The 3rd MI detachment was headquartered there and housed the C.O., the X.O. (me), counterintelligence officers, and supply and maintenance. The order of battle officer was collocated with the G-2 up at Leighton Barracks, and there were NCOs up near the East German border.

The detachment also had billets on the same floor for the enlisted personnel who worked in the River building. One or two bays?

The unit, along with others, had storage units in the basement. These were jail cells. During my time, we were told that the building was the former Gestapo headquarters in Germany, but I cannot confirm that.

Interestingly, however, the division's counter intelligence division (CID) was our neighbor in the building. Its entrance, an attractive dark stained wooden door, was marred by a cut plywood piece covering part of it. When one removed the plywood piece, it revealed an inlaid swatzika, indicating that the River building certainly had some significant role during the war.

I hope this is helpful and adds a bit to our understanding of the times.

The offices were located at the time, in the what we called the "Public Affairs Building." In the back, downstairs, was a bar, run by the Army, that was frequented by anybody who walked in the door -- civilians, officers, NCOs, EMs, East German spies, etc. I can't remember the name of that bar, but it was our hangout. I'll send you a picture of the view from in front of that building.

Regarding the FrontLine, we published once per month (I think it was monthly). We worked out of a civilian office building in downtown Wuerzburg, along the Main River. We went down to the Main Post (the Wuerzburg daily) to put the paper to bed. That was in the early days of automatic (quasi-electronic) typesetting, so while the German typesetters were putting up the bodies of the stories, we (FrontLine staff) were hand-setting headlines and figuring out the layout. That was all done on the fly. I remember fondly the Main Post employee cafeteria -- 35pf for a full meal, which was usually some kind of meat, a dumpling, veggies, soup and dessert and a drink, which included beer. In those days, 35pf was about 30cents US.

Our Editor at the time was Bob Gordon, a Harvard economics grad whose father was US Ambassador to Brazil. Our Commanding General, Maj Gen. Albert O. Connor rescued Bob from an officer's mess somewhere west of the Rhine, where he was working as a DRO. Bob said the general called him over to his table. The general knew Bob's father. "Bob, what the hell are you doing here?" he was asked. "I was drafted!" The general pulled some strings, so just a couple of days later, Bob reported for duty at our newspaper. Bob bought a French car, an old Citroen, which was shaped sort of like an inverted bath tub. Bob called it his SS staff car. Bob wound up marrying a German girl.

Before him the Editor was Zoltan Bary, a Hungarian refugee whose family escaped the Iron Curtain in '56 by sneaking across the Iron Curtain. He went to Yale on a water polo scholarship. Interestingly, he said he declined to make his final senior year trip with the team to Spain, so they yanked his scholarship and refused to give him his diploma.

The next editor was Howie Holmes, a Michigan State J-grad. He was a draftee, and I was a volunteer, so even though I preceded him in the 3rd ID we went home about the same time. Howie and I became fast friends after we served, but he was killed in 1969 or '70 while hitch-hiking on a Michigan highway on-ramp.

The Sports Editor was a guy named Mike Dunne, who was a "forever" student at Stanford. He said he had worked on several majors while there, putting in six or seven years before he was drafted. Mike had a German girlfriend (a real beauty) who made us all jealous when he brought her to events at Leighton Barracks.

I was the newsroom manager/editor after serving a year as sports editor. We had four reporters, a radio guy (Dan Hoffman) who fed AFN, and an in-house photographer. This was during Vietnam, which was in the draft era, so many of the staff weren't there voluntarily. Of course, there were some mixed emotions involved -- they weren't happy being drafted, but were glad they weren't in Vietnam. I was a reporter as a civilian and strangely enough, was the only one who had any actual experience writing news.

We had an interpreter (Mrs. "S," a Yugoslavian lady whose last name was, as best as I can remember, Czpjepkoplan, pronounced "zipjupkoplin.") Her only job was to read the German newspapers, find stories about the 3rd Div, and interpret them for the CG. She read over half-a-dozen papers daily.

Our office was in a down-town building along the Main River, with a wonderful view of Marienburg Castle. We shared the building with the MPs, The Public Affairs office and a military intelligence detachment, among others. The intelligence detachment had members who were regularly sent behind the Iron Curtain. I didn't know them all or have any details about what they did over there, but those were pretty hairy times during the Cold War and I'm sure they were risking death every time they made that trip.

Related Links:
3rd Infantry Division - Official Homepage of The Society of the 3rd Infantry Division, United States Army "ROCK OF THE MARNE!" The oldest continuous U. S. Army Division Association. (Excellent online newsletter!!)
3rd Division Photos - Peacetime/Cold War - this is one of many pages on the Society of the 3rd Infantry Division website. Great pics of various 3rd Inf Div kasernes .
Fort Stewart, GA - Home of the 3rd Infantry Division (M) (today)
Into the Fire, from Rhode Island to West Germany - Dave Matteson's website is dedicated to C Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry of the 3rd Inf Div. This was the first unit to get the Bradley in Germany.