USAREUR Units

The 350th Inf Regt (formerly with USFA) was inactivated; personnel and equipment were organized into two armored infantry battalions -- the 52nd AIB and the 58th AIB.

Two tactical headquarters were established -- Task Force A and Task Force B; both at Camp Ederle.

SETAF HQ remained in Verona.

The 28th Sta Hosp at Livorno was reorganized and redesignated as the 45th Fld Hosp.

The 202nd Trans Co (Lt Hel) was activated as the Army aviation support unit for SETAF.

Some minor units were inactivated or redesignated; other smaller units were created.

I was a member of the Topographic Survey Pltn of the 62nd Engr Co from Dec 1959 to May 1962. Had 66 days and a "wake-up" when the Berlin wall went up. Extensions took me all the way to ETS. I and another fellow, Joe Stein from Pennsylvania were the first two Ft. Belvoir trained topo surveyors to arrive in Italy. The platoon was made up of Artillery surveyors from one of the Artillery units on post. Spent probably 50% of my tour on surveys from Vicenza to Udine to San Candido and Bolzano back to Vicenza.

Loved all 2 years, 6 months and 5 days I was in Italy. Have a ton of "war stories" about those years.

It did my heart good to find a listing for the 62nd, but I'm sure it is no longer there.

And now, back to 1959
I attended high school in Tioga, the Oil Capitol of North Dakota. I'm sure you have read about all the new work being done there with the finding of the Bakken formation and now another formation found below the Bakken some two miles down. In the 50's, Tioga was a 'boom town' such as you see in the movies. Tioga went from a population of less then 1000 to over 2500 in about a year. When we arrived in early '54, the Main Street was dirt and gravel (you know what that was like after a rain storm) and there was even a hitching rail still standing in front of the old bank building.

Well, three days after graduation, I and four of my classmates were on the way to Fargo for our physicals for the Army and then we were on our way to Ft. Leonard Wood, which was referred to by many as Ft. Lost In The Woods, Misery. After Basic Training, we all went our separate ways: one returned to Leonard Wood for his 2nd 8-weeks, two went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds for mechanical training, one to Ft. Gorden and I went to Ft. Belvoir in Virginia.

After about two weeks of Basis Combat Engineer training, we started Topographic Survey classes with instruction in all aspects of Topo Survey. Back then, the basic instrument was the Wild T-2 plus the Military Level, Plaintable (or was it Planetable) and Stool Taping, which is just above the Chain and Pins for accuracy which was used by Artillery Surveyors. In addition, we had one day with the Telurometer, which was an electronic distance measuring unit using a Master Unit and two Remotes. These were just coming into use in the Army and could measure distances based on line-of-sight and could do the job in about two hours.

After graduation, assignments were made with the rule-of-thumb being that the number one graduate was assigned to Germany which was considered the prime duty tour. Out of a class of about 25, I was number 7 or 8 and Joe Stein was number 17 or 18 and we got orders for Italy. The rest of the class went to Korea! Beats me how we drew the luck to end up going to Italy rather than Korea. We didn't complain. Even though Korea was a one year tour and Italy was for two years.
After a couple of weeks at Ft. Dix, we lucked out again and ended up on a flight to Europe on an airline that was on contract to the military. Flew out of McGuire AFB (my FIRST time to fly), with stops in Gander, Newfoundland; Goose Bay, Labrador; Prestwick, Scotland and then on to Frankfurt, Germany for two or three days for more paper-work.

Landing at Goose Bay, they blew a tire on the aircraft so we were stuck there for several hours. In DECEMBER! Prices in the lunch-room were out of sight. A cup of coffee was 50 cents and this was in 1959. Coffee in Tioga was a nickel with no end to refills. Our next development came half-way across the Atlantic when they learned there was a strike at Shannon, Ireland where we were suppose to land which put us into Prestwick instead.

After our brief stop in Frankfurt, we flew to Milano where we boarded a train for Vicenza. Our railcar was reserved for the Army but an Italian couple ended up with us and when the Conductor tried to get them to leave, we wouldn't allow that and we, with our little English/Italian dictionaries, 'talked' with them all the way to Verona, where they got off.

