In his email, Paul Mowrey (Det K-1, Coburg 1957-58) says that he doesn't know when the Coburg outstation was closed down. Since I was, to the best of my knowledge, the last person to leave, I thought I might provide the missing information.

In June of 1964, operations at Det K-1, Coburg, ended and its personnel were dispersed to other locations.The reason given was that radio interference from civilian entities had increased to the point where fruitful intercept was no longer possible. My rank was changed from Spec-5 to SGT and I was left alone there as caretaker in case the 318th decided to return. It was my impression that I was to serve as a "dog in the manger" to prevent the 2nd A/C's taking over of our site by the airport on the hill.

My duties were to maintain the site and continue to oversee the civilians who were employeed to watch over the operations site. I reported daily by phone to Herzo Base. From time to time, I was assisted by short-timers from Herzo.

In February of 1965, I was transferred to a temporary site north of Naila, west of Hof. As far as I know, that was the end of Det K-1 in Coburg.

There may have been subsequent activity in Coburg by the 318th. I returned to Coburg as a civilian in August of 1965 and, during one of my frequent visits to Hindenburg Kaserne, I saw a group of GI's wearing Seventh Corps patches, working with commo gear in the motor pool area. When I asked if they were from the 318th, they refused to answer. I took this to mean that they were indeed from the 318th, Perhaps they were exploring the possibility of returning to Coburg.

The following has nothing to do with the closing of Det K-1, but I'm adding it for general interest:
My assignment to the 318th was by chance, not by design. After graduaton in May, 1962, as German Linguist from the Army Language School in Monterrey, I was sent to Frankfurt, Germany. Upon arrival, I and others from the Reception Station, went to the IG Farben Building to receive our assignments. I spent all day sitting on a chair in the corridor, but my name was never called. That evening, when most people had left the building and lights were being turned off, a secretary leaving the office saw me and asked why I was there. When I told her I was waiting to receive my assignment and showed her my paperwork, she took me inside and, after rummaging through several files, told me that the 318th ASA Battalion had requested a German Linguist. She then prepared "Special Orders" assigning me to the 318th. I never found out whether I had simply been overlooked or if they really had no assignment waiting for me.

I won't be of much help regarding Herzo Base, though. I was only there about three months before being sent to Det K-1 in Coburg and again for about two weeks prior to my return to CONUS. Other than that, my only contact with Herzo was during courier runs and the week I spent there painting a truck.

We had taken the "deuce and half" down to Herzo on a courier run, for maintenance. When we left to return to Coburg, we were stopped at the gate because the truck was muddy, as it had been raining hard all day. As punishment, Det K-1 was made to completely clean and repaint the truck, with several of us each week at Herzo until the job was completed. They didn't have the correct paint and the truck wound up an embarrassingly ugly shade of light green. Given the results, the officer who gave the order may have regretted it.

Thank you for your efforts in maintaining the web site. I've enjoyed reading its contents immensely.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The Det K-1 site was located at the north edge of the Brandensteinsebene (), a plateau atop the hill on the east side of Coburg. The site occupied a fairly small area surrounded by a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. The entrance, by the parking area, had a small guard hut beside which stood a wooden watch tower. The tower was rickety and I never saw anyone attempt to climb it. Inside the compound was a single pre-fab building, about 40 feet by 20 feet. South and east of the buildng stood three or four antenna masts. On the west side were a gasoline bunker containing five gallon gas canisters and also a coal bunker, although heating came from a seldom-functioning oil stove. In 1963, a semi-trailer donated by the Air Force was appended to the rear of the building to serve as a radio maintenance room. The area inside the fence was the only place on the Brandensteinsebene used by the US Army. As a sidenote, we never used the name "Brandensteinsebene" and just referred to our site as "the hill".

The Det K-1 billets were located in the Hindenburg Kaserne, on the third floor of the building that was allocated to the US Army. The first two floors were occupied by the 2nd Armored Cavalry. The rest of the Kaserne was occupied by training and border patrol units of the Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS), the West German border guards. The civilians employed as watchmen for the site, elderly retirees for the most part, were assigned to us by the army's Civilian Personnel Office in Bamberg. Although I supervised them and approved their work schedules, all hiring and money matters were handled by the CPO. We also had a "Putzfrau", Gertie Jenscher, who kept our billets clean while her husband, Fritz, worked as plumber and electrician and also as projectionist at the small movie theater the Army had in one of the German buildings across from our motor pool.

All other facilities on the Brandensteinsebene belonged to the Germans. Closest to us was the hangar and control tower tower of "Then (pron. Tayn) Air", a small, one-plane charter airline. Beyond that were facilities of the Coburg Aero Club. There may have been other facilities, but my memory is hazy there. I never saw any US Army aircraft there except for helicopters that brought us mail in the winter when Herzo judged the roads too hazardous for courier runs. US helicopters possibly attached to the 2nd A/C, flew by occasionally, but I never saw any land at the airfield. The only Army personnel I ever saw there other than us were the V Corps personnel who worked on our antennas.

You also asked about the Naila site. This was a temporary site located in a pine forest on high ground within view of the East German border. To reach it, one drove from Naila, just west of Hof, north through Marxgrun and on to Holle, a small collection of houses and "honeymoon" hotels. We stayed at the Adams Hotel. As it was mid-winter, we had the place to ourselves.

The site consisted of several 3/4 ton and 1/2 ton trucks with radio huts, grouped around a 3 KW mobile generator. Off to one side was an expandable van with the "office": a desk, filing cabinets and a radio for periodically checking in with the A/C. Back in the trees, there was a supply tent with a cot, usually claimed aggressively by our dog, Uchuck, who had accompanied me from Coburg. There was also a commo van, a deuce and half with radio teletype equipment with which we stayed in touch with Herzo from the site. Wires from a field telephone ran along a small stream from our site back to the Adams Hotel, but they were sometimes cut by local children who used the wire for their own projects.

Deep snow and mud made getting to our site a tricky proposition at times. Now and then, the ruts in the mud were so deep that we had to use the deuce and half to drive to work, and I still remember having to dig snow away from the truck at midnight so that we could put on the tire chains and be on time for the "mids" trick.

I arrived at Naila in February of 1965 and was transferred to Wasserkuppe in March, so I don't know how long the site was active.