Al has been great about sending me some pics from his time on the Hill - and I've been too slow in getting them on! Here's a nice railhead pic from the early 60s. As most anyone who was on the hill knows, the heavy tracks went to Graf via rail and the wheeled vehicles via hardball. When I was there the Jr LT drew the short straw for wheeled convoy commander (a job worthy of several blog posts itself) and the Sr LT in the battery got to ride the train. The one job you didn't really want was railhead commander - lots of "opportunities to excel" as we used to say. I have good memories of some great poker games on the train, and not worrying about taking a wrong turn on the way to the field! My worst railhead memory was almost seeing a fellow soldier cut in half when a group went under a stationary train rather than around it to board. The train in question started rolling (slowly), but thankfully it was rolling wheels away from the soldier and he had a few seconds to scramble out from under it. The LT and Sr NCO in charge of that movement got to spend some quality time with the BN Commander after that incident. Thankfully no one was hurt.
2 comments:
This pic at the railhead was taken in fall of 62 or the year of 63, as this is the time that I servered at Pedan and I took the pic, Pfc. Tommy Archer, B Btry and Service Battery. Battery Clerk and and second driver and spent some time in nuck weapons assembly.
For those who served at Peden
Barracks this photo has a special
meaning.I wished I had the opport-
unity to observe them(8"sps) rum-
ble down the hill for loading.Talk-
ing about missing a turn on the
road.Sarge(driver) and I on the way
back to Wertheim from Graf.somehow
missed the turn at Nuremberg and
heading towards Munich.To add to
this we ran out of fuel and luckily
managed to hail down a tanker.Upon
returning to Peden Barracks Sarge had a nice conversation with the comp. commander. Those were the days of yore.Note,on that occasion we didn't return in a convoy.
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