When we arrived at the 62nd, we learned that the Survey Platoon was out in the field on a survey and wouldn't return for about a week to ten days. Which left Stein and me with nothing to do but tour base during the day and then go into town in the evenings.

When the platoon returned, we learned from the Platoon Leader that the platoon was made up of Artillery Surveyors obtained from 1st Missile Command on Post and Stein and I would be training them in Topo Survey methods. Even the Platoon Leader was an Artillery officer. Needless to say, this was going to be a real exercise.

Our first survey was several weeks later when we went somewhere up north into the Alps, setting up on a river bed. I'm sure you've never had to dig a latrine along a rocky river bed, in the winter. And set up hex tents, heated by gasoline fueled Yukon heaters, atop snow that was a couple of feet deep. After several days the heaters had melted the snow to the point where we were down to solid ground.

After some 'training', we went out to do some 'survey' work. The first order of business was to establish a 'base-line' so we could do some triangulation work. The Lt. found a spot to establish the 'base-line' (the snow was about four feet deep) and he went to an Albergo which was just across the highway and told us to let him know when we were finished.

The Lt. had us find a rock which was about the size of a bowling bag, dig down in the snow to bear ground, set the rock and with a 'star' chisel, set that as our starting point. Then, using a chain and chaining pins, we set out measuring for several hundred yards to establish the other end of the 'base-line' where we set another rock (after digging another hole in the snow) and then began the task of taping back to our starting point.

Now, for the 'base-line' to be acceptable, the two distances have to be within a certain margin of error between the two measurements or a third run would be required, maybe even a fourth. As we neared our starting point, I mentioned that I hoped the two distances would be good enough. Our party chief said not to worry, because they were going to work. So, out came the famed Army 'M1 pencil' and we were within two or three millimeters with the two readings.

Then, out came the range poles to set up on one end of the 'base-line' with the T2 on the other end and we sighted on what only could be described as a 'dark spot' atop a peak about 1000 feet high on the other side of the valley. After turning angles from both ends of the base and shooting the vertical angles, so ended our survey.

Later, we commented amongst ourselves that when the Spring comes and the frost goes out of the ground, those rocks were going to be moving to new locations.

During the following months, several members of the platoon rotated back across 'the pond' to the land of 'round door knobs' to the land of the 'big PX', the United States. And we started to receive Topo trained replacements, sometimes two at a time. And then we really hit the big time when we were assigned a Drexel Institute Graduate who not only went through Topo training at Ft. Belvoir, during his DIT years had been on a survey crew for the B&O. We now had an Engineer Lt. in charge.

The Lt. put things in motion and we ended up with a Master and two Remote units of the telurometer along with much needed additional equipment. Now we were ready to survey.

There was a 1st Order 'base-line' on an old WW2 airbase (now abandoned) near the city of Udine in NE Italy. There we began a 'chain of quads' which would take us north into the Alps. Because there was a rather difficult spot at Spilimbergo, we were going to need assistance which was supplied by a couple of survey parties from the 656th Engr. Btn. out of Germany along with their equipment which included a Bilby Survey tower which could be erected to a height of 113 feet or less if needed along with the crew of two who were trained in such duty. A CWO, who was a real pro on survey work was their leader.

The Bilby tower was set up in two locations and in all the angles turned off them, they never got a 'busted' angle.

The 'chain' of quads took us up the valley through the Cortina area and north to the Dobbiaco/San Candido area. While in that area, we had to establish a point quite high in an area just to the SE of San Candido. Our survey party took a Jeep up the trails winding around looking for a place when we spotted a perfect spot. The place had a stone marker about 3 feet high and maybe a foot square. Perfect.

We had no sooner gotten set up with our equipment when we heard a noise that kept getting louder coming from the east of us and getting closer and closer. The next thing we knew, a helicopter, which did now have either Italian or US markings on it appeared and landed near where we were. Out came two or three troops, carrying automatic weapons. We were trying to establish a survey point right on the border.

We were lucky. After about a half-hour of trying to communicate in two or three languages, they let us leave with the understanding to stay away from their country.
Another tough spot to handle was establishing stations to the west of Cortina, south of Dobbiaco and south and east of San Candido. Our survey party occupied a station atop Croda di Baranchi (probably spelled wrong) which was south of Dobbiaco and was the highest point of any station we occupied in Italy.

