 mile on the walk to Stuttgart Post.

   You could walk on to the Kaserne through the main gate during the day and no one would stop you.  We had so many civilians working there that security was a farce.  On the floor above us was the civilian hiring department for the US Army. Most of the people there were German. Once the wall was being built we had guards at night.  The front gate is shown below.  This is a picture that was taken after Grenadier Kaserne was closed.  You will notice a cyclone type gate. This gate was added after the Kaserne was closed for demolition.

   We had a PFC who was a Native American and couldn’t hold his booze.  I’m not sure what his job was and he wasn’t with us more than a month or so so I guess it doesn’t make any difference what his job was.  EVERY Saturday night he would get drunk and try to get through the main gate.  The guards would stop him and call our CQ to come get him. We explained numerous time that all he had to do was walk around the Kaserne to the left and walk through the hole in the fence.

   He never remembered and they never repaired the fence!

   Have a Happy New Year and a great 2013. Leave a comment if you like.

de Gaulle to Ludwigsburg

   I usually tried to read a little German each day.  Harry usually brought the morning edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung each day. Since I liked sports I usually read the sports section figuring that it would be easier to read if I knew what they were talking about.

   One morning in 1961 I read in the paper that De Gaulle was coming to Ludwigsburg.  He would be arriving at Echterdingen airport (Stuttgart) and then be taking a limo to Ludwig’s Castle in Ludwigsburg. I checked with Harry to make sure I was reading the article correctly. What a grand reason to have a beer bash. We could have our own tailgate party and flip de Gaulle the bird as he went by. 

   The road between Zuffenhausen and Ludwigsburg in 1961 was a two lane road. (Today it is multiple lanes each way)  We decided that we would set up our tailgate party on a slight knoll so we could see the “Big Snot Locker” go by in his limo.  We had a few weeks to plan this outing and it kept getting bigger and bigger.  It was taking on a life of it’s own. The final count was about 30 people including girl friends. 

   I’m not sure what time of day it was but the weather was reasonably good and we had large amounts of Dinky Pop Tops (Local beer), Brotchen und schinken mit senf and other picnic supplies.  We were well “oiled” by the time the Polizei showed up. The MP’s showed up shortly after when the Polizei called them.  Fortunately we had parked our cars on another road and walked to the knoll over looking the road. No drunk driving charges. No eye balling of the French guy either.  We just took our empties and went home.

   Bottom line, only one GI arrested and he wasn’t in our outfit. Like I said this whole escapade took on a life of it’s own.  The GI was a SP-4 from the signal outfit next door. Sloppy drunk…

  The picture above was from an archive of the actual speech at Ludwig’s castle.  Of course we didn’t see it, we were tucking tail and retreating to Grenadier Kaserne less one GI from next door.

   Given what I know now I would have been a little suspect of a rowdy group of people on a knoll over looking the driving route of a foreign President.

   If you were here in 1961 feel free to leave a comment.

Paris in the spring time…

   One of my trips to Paris was in the late Spring.  I had been to the French coast and was stopping in Paris on the way back to Germany. I had always heard about Montmartre, and “Pig Alley.” What 19 year old wouldn’t want to be there?  I always wanted Toulouse-Lautrec’s job and his reserved seat at the Moulin Rouge. I didn’t want all his physical problems caused by an inbred family, but to have a reserved seat for the shows at the Moulin Rouge was a 19 year olds dream. Needless to say the show had lots of bare breasts but it was also a great show.

   When I arrived from Normandy I got a hotel room and decided to go where the “action” was.  Montmartre and that area was highly touted. There were more than a few prostitutes.  They looked great from a distance.  But as you got closer the smell would knock you over. Too bad they didn’t bathe a little more often.

  I found this little no-name bar in Place Pigalle near the Moulin Rouge and once they got the message that I was there for the beer and not the girls it was a pretty nice place to hang out.  On my second day in Paris I dropped in at the bar and got my table by the window.  A few minutes later I became absolutely slack jawed when a Scottish Highland soldier walked in and sat at the bar. His uniform looked like the ones below.

