Soviet Military Liaison Vehicles

Our active emailers from the 60s sent these images of Soviet Military Liaison cards. (Or as we called them "Smell 'ems") No one trapped one of these vehicles during my time on the hill; how 'bout you? I still have a version of this card from the 80s that I'll scan and post one of these days. M

Service Battery, AmmoSection, 3/35th FA 1962

A group stationed at Peden in the early 60s continues to send each other (and me) lots of pics. Here's a great one from the year I was born!

Names as he recalls them:

Top Row - from the left:

Paul Meunier, (Boston, Mass.) Pat McMath, (Detroit, Mich) Amador Rodriguez, (Brownsville, Tx)

Bottom Row from the Left:

(lighting cig) Bill Campbell (?), John Dietrich, (Detroit, Mich) Gary Frazier, (Baltimore, MD), Butch Watkins, (New Jersey) Bob Jacobs, (Nebraska)
Chester Center, (Hamilton, Ohio) (peeking behind Chester) Henry Todd, (Kentucky)

1969 Graf Pic

One of our regular contributors sent in this photo of a Charlie Battery Howitzer in Graf in 1969.

3/35FA Track Park from the Air

In the Fall of 86 (if memory serves) a buddy of mine who was a pilot with Big Windy had a reason to come to Wertheim and then up to Wurzburg. He asked if I wanted to go along which I did so that I could get some pics from above. These two are of the 3/35 FA track park, as well as a broader view of Peden Barracks. In the lower pic you can see my car in the foreground, something I don't think I'd ever noticed until scanning these pics.

Now is it me, or does the Bravo line look just a bit more squared away than those of Alpha and Charlie? :) M

Special Weapons ED at Graf

3/35 FA was a nuke-capable unit of course, so a number of us got the opportunity to be on the SW (Special Weapons) Team.  Each battery had a team that was certified from time to time in all facets of storage, transport, security, preparation and delivery of nukes.  We certified on two rounds - the much more challenging 422, and the easy 753.  We all had to be NRAS (Nuclear Release Authentication System) certified as well.  It was a great additional duty in terms of responsibility and training opportunities, but it also carried with it some risk if your team botched a nuke inspection (or TVI - Technical Validation Inspection if memory serves).  In one memorable week each of our three batteries botched an aspect of a practice TVI - my team did something wrong with a dashpot I think, another battery erred on a tie-down, and the third I don't remember.  All very minor errors, but such was the life in SW.  All three of us SW LTs were at attention in the BN Commander's office where he pulled out his pocket knife and shared with the three of us, with a smile, what he did to LTs who botched nuke inspections.  It was a memorable message, delivered in a way that made the point but also further motivated us not to let him down.  (That's my way of making it clear our BN CDR didn't not threaten us with a knife.)  :)  The three LTs involved (Paniccia, Johnson, Lankes) still chuckle about it from time to time to this day.

Anyway, only the sharpest 13Bs in each battery were selected, and they were always great guys - in an out of the SW rooms where we trained.  In these shots we were practicing emergency destruction of nuke rounds at Graf.  Basically just demo training where we used det cord, C4, blasting caps and shape charges to simulate actual nuke round ED.  It was usually a lot of fun - the nice thing about your 20s is you didn't give a lot of thought to the fact that the manual told you to crimp the blasting cap to the det cord with "YOUR LEAST PREFERRED HAND"!!  :)  Happy 4th.  M

Bravo 3/35 FA - Early 60s

Great pic huh? Class A's in the snow!

Breaking Track - 1962

Ah, a picture is worth 1000 words right? :)

Ammo Transfer

Well Tommy Archer has a bunch of pics that I'll have to get up on the blog. Here's the first one - looks like a transfer of rounds. It's funny the things that jump out when you look at some of these old pics - for me the fact that they are in soft-caps stands out. We had to be in helmets all the way in the 80s. As I recall we used Gamma Goats to haul ammo to the Batteries when I first got to Peden and we we fielded the HEMMT (sp?). I know Service Battery was happy to get those new vehicles and see the Goats relgated to jeep status. One of these days when I spotlight the great Captain Walt Walker I'll pass on another ammo related story...

Railhead!

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.

Mid 50s Pics

Heard from Don Cooper who was stationed in Wertheim in the mid 50s:

"One story does come to mind. When the US moved occupation troops out of Austria in (I believe) late 1955, we got a new mechanic who outranked most of our guys and let them know it. When the Bn commander's new German Taunus 4-door came in for maintenance he took it over and right away slid the floor jack under it. Someone told him he had it positioned wrong, but he bulled right ahead and jacked it up. Unfortunately, he had put the jack right under the Colonel's oil pan and it sprung a serious oil leak. No new oil pan was available anywhere for several days.

On the fortunate side, we had an excellent welder in Ron Rising, the pride of International Falls, MN. Ron was able to stem the leak by welding the aluminum pan, which is no small task. I do not know if the Colonel ever found out, but the car had to be called back a week or so later for its new oil pan."

Peden Gym?

Got this note today - if you can help Todd out please drop him a line. Mark


Hello,
I found your web page on Peden Barracks and I hope you can help me. If I have my information correct the Gymnasium was named the "Hartman Gymnasium" it would help me to confirm this and to find out if the placard dedicating the building is still there. I am related to the family of MAJ Hartman who died in Vietnam and I have been trying to find the placard for some time. Any assistance that you or people you know would help a great deal.

Respectfully,

MAJ Todd A. Welsh
Executive Officer, 5th Avn Bn. (P)
Ft. Polk, La 71459
Office: (337) 531-6663
Cell : (337) 772-8165
todd.welsh@conus.army.mil

B 3/35 FA Dining In

Ok so I've been horribly remiss in getting new posts on here. No excuse. Just got an iMac and a new scanner so I'll be able to start adding some of my pics and stories from my days on the hill. These pics are from a pretty memorable event during my tour. This was probably in 1987 if memory serves. Our BC, Jeff Henderson, decided to have a howitzer christening and Battery dining in. I think a lot of us were a tad skeptical at first but it turned out to be a great event. Some of the details I've forgotten but basically we had the dining in and then went up to the track park where we christened each howitzer, with famous battle names all beginning with the letter B. I was the junior officer in the Battery at the time and got tagged as being Mr Vice. I think it was the only time in my active duty tenure where I was officially encouraged to "lubricate" before an event so that I would be able to add the required humor to the role, something I was happy to do. The pics above are two at the track park - a few people I remember are our BC (CPT Jeff Henderson), our 1SG (Willie J Ferguson), SP4 Repka (Top's driver and later mine), SGT Sam Smith, a very talented FDC chief, and SP4 Foster, also a sharp guy who drove for me for a while also. In the two pics at the dining in, one is of LTC Robert M. Dudley, our BN Commander, sampling the boot (with MSG Brennan our Motor Sgt behind him, and part of our BC to his left). The other pic was me in action as Mr. Vice. Lester Simmons is the one in front of me (our Battery XO at the time) and the character with his hand up is SFC McClanahan, who undoubtedy may be the topic of future photos and posts as he was a memorable (and very good) Chief of Smoke. A fair amount of work went into the event but I remember it as a big success, resulting in some real pride of affiliation for guys in the unit.