A little background on the 322nd Signal as I remember it.

The 322nd served as the communication facility for the US V Corps. In part, V Corps consisted of the 4th Infantry Division, in Frankfurt; Second Armored Division in Mainz. There were others, of course, but these are the only ones that come to mind. The battalion itself was stationed in Darmstadt, Germany.

Darmstadt was the base of operations for the people that climbed poles, strung wire, set poles, took care of our vehicles and whatever else was necessary to maintain the service to V Corps and the message center in Frankfurt. Except for the maintenance, everything else was pretty much outside. Especially the wire stringing. If we were on the move, the wires were just laid on the ground. The tankers loved to drive over them and wind them up. This is the part of the battalion that laid/strung the wires that got the messages from point A to point B. No easy task.

The picture of the Farben building. I don’t know whether you can see it or not but there was shrapnel damage to the outside of the building. We were told that the building was deliberately spared because the allies knew they would be using it at some later date.

Inside the building they have a very unusual type of elevator. What it amounts to is cubby holes a little bigger that a telephone booth that are mounted on some kind of mechanism. Inside dimensions are about 5 feet square by 7 feet high. These cubby holes go around and around. They are open on the side that faces the floor you are on. No door. As they floor of the box comes about even with your floor, you simply step in. When you arrive at the floor you want, you simply step out. They never stop moving. I know a fellow that was over there in the last few years and he told me that they still use that system. He says a lady was killed trying to get on the thing. Things are different in Germany. (Webmaster note: for more info on the paternoster lift see the Wikipedia entry for the IG Farben Building.)

The Message center was in the basement. It consisted of the message center itself and the code, or cryptography, room. This room was a locked room and only authorized personnel were allowed in it. You had to have at least a top secret security clearance to get in there. That is where I worked.

I came back from Europe on a ship named Clark. I think it was the William B. Clark. When we got off the train in Bremerhaven, they marched us down the wharf and as we looked at the ships in port the first one we saw was the “SS United States.” Everyone was thinking that we were going home on the States. That would have meant about a 5 day trip. We just kept on marching and ended up on the Clark. It took the Clark 2 weeks, almost, to make the same trip. At sea on the Clark, Thanksgiving Day, 1953, we were in the most terrible storm. They said later that the waves were 61 feet high. They put the turkey and dressing in trays that were put on steam tables and kept warm with hot water. We rolled so bad that the water pushed the trays off the tables onto the deck. We ended up with baloney and cheese sandwiches for thanksgiving dinner.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The Code Room
The Code Room: A heavy metal door with double locks lets you into a room about 10 feet deep by about 20 feet across. In the door is a slot about 2 inches by 10 inches. A heavy metal slide covers the opening when not in use. The slot does two things. It allows the message center personnel to get coded messages into the room and allows the people in the room to identify incoming personnel before unlatching the door.

The room contains a couple of desks with typewriters, gun racks and the necessary chairs. The most unusual equipment are the code machines. There are two of them. Each is contained in a heavy metal file cabinet with two doors. The cabinets weigh as much as a small safe. They have two doors, top and bottom. Each door opens with a combination lock. Opening the top door give you access to the machine which is mounted on slides so we can pull it out and use it without taking it out of its safe. When not in use the door is closed and the machine secured. The bottom compartment is for related equipment, rotor sets, SOI’s and another machine used for a different system. The cabinets are heavy and difficult to handle when we deploy to the field.

The main system we used was code named “xxxxxx”. If you have ever seen a picture of the “German Enigma” code machine, you have an idea of what we where using. It is an updated version of that machine. At least that what it seems to me. The machine itself is about twice as big as the German machine. You type in clear text and it spits out a tape with five letter code groups. You type in code groups and you get clear text. Hopefully.

To set the machine up, it is necessary to pay attention to the date and time the message was encrypted. We then go to the SOI, look up the date/time and this tells us how to set up the machine. It tells us which rotor set to use as well as the key. The key is a five-letter code group. There are 5 slots on the top of the machine. These are meant to receive the rotors that come in sets of five. Each rotor has the alphabet stamped around the outer edge. The rotors are dropped into their slots. There are benchmarks on the machine at the slots. With rotors in place, they are aligned with the key letters to the benchmarks. A metal axle is inserted from the right side to lock them in place. The machine is ready.