   He ordered a beer at the bar and was mobbed by an entire room full of whores.  He got rid of them except for one rather pretty girl who made the mistake of grabbing his dagger that was in the long sock on the right leg.  He grabbed her so hard she screamed and dropped the dagger.  He picked it up and I thought he was going to stick her with it.  She took off like a cut cat.  After a moment in deep thought he stuck the knife lightly into his arm and drew some blood.  He then replaced the knife back into his sock.

   I couldn’t stand it I had to introduce myself.  I walked over to the bar and invited him to sit with me at my table near the window.  He accepted and we enjoyed a few pints together.  When asked, he said that his regiment has a requirement that when the sgian dubh is drawn, other than for cleaning, it must draw blood. He thought it best to take a “wee bit” of his own rather than the “dirty girl’s” blood.

  Turns out he was a guard at the British Embassy and had attended an afternoon tea for some dignitaries.  He needed a little attitude adjustment so he “popped” over to Piggy Alley.  We had a nice chat but never saw the guy again.

   You meet some nice folks when you go some place new. Who would have thought that I would have seen a 5 star show, meet a very sincere Scottish soldier and share a place in history with a 5 foot midget?

If you were in the 594th, been to Grenadier Kaserne or even Place Pigalle feel free to leave a  comment.

Are you Daugherty?

  Early one morning two civilians walked into the office and asked if I was Daugherty.  I told them I was and asked what they needed.  They told me they were looking for Corporal Dotson. I asked who they were and they both showed me badges and identified themselves as “Misters” so and so and they were here to take Dotson into custody.

  I told them that may be rather difficult since we hadn’t seen Dotson for a couple of days.  He was listed on our morning report as AWOL.  They informed me that they wanted to go through his belongings.  I took them to LTC Alexander who authorized me to take them to Dotson’s locker.  Since I was unfortunate enough to be his roommate I had to witness their going through every piece of his clothing and belongings.

  I had to sit there for almost 3 hours and watch these guys go through every piece of clothing and EVERY HEM of every piece.  In talking with these guys I found that Dotson had once been an MSGT E-8 and part of the Berlin Honor Guard.  He had gone AWOL and was busted.  Had been arrested for using drugs among other infractions with the UCMJ. 

  They took EVERYTHING with them when they left.  Never saw them again and never saw Dotson again.  I guess he was an In’Waiting soldier but I’m surprised that they were letting him wait based on what I heard from the CID people.

Jonesy was unique!!!!

  To this day I don’t know where corporal Jones came from. All I know is that he couldn’t read or write and he had been in the Army during WWII and Korea.  He worked at Stuttgart Post (Robinson Barracks) and I think he worked for Special Services.  I do know that he was always moving sports equipment around on the weekends for the little league teams.

  During the early 60’s the Army had a rather good sized PX at Robinson Barracks (years later it was much larger) and they also had a Class VI store. The Class VI store was the location where you went to buy cigarettes and booze.  Each month we were issued a Class VI card which allowed you to buy so many cartons of cigarettes and so many bottles of liquor.  As I recall a carton of cigarettes cost about $1.50 (5 carton limit per month) and a bottle of Jack Daniels was $3.00 to $4.00 (I think a 4 bottle limit). You were not supposed to share your card with anyone!!!!! And you couldn’t purchase more than one carton or bottle at a time.

  I arrived at the Class VI store one afternoon and Jonesy was the only customer in the store. He was at the counter with about 15 bottles of booze.  He had a bunch of Class VI cards in his hand (Illegal). I asked him what the occasion was and he just smiled and said, “It’s Tuesday and I’m ready to F--k, Flight or run a Foot race.” That was Jonesy.  I will tell you more about Jonesy when I cover the NCO club.

  If you were in Stuttgart at Robinson Barracks or Grenadier Kaserne feel free to leave a comment.

Dodging “Potholes…”

  After all the preparation and planning, I could still get lost occasionally.  We had to be at a railroad siding near Hohenfels at 0500.  Since we had been north to Baumholder the day before we were running late, rather than stopping in Stuttgart we continued driving to Hohenfels.  We were in a very small town looking for the turn to Hohenfels.  I had only been this way once before and it was during day light hours.

