USAREUR Units - 7th Army Logistics

My Recollections of Army service:
In March of 1967 I was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. through the ROTC program at Eastern Washington State College in Cheney, Washington. In April I reported to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland for Basic Ordnance Officer School and Maintenance Officer School before reporting to HQ & A Co, 51st Maint Bn (DS) at Sullivan Barracks, in Mannheim, Germany in late September 1967.

While there I was assigned as Svc & Evac Plt Ldr, but most of my workload was as Motor Officer. During that fall we were involved in a project to return 10-ton trucks to the owning units. It seems that a large percentage (60+) of these trucks were sitting in maintenance yards like ours with bad/broken engines, some for over a year. (Reference Col Hobar’s comments on the logistics problems moving from France in Operation FRELOC.) Lost engines had been located and a 1st Spt Brigade decision was made to work overtime to get the majority of trucks roadworthy and back to units before Christmas. I remember our personnel working 12 hr days – 6 days a week for 8-10 weeks. Our Battalion alone (in Mannheim and Karlsruhe) had about 180 of the trucks in our repair yards “awaiting parts”, but it was a theater-wide problem. The next May I was sent for classes to Oberammergau and Vilseck, and the week I returned I got orders to 7th ICC, with 3 days to report.

In May 68 the Materiel Management Company was formed by 7A SUPCOM at 7th ICC as an offshoot of the previous year’s problems with losing/finding repair parts. It was located in the 4th floor/attic of the building, and a footnote to the 7th ICC primary mission. The theory was that owning units would send in punch cards with maintenance data to 7 ICC to identify problems with all types of equipment. We would compile and prepare reports to be sent back through their commands to the units. The goal was that on a weekly basis each level of command would see a report on their assets’ maintenance status and could highlight problem areas with specific pieces of equipment. My initial task was to come up with a code that could identify all the units and their levels of command. It ended up being a 6-digit code as there were 6 levels of command. It was used to sort the data reports to go back to the units for updating. The rest of the time was spent correcting errors on the equipment lists and redoing them before sending them out. In January of 1969 I was sent to Oberammergau again to an ADP orientation class. In March the unit was split in two, half supporting V Corps, and half supporting VII Corps.

I went with VII COSCOM-MMC when it relocated to Panzer Kaserne in Boeblingen in May. The V COSCOM-MMC stayed at Karlsruhe and would go to the IG Farben Bldg in Frankfurt later with the “stationary” IBM 360-40 computer. The “mobile” 360-40 unit came to Boeblingen.

In Karlsruhe I had been living off post with another officer who I originally met at APG, and we scouted out another off-post apartment in Boeblingen. But when we actually moved the housing office wouldn’t give us a statement of non-availability, so we ended up in the BOQ by the O’Club sharing a bathroom. Later I was able to move to an empty field grade BOQ which was in the water tower. I had the lowest apartment of 5.

Again in November 1969, I was given a 3 day notice move to become CO of C Co, 71st Maintenance Bn in Bamberg. In February 1970 I was detailed to command a detachment “Task Force Breech Block I” supporting a VII Corp Arty exercise, “Carmine Leg” at Graf. We operated at the Vilseck side of the training area, and the detachment was made up of personnel from all over the VII Corp area. This year REFORGER was canceled so VII Corp Arty grabbed the time slot. I spent many evenings at the Graf O Club doing liaison with the commanders of the units we supported. Our most exciting occurrence was finding our maintenance tent on top of a tracked gun in the middle of the hardstand one morning. It had been staked at the edge of the hardstand and used to shelter engineering equipment brought in for repairs. During the night a strong wind came up from behind it and “flew” it onto the gun.

I remained in Bamberg as CO until relieved in Aug 1970, when my 3-year active duty commitment was completed. After returning to CONUS, I converted to inactive reserve status until discharge in March 1973.