In breaking a message, you have to be very careful as you type in the clear text and the code groups. Especially the code groups. You can hit an “R” instead of a “T” and all you get is a misspelled word. No big deal. If you leave out a character or a space, you will garble. A garble is a worthless string of letters and the cause of lots and lots of swear words. Typing code groups requires a lot of concentration. If you are smart you will check your tape every so often to be sure you are not in garble. It is very easy to forget to check. Code groups have no known groups. By this I mean when you see the word “the” and you type it like it was one character. There are no such sets in code groups.

The message comes out of the machine on the left side. It is on a ¼” tape that has a gum substance on the back. We take the message tape and tear it at the appropriate places, wet them, stick them on a message form. That’s it.

A couple of things I can mention. The second machine mentioned above is used when we go into the field. We deploy in steps. The first step is the forward crew. They leave first and go to the location and establish contact with the base in the Farben Building. Then the jump teams leaves with the second machine and gets set up to handle traffic at the location. When that happens we shut down in the Farben and move out with the main body.

The second system that I mentioned was called “xxxxxxx” This is used in the most forward units. Maybe as far down as company level. The machine is like a tape writer. After the machine is set to a key, you rotate a knob to a given letter. You push a lever and the machine prints a character on a tape. Doing this you can encode and decode. A really tedious procedure and not loved by all.

I have decided not to name the systems. Even at this late date I am not comfortable mentioning those names.

The Message Center
Well -- let’s go inside the message center. We are in the basement of the I. G. Farben Building in Frankfurt. While the battalion itself is in Darmstadt, about 40 of us have been detached to Frankfurt. The personnel include drivers, clerk typists, and the crypto people in the code room. We receive all of our traffic by landline teletype, or RTT (Radio Teletype), and by mail bag. Several teletype machines are located in the message center. All tied into a net consisting of the various units in V Corps, as we called it, and the feeds from other units all over the world.

Incoming messages are received either in the clear or in code. Incoming clear messages are sorted according to the addressee and staged for delivery, they might go into an envelope and sent upstairs or staged for a mail run to the various units up near the border or wherever. Two men would be assigned to take a jeep, and a specific mail bag, drive a predetermined route to a given location. The one that sticks in my mind was the run to Wildflecken. Up near the border with East Germany, about 50 miles more or less. I think there was a Constab unit there as well as a Dog Platoon. Each morning a crew would be assigned to a specific run. They would go the Farben, pick up a bag and take off. Code people, not on duty, would volunteer to go on these runs. We got to see a lot of the country that way.

I remember one messenger run in particular that included an incident that I will always remember. It would have been early winter 1952 and I was assigned to accompany a mailbag on one of the runs. Any material classified secret or higher requires an armed guard. I was that guard, in a jeep with a driver. We were on one of those tiny German roads that wander from village to village. Snow was on the ground and the roads were quite slick. Ahead of us was an accident that completely blocked the road. Two German cars, one was in the ditch, the other was crosswise blocking the road. Six men were out of their cars and engaged in a very animated discussion, which included some pushing and shoving. We waited for a few minutes but nothing was being resolved. They ignored the jeep waiting in the road. The guy driving my jeep got out and walked up to see if he could get the one car moved so we could get through. He was ignored and the anger seemed to escalate. I was beginning to get a little scared and got out of the jeep to tell the driver to get back in. I wanted to turn around and get the hell out of there. I said one word. ‘HEY’. That’s all I said. The effect was dramatic. Things got real quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes were on me. One guy even put his hands behind his head. Now—I am a dumb farm boy from Indiana who has never heard a shot fired in anger. I had completely forgotten the M-3 Grease Gun hanging from my shoulder. I was moving classified material and the weapon was hot. Needless to say, cooperation was suddenly the order of the day and we soon were on our way. The presence of two American soldiers did not deserve any respect. The weapon made all the difference.

Deployment
It’s two o’clock in the morning and whistles are blowing, doors slamming, people are yelling and running up and down the hall. Oh no!!! We are headed for the boonies again. We just got back 8 days ago and here we go again. Field pack is all made up and on top of my locker. In it is everything I can take with me. If this was the real thing and not a practice field deployment, everything left behind would belong to the Russians.

I head to the motor pool and get the tractor trailer that I will work in for the next week or so. At the Farben Building I back the trailer down a sloping driveway to a basement level loading dock. The message center is few yards down the hall and we load the heavy safes and other in the equipment into the trailer and away we go.

We are in a truck convoy of hundreds of trucks and do not have the slightest clue as to our ultimate destination. All we know to do -- follow the lights of the truck ahead of you. As usual, we are