I forgot to mention that all of our work was done at night shooting at 5 inch sealed-beam lights. Rising heat waves cause to much distortion during the day. And sealed-beam lights were DC so they would emit a steady beam, while AC bulbs flicker.

While we were occupying the three mountain stations, the weather would now cooperate. When one station was in the clear, one or two of the others were clouded to the point that nothing could be done. That went on for 8 or 9 nights. The night of the storm, I was sitting on my bunk writing a letter. Out of nowhere came a bolt of lighting which struck the steel survey tower over the point we were going to shoot from and it lit up everything to the point that I could see the mountain to our west, which was about a mile away, through the walls of our tent.

And then came the rain, the hail and the snow, all at the same time. Had our tent not been tied to the steel tower, we would have lost it. We started to get a call on our radio from the station near Cortina but all I could do was tell them that we were in the mother of all storms and not to call us, that we would call them.

The storm raged for 15 or 20 minutes and when it finally let up a little, we tried to call the survey party to our SE to warn them of the storm but they were asleep and when it hit them, their tent went down. They got soaked.

We went outside to check things out and it was then that we got to experience St. Elmo's Fire. There were three wires sticking out of the top of the steel tower at our station and they were glowing like a light bulb with a really beautiful shade of blue. Then antenna of our radio, which was sticking out the top of our tent was also glowing. And every time a bolt of lighting out hit, as the storm moved away from us, it felt like fingers running through our hair and all the droplets of water on our uniforms would also glow with the blue light.

That was enough for us. We went back into the tent.

After the storm cleared, all three stations were in the clear and we began to crank angles. We worked until daybreak, slept all day and then cranked angles all the next night.

After that, our survey took us west to the Bolzano area where we set up a base camp for several weeks, working our way down the valley toward the Verona area and then east to Vicenza. In addition to the 'chain' of quads we also did a number of open ended and closed traverse surveys. All of this work was done over an almost two year period, two and three months at a time.

When things began to wind down and they were getting ready to disband the survey platoon, I was fortunate because I had two things in my favor: I had a US and NATO Secret Clearance AND I could type. So instead of getting transferred to an Artillery units survey platoon, I became the clerk-typist in the company S2/S3 section.

There is more, like base camping near Aviano AFB, the time one of our platoon rolled a gasoline trailer which destroyed a duece and a half and several hundred feet of highway, another guy rolled a Jeep on a mountain trail and the time an H34 chopper was crashed, luckily without loss of life, at a mountain station.

But that will have to come later as I have to get things ready for work in the morning.

I hope I haven't bored you to tears. I wish I had had some Vecchia Romagna to enjoy while I was running through my memories.

Also, as you can see, because I'm not learned enough about the net yet, and I wanted to save this so later I don't go over old ground again, I'm going to also attempt to send this to myself. I just hope I don't loose the whole thing.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The purpose of the surveys was to support 1st Missile Command's mission in Northern Italy.

We always told people that our job was to establish points around the Alps to verify the accuracy of maps that the military used in day-to-day operations. It was a very narrow scoped operation.

Also, the 62nd, which, by my checking for info, appears to no longer exist, was an ADM company with three Demo platoons. Their mission was to fly items to the Brenner Pass, in the event of an attack from the East and destroy it to prevent entry into Europe from the South.

We then would pull back and act as a delaying force to allow Germany and the rest of main-land Europe time to prepare.

Just before I arrived in Italy, the Army had turned all of the Honest John rockets over to the Italian. To best describe the Honest John is: 'I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth, I know not where' which was the main reason that 1st Missile had been outfitted with the new Corporal missile which had a guidance system.

As I was rotating back to the US, the Corporal was being replaced by the Sergeant missile system which had a greater range and was much more accurate.

All this reminded me of another item of interest in relation to the 62nd and their ADM mission, which I will go into more detail next time.

Reference my earlier mention of the 656th out of Germany, if you have contact with anyone that served there 1960 to 1962 and was a member of the survey platoon that made the trip to Italy to help the 62nd, please send them my email address so they can get in touch with me.