  We kept driving back and forth through the little town and couldn’t find the turn. We finally stopped about 0300 and checked the map. I told SSGT Melendez that we would go back through town one more time then head out to the other way that I knew would take us to Hohenfels. On the way back through town we came upon a farmer pushing a wheel barrow out to his field. I figured what the hell, I’ll try a little German on him and see if he will help us. I began by saying “Wo ist die Strasse” and he butted in and said in darned good English “The road to Hohenfels is 200 meters down the road then turn right.”  He didn’t miss a beat and didn’t even slow down.  To this day I have wondered how many GI’s he had given directions to.

  Our odyssey wasn’t over yet.  Once we found the road, Melendez tells me he has a short cut that he had used before and we could still arrive on time. Not wanting to be late I followed his directions and we were soon dodging huge pot holes in the road. A lot of the road didn’t seem to even exist!  After all the bouncing around and dodging huge “potholes” we saw an MP jeep about 100 yards ahead.  As we got closer the MP got out and stopped us.  He was almost screaming at us, “Where the hell have you been?”  About 10 seconds later there was a large explosion about a quarter of a mile behind us.

  We had just navigated the back side of Hohenfels and the artillery impact area! Melendez almost turned white, and got out of the jeep and vomited. We got to the main part of the base and then the railroad siding.  The sound of artillery shells landing in the impact area went on for almost another hour!

Damned BIG Traffic Circle

  I had been warned about driving in France.  I was told they plant all their fruit trees along the side of the roads.  If you hit one and break it off you end up in court and paying for the fruit it would have given off had it lasted another 8-10 years. Same with farm animals. Female pigs – how many piglets would it have had during the rest of its life? 

  Needless to say I was a little apprehensive about driving there the first time; however, I had to make an appearance at NATO headquarters in 1962.  I had been escorting NATO Hawk transfer shipments for a few months and they wanted to see who I was.  To that point they were working with me based on the word of LTC  Alexander.

  So in the late spring I headed for Kaiserslautern then on to Verdun Reims then to Paris.  Being my first time in France I wanted to make sure that I was able to get fuel at our military bases along the way.  I picked up a fellow soldier at our office in Verdun. He needed a ride to Orleans so I planned on dropping him in Paris and he would take the train to the 594th Transportation Group headquarters.  I don’t remember his name but we were about the same age and got along fine.  He also eased my mind some about driving in France.

  The picture of the Arc de Triomphe above is what you see in the travel brochures.  Keep in mind I had to negotiate a city of millions that I had never been to and do it in a US Army jeep.  We were doing good until we got the The Arch. I saw a break in the traffic and shot to the center and the inner most circle thinking that we could keep going around until we saw the road we needed.  The picture below will probably show you what we were up against.

  I think there were about 8 or nine lanes and frankly we hadn’t really thought this whole thing through.  You will notice the cement like circle at the base of the Arch and check all of the darned roads leaving the circle. As we kept going around the Arch, at about 25 miles per hour, I couldn’t help noticing this very tall, de Gaulle looking French police officer.  I think he was laughing at us – at least smirking.

  After a dozen or so loops he had stepped out into the inner lane and motioned for us to drive onto the cement area.  He wasn’t President Charles de Gaulle but he sure looked like him even down the the honking nose. I almost lost it when he began to speak and sounded exactly like Maurice Chevalier.  He was a nice fellow and asked us where we were going.  We told him NATO headquarters and he said “Ah, Porto Dauphine.” He gave us the directions and then stood on the running board of the jeep and stopped traffic all the way across 8 or 9 lanes to the street we needed to be on.  We may still have been there except for him.

  The picture above shows NATO headquarters shortly after being built.  I survived the meeting with the NATO folks.  Stayed over night in a small hotel they took me to and headed for home the next morning  I don’t remember dropping the guy from Verdun at a train station so the NATO folks may have done that for me.

  In the mid 1980’s I was managing in Europe and had a couple of sales people working for me in Paris.  One of the universities we called on was Universite Dauphine.  We walked into the building from the back side and I had this overwhelming feeling of déjà vu.  It was the building I had been in in 1962.  When de Gaulle tossed NATO and the US Forces they made it into a University.

  Want to leave a comment.  Stationed in the Paris area in the early 60’s.  In the 594th.  Feel free to leave a comment.