to all asa comm unit vets odds & ends...

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TO ALL ASA COMM UNIT VETS

ODDS & ENDS III

I thought I would open this issue with a BANG. This is another one of Lester Williams’ sixteen WWll photos he found in an old dresser in the basement of the house he rented after returning from Frankfurt. This night time scene of artillery firing is really spectacular! Don Hoskins – Big Blue: anyone remember this team and how they were robbed of a championship at a playoff due to a Ref not calling a foul?

Fred’s Note – My reply to Don: I’ll include this question in my next Odds & Ends issue. Want to know about how small a world it is? I tried a new barber recently and noticed all the basketball photos he had on the wall of his shop. I asked if it was him in the photos and he said “yes, it was when he was in the Army in Germany.” I asked him when. “Early sixties” he replied. I asked if he ever heard about an ASA team called Big Blue. “Yes, I played against them several times,” he said. “They beat us once, we beat them once.” I’ll have to ask him next time if it was the championship game!!

Pat aka Mary Vanderhoof (see my note below) -

Hi Fred It’s 'Mary' Vanderhoof. (By the way, I just thought, Tom's long time barber’s name is Mary!). Just wanted to say that that T-shirt I'm wearing was miles too small (as you can see), Tom apparently ordered a child's Large but I didn't realize that until I put it on at our son’s house on Xmas Day so that he could take that photo of us. I now have a larger, woman’s size, that fits a whole lot better! Also I had just had eye surgery and had stitches in my eyes which were swollen and black and blue, fortunately the light wasn't good in that room.

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Glad to hear that the one guy has been attending reunions. Maybe we can hook up with them since they are already organized. I'd love to work with them on it. Maybe we can have it in Costa Rica

with the couple who live there!! They look like fun. I remember Jerry Hollingsworth. I knew him briefly, long before I met Tom. As I remember he was from Winston, North Carolina.

There was never another unit in the Army that Tom was in that was as close-knit as ASA. Before we were married I was welcomed at all the social events and right after we were married, the 1st Sergeants wife called me to ask if there was anything she could help me with. It was like a warm, loving family. We have stayed in touch with another couple (John and Rena Crisp) all these years and have visited a couple of times. Rena helped me a lot as a young wife unused to Army ways and I looked upon her as a big sister. She just died of cancer and he is taking her home to Scotland and has asked us to go. Not sure when - his kids have to coordinate their time off work.

That's all Fred. I don’t know who is enjoying all your

e-mails the most - me or Tom!! Take Care

Pat V

Fred’s Note: Remember Pat and Tom Vanderhoof? They shared the Frankfurt photos with us from their trip to Europe last September. When I was preparing the opener for that issue, my cousin Mary from Kansas called to chat. I must have had her on my mind because I typed “Mary” instead of Pat Vanderhoof in the opener. Soon after I sent the issue out, I got an email from Lanny Reese asking if Tom had two wives, because he saw Mary in the opener and Pat on her individual picture. That started a series of humorous emails between Pat and me about my goof. We can’t seem to stop now...

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In my excitement to send out Bob Binn’s Germany pictures, I forgot to add an item. I wanted to credit Dan Thacker for the title photo of Bob in uniform standing next to a deuce and a half. Awhile back I asked Dan to dupe the Alpha Trick CD that we had both received from Ron Santini and which I somehow managed to lose in my office mess. Dan sent me an email before the duplicate CD arrived saying that this new one would be easy to find in my pile of CDs. When it arrived I was wowed at the CD label he made for me. It was the front entrance to Gutleut Kaserne. So when he sent me the Bob Binn CD with Bob on the cover, I decided to use it for the opening photo.

Most of the pictures Dan receives need work due to their age and condition. Besides labeling, he also does some or much of the following to most of the pictures: resizing; correcting color balance and exposure; removing scratches, tears, spots, etc.; sharpening, and placing a narrow black border around each picture. He says the worst part is that he must also decipher my instructions, and that I’m often a pain in the ass! Now I find that hard to believe. Ha!

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Dan’s screen name is “Happy Milkbone.” Curiosity got the better of me and I asked Dan how he came up with this unusual email name. He proceeded to tell me about a trip to a PA state park where this dirty, scrawny, hungry kitten came out of the woods there. Dan felt sorry for the kitten and put him in his van to take back home to Maryland. The only thing he had in the van for the kitten to eat was a box of Milkbone Biscuits, which the kitten eagerly and happily gobbled down. Now you have the story of his cat, “Milkbone,” and Dan’s moniker. Dan says Milkbone has an endearing trait - he loves to bat around ice cubes in his water bowl.

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Warren Faulk - I got a first hand account of the beer mug fights this summer.

I remember Lt Bruce Cameron well along with Lt Willie Bonds, CWO Fiedler (deceased), Lt Fred Crupe, Lt Bill Hougen, Lt Ray Weinberg, WO Cy Ruprecht, Lt Fred Lothrop, Lt Hal Grainger, SFC Jaffin (deceased) and others. Capt Pagel was a full Colonel last time I saw him. I stayed in from 59 to 79.

Most of you fellows missed the second act. Some days I wish I had.

Harry Beatty - Fred: This is great as is everything you have sent. I noted a paragraph from Gary Kassel and he mentioned Tony Steiert. My first wife and I attended Tony's wedding (seems like a hundred years ago). I was living in Ohio at the time and remember the elegant farm house that was his parent’s home. I have not researched the list you sent to see if you included Tony's e-mail, but hope it is there or someone can give it to me.

Thanks for the wonderful updates and wouldn't it be wonderful to get together with everyone in Frankfurt or somewhere here in United States.

Harry (aka Clyde) Beatty Tucson, Arizona

Fred’s Note: Harry, Carl Enos, Ken ‘Bud’ Durnal, Jim Savage, Al Paton, Frank Lenton and others were my Delta Trick roommates. Carl always referred to Harry as Clyde, after the famous circus owner and ringmaster Clyde Beatty, and that’s what we all called him. When I located Harry sometime back, I referred to him in my email as “Harry aka Clyde,” and we have used this every since.

Chuck Clarke - Well done! I still cannot process those years long ago suddenly rushing back by your endeavors. I wish the hell I had taken more pictures.

And as I think I have related to you in phone conversation, Lt. Bruce Cameron was my "salvation". I remember him very well.

Ray Matta - The question about Chris Ford having a Spyder is correct. He brought it with him when he got assigned to Frankfurt. He was a hell of a good driver, especially on the Elb mountains when we went to see the Mille Mia race. He eventually switched to an Austin Healey 3000. Chris was a good all-around guy, a good friend.

Look whose car turned up. Jim Bevins found this picture of Chris Perot’s Jaguar in his slide collection. It would be fun to have an issue with just pictures of the cars you guys owned.

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WELCOME - We have two new additions to our ASA Comm Unit group: Richard Bitner at [email protected] and Phil Chmielowiec at [email protected], both formerly on Delta Trick. Toney Hogan mentioned in an email that he was having trouble locating some old friends he wanted to reconnect with. So I told him to give me the names and a little info and I would try to help. I located them and want to welcome them to our Comm Unit internet group.

HELP!

Can anyone help me identify the number 2 and 6 guys in this photo? I have sent this out to sixteen people so far and still can’t get the names of these two. Someone thinks number 6 might be Russ Ragland, but I never could find him to ask.

The others are L – R: 1. Paul Brauninger — 2. ??? — 3. Chuck Hornick — 4. Chris Ford — 5. P.D. Smith — 6. ??? — 7. Gil ‘Huey’ Clouse.

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Bill Lang - In one of Fred's recent communications, someone remembered the name of the theme music for the radio program "Midnight In Europe". This program came on at midnight, (obviously) on the Armed Forces Radio station. The music was piped through the intercom at Dachsbau. I always found this theme song haunting. The name of the music is "Harlem Nocturne". Although this rendition is not as good as the one I remember, click on the youtube site below and see if you recall it too.

htto://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kstfCusTJOo

Fred’s note: Andy Jones was the one who first mentioned the theme song.

Replies to the Dachsbau article: I didn’t receive enough replies to do a special issue. Sorry!!! But here is an interesting observation from Tom Vanderhoof on the mini-golf course photo.

Fred, I have read over the newspapers. They look okay. In the background of the mini golf course you may be able to see the thermite bunker, which was down in that lower corner.

Lanny Reese - I found the 1963 postcard below with a picture of Frankfurt. It was interesting comparing it to the ones included in Fred's email of the 2009 pictures from the newspaper. Can you id Gutleut Casern? I hope to make the time to scan a few more things that may or may not be of interest so I'm not sending it to you piecemeal.

I got sick in early January, thought it was the flu, ended up being pneumonia. Am finally over it but lost about three weeks somewhere. Seems I'm always playing catch-up. As Bill said, I can't do the things I used to do!

Great news. Rob Sanders, Les Williams and I, with our spouses, are having lunch together tomorrow in Ocala. Between the three of us we should get a decent picture for your "Then and Now" gallery.

The o/der you get, the better you used to be.. (Lanny’s Closer)

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One of our ASA vets who had never been out to the gravel pits asked me what the fascination of going there was. I told him it was for the outdoor scenery of course, as the following photos from Woody Fillingim and Bill Smithart show. I seem to remember getting sand on my tongue when I stepped on it out at the pits.

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Dan Thacker - I was making some prints from Santini's Collection for my own collection and I did a lot of work on this shot to make it look more natural. Ron's was terrible! Maybe you can find a use for it, because it's a great shot of the interior as we all remember it.

Dan

Note: Panoramic view which is slightly exaggerated at the center.

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Ted & Pat Hartman at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument

Gunnison is probably the best kept secret of all the national parks. I think it is breath taking. If you like hiking and climbing, I have been reading several novels by Clinton McKinzie, and he mentions The Tetons and Gunnison a lot, and talks a lot about hiking and climbing. My wife and I have been to all but two of the popular canyons and parks in the west. We love them all, quite different from Georgia. Gunnison and Arches are two of our favorites. It’s a shame that so called progress and nature can’t work together. Pat and I were in Denver on the same trip that we saw Gunnison. We were on a tour and spent one night and day in Denver. We stayed in the downtown area where the theatre and restaurants are. We really enjoyed it.

(Parts of the Black Canyon are 1,000 feet deep and only one hundred feet across at the top, hence the name!

Part of Fred’s reply to Ted: Speaking of the Gunnison, a friend and I backpacked twice down to the bottom of the Black Canyon National Monument. The first time was in 1971 and then again in 1974. It took us about two plus hours to get the thousand feet to the bottom but almost five hours to get back out. We spent three days camping and fishing and never saw another soul along the river. I was born and raised in Denver and spent several weeks each summer fishing the old Gunnison River before it was finally dammed in three places. It was rated as one of the top four trout streams in the country back then. I hate the Corps of Engineers to this day for destroying such a beautiful river.

Fred

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Ernie Carrick onTDY for Berlin Courier Duty

Ernie,

Thanks for the photos. Did the courier job involve riding the Berlin train back and forth? I bet that was interesting.

You get the Jack Frost Memorial Award for the pictures of Tommy Thomas and Phil Haluska. I worked with Phil on Delta Trick. He was a nice guy with an almost photographic memory. He used to work the outgoing quality check, and I never saw anyone who could match him doing it. I will use his picture in a Memorial issue sometime in the future.

Do you have any idea where I might start in order to locate Tommy Thomas? I’m sure the broadcast emails would bring back some memories for him.

Take care, Fred

Ernie’s reply: Yes we traveled on the "Duty Train" back and forth to Berlin. We always took ball point pens with us so that we could trade for Russian pins and patches at the checkpoints. Of course, when we got to Berlin the pins and patches were taken away from us. These items were for intelligence. They would pinpoint Russian unit locations. I wish I still had some of them. I have more photos of others in the unit that I will have to sort out. I will send them when I can. I have forgotten some of their names, so maybe someone will remember them. We had old Jack Frost this morning. You could just take it back. Take care Ernie

Jim Cuson from Delta Trick and I had an enjoyable phone conversation recently in which he mentioned our Hqs. & Svc. Co. 1st Sergeant, Rueben ‘By God’ Stone. Do any of you have a picture of him? Jim remembers him as a real “soldiers’ soldier” who commanded a lot of respect from the unit. He described him as a physically imposing man, who if you were looking directly at him in formation, you would be staring at his tie tack.

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He said Sgt. Stone hated Playboy pictures outside of wall lockers and would rip them off and crumple them up. It seems one of the guys who worked for him (Danny???) liked to occasionally bait Reuben. He once did so by putting up a Playmate on a wall locker door, closing himself in the locker, and waiting for Sgt. Stone to pass the room on his way to the head. Naturally Sgt. Stone, true to form, saw the poster and ripped it off. When he left the room, Danny got out of the locker and pasted a new Playmate on the door and then got back inside. Returning from the head, Sgt. Stone saw the new Playmate, paused a second or two, and then walked in back of the locker and proceeded to push it over, doors down. You might fool him once, but not a second time.

Jim fondly remembers going into the Orderly Room to get a permission slip so he

could keep a gun at the Rhine/Main Rod and Gun Club. Since Sgt. Stone was the only

one there, he took the time to find the form and filled it out himself for Jim. Somehow I

can’t visualize our Comm Unit 1st Sgt. Harwell doing this.

Jim says the one thing Sgt. Stone would not tolerate was someone lying to him. “You could get caught humping a camel, but as long as you were honest with him he would try to help you.”

Jim says that when Sgt. Stone was boarding the train at the Bahnhof there were

probably 150 guys there to see him off. Sgt. Stone went around and shook everyone’s

hand. And oh yes, the guy in the wall locker handed Sgt. Stone a bottle of Old Grand

Dad, Rueben’s favorite. Please take a minute to send me an email of your memories

and experiences with 1st Sgt. Stone. I’ll include them in a future issue for all to enjoy.

Here is a 1945 US Army Air Force Europe photo of bomb damage to Frankfurt. This picture is unusual because it shows the damage from the Main River all the way up to the I.G. Farben building at the top.

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It seems the Frankfurt Opera Haus was also bombed in WWl as the following internet item states:

Hugh Trenchard, the Chief of the newly created Royal Air Force Air Staff, was the single-most important British officer in developing the policy of area bombing, claiming "an aeroplane is an offensive and not a defensive weapon." Even during the First World War, Trenchard had outfitted his planes with crude bomb dropping devices and had sent them on raids into Germany, hitting the cities of Kaiserslautern, Frankfurt, Bonn, Wiesbaden, and Mannheim. The raid on Frankfurt killed 120 civilians attending a performance in an opera house.

Al Paton - The recent photos of Stan and his son as a recent graduate from the FBI academy were so moving. Life is so strange in that the FBI is where my wife Nancye and I met and married within two months of meeting each other. Sorry I haven't contributed much to past memories of my time while there in Germany but I sure enjoy viewing the photos of how it was in those days.

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ASA - Frankfurt 2009

Jim Savage - Thanks for the pics of today's and tomorrow's Frankfurt courtesy of Jim Cuson. Wow, what a huge change from the good old 60's. I must say that I prefer the pics you sent of the charming old city; those photos are the city I know. The new Frankfurt could be Singapore,

Dubai, LA or any other boom metropolis in today's world. What do you and other ASAers think?

Austin Adams - Thanks for sharing the current pictures of Frankfurt. The development along the river is amazing, no more beer barges full of GI's? The sky line is totally different from when we were there. About the only thing remaining that I recognize is the Bahnhof & the front of Gutleut. I prefer it the way it was in the 60's.

Skeets Parobek - I have to agree with Austin, I felt a little sad that Frankfurt was becoming just another modern city with very little history to be seen. But thank you for sharing the Pic's.

Mark Kraft - Great shots of Frankfurt today ! They may change the face of our playground from yesterday, but they'll never change the memories!!! Thanks, MARK

Here is another picture of the Frankfurt skyline Jim Cuson just received from his German friend Jochen.

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Remember the Favorite Photos issue? I showed the first photo below with the caption “The Jesus, I can’t believe we painted ourselves into a corner painting detail” with Rob (Sandy) Sanders, Lanny Reese, and Les Williams at Gutleut. Interesting story - these same three guys from three different states now live within 30 miles of each other in central Florida. They plan on a Nov. mini-reunion when Lanny returns from his summer home in Tennessee.”

Well, it took a little longer than November, but the same three finally got together on February 13th after 45 years for a mini-reunion in Ocala, Florida. Les Williams sent me a photo taken that day.

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FROM ERNIE CARRICK - THE 2009 ASA TURKEY REUNION WILL BE AT GAITHERSBURG, MD, 2-5 AUGUST AT THE HOLIDAY INN, EXIT 11 OFF 1- 270 EAST OR WEST. IF ANY FRANKFURT PEOPLE ARE IN THIS AREA THEY ARE WELCOME TO COME BY. WE WILL HAVE A WELL STOCKED HOSPITALITY ROOM. IF ANY WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND I WILL BE GLAD TO SEND ALL THE INFORMATION.

IF ANY OF OUR FRANKFURT FOLKS ARE IN THIS AREA THE ANNUAL ASA PICNIC WILL BE HELD AT FORT MEADE ON 1 AUGUST. I WILL TRY TO PROVIDE A LINK LATER. I AM GOING TO TRY TO BE AT THIS ONE ALSO. MANY FORMER ASA'ERS WILL BE HERE

REGARDS

Photo of young kids practicing for a future with ASA Frankfurt (found in a cute email titled “Why I like Kids.”)

Two retired Comm Unit vets were eating breakfast in a restaurant one morning. Ron noticed something funny about Mark's ear and he said, ''Mark, do you know you've got a suppository in your left ear?' Mark answered, 'I have a suppository in my ear?' He pulled it out and stared at it. Then he said, 'Ron, I'm glad you saw this thing. Now I think I know where to find my hearing aid. That’s all for now guys!

Fred Gerstner

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