February 20, 1999

THIS IS HERZO MEMORIES

To All -

Yes, I can add more about the early days at Herzo.

It may, at times, seem that I dislike officers. This is not true. The impression is created by a desire to respect officers and the beating that this desire takes when an officer does something that is not completely bright. I think that what I say that could be interpreted as anti-officer may be justified by the preceding statement. One example would be the Captain who left a Registered Secret Codeword Cryptographic document on his desk and went home. Locked it my Top secret safe then drove down to his quarters and brought him back to return it to the comm center. On another occasion the same Captain called the MPs and reported a riot at the "Adler". They gathered more men and rushed down there. When they entered there was no riot. When the Captain was asked about the riot he is reported to have said "Just wait a minute, I'm going to start it right now" They took him home. I was certainly no angel. Among other things I was picked up twice by the MPs for violating the midnight curfew that was installed in the late '50s.

In going through the various Herzo pages, and in a battle with my spell checker I became a bit confused. Nurnberg or Nuremberg? Spell checker and the German Embassy's page said Nuremberg but I remember so many hundreds of road signs saying Nurnberg. My dictionary finally cleared it up. Nuremberg is English for Nurnberg. I shall use Nurnberg exclusively.

I enlisted in the ASA after previous service in Italy. I was sent to Vint Hill Farm, now gone, for training. I took the test for Crypt. School and was accepted but they decided that they had enough so the class was cancelled. Started training as a Manual Morse Intercept Operator but was transferred to Herzo when I reached about 13 WPM. 2nd RSM had a school for Manual Morse at Herzo so when I reached the base it was back to school until my clearance was suspended

While in training for Manual Morse we had one of the men flip out. He stood up and threw his mill through the window. "The fly walking on the rail in front of his position was out of step with the code".

This was at the time when an overreaching recruiter in New York City was making all sorts of promises to get people to sign up for the Agency. Louie W. was told that he would be able to watch the Regattas. He, later at Herzo, came into my room to tell me with detail about the monster that they had found in Alaska. He knew that it was true, he saw it in a movie. I would not say that he was gullible. Many of the people to whom he made outrageous promises managed to get discharges.

When I first reached Europe I was sent to the Headquarters Detachment in Frankfurt, the men who worked at the HQ in the IG Farben building. As a part of the agreements between the Allies, and to disarm Germany, all fortifications, bunkers, and air raid shelters were to be destroyed. We were eating dinner in the Kaserne mess hall when they blew up the one at the Kaserne. I was sitting across from a Sgt. We struck heads, forcefully, when we both dove under the table. They had female waitresses who collected trays, filled coffeepots, etc. I think that they all screamed and dropped whatever they had in their hands. At least it sounded like it.

(I wonder if the Soviets destroyed these facilities in their zone? I sort of doubt it.)

At that time you could go on organized hunting trips with the appropriate German guide. Use military weapons. Anything that you shot went to homes for the Elderly or similar institutions after your appropriate trophy had been removed. I wanted to go hunting for wild boar. It seemed more sporting than deer. Boars fight back so to speak. They will charge and are dangerous. Was transferred to Herzo before I could get on a trip.

The trip to Herzo was interesting. I woke up on the train at some time early in the AM and saw that we were in a bombed out railway station. Interesting but I thought nothing of it. Went back to sleep. Much later we found that the person in charge of us had missed the Nurnberg station (which was probably what I saw) and we were somewhere way east of Nurnberg. We stood out on the platform almost all day before a train came along going in the other direction. Cold.
Herzo Base was complete and operational when I arrived. Unmentioned in previous information is the fact that the original "Agency" outfit at Herzo was the 2nd Radio Squadron Mobile, an Army Airforce unit. I was assigned to the 2nd Radio Squadron Mobile. It was later converted to the 6th Detachment. I regret having lost the 1947 Christmas Dinner menu for the 2nd RSM and 52nd Signal Service Detachment. It was a bad security leak, but today it would be a wonderful souvenir as it contained the names and hometowns of all of the members of the two outfits.
While I was in Italy after the war I was a guard at an Italian factory. This is what led up to the suspension of my clearance. The factory was not producing and I have no idea why it was guarded. The main part of the guard force was German POWs. They were armed with whistles and clubs, were stationed in what was the owner's house in the compound, and patrolled the walls and interior of the compound. We were at the gate with the German Commander of the guard; a former Captain in the German Engineers who had bided his time until he could be safely captured. (German atrocities? Armored forces do not take prisoners. They have no way to deal with them, so put yourself in a position to be captured by Infantry. I served with many combat veterans both in Italy and Germany. One told me of being given a group of German prisoners to take to the rear. On the way he encountered a US tank. The tank commander told him to go back, they would take care of the prisoners. He refused. They trained the 50 cal. on him and told him to go. He heard machinegun fire when he was out of sight. It happened in all armies; we just won.) Anyhow, Martin (the German Captain) and I became buddies and exchanged addresses. When I got home I wrote to him to find out how things were in Berlin. He had his Daughter answer, as she was better in English. A correspondence started. When I entered this info on one of the clearance checks that we seemed to fill out every six months my clearance was suspended and I was sent to the motor pool.
(That bit about Italy was necessary for the Herzo bit. Could write a good bit about Italy too, but that is not for here).
I became a Dispatcher. In those days, when I was working the 1800 to 0600 shift, all that we could get on the small radio in the dispatch office that was music or interesting after AFN went off the air at midnight was Radio Moscow when they were not doing the propaganda bit, Radio Andorra with Arriba Andorra at every station break and BBC Overseas. (Once in a while one of the manual Morse operators would manage to pick up a station in the U.S.; but this was rare even with their advantage in equipment and antennas).
As Dispatcher I got to drive on many interesting trips. I remember one time when I was coming back from Grafenwehr on the Autobahn. Coming down a mountain I heard a pop and heard something hit the hood. I stopped to see what happened and noticed that the engine was running rough. It sounded like it was running on three cylinders. I checked and that is what it was doing. A sparkplug had came out. I walked back and found the sparkplug. The ceramic was cracked but it worked when I put it back in place. I made it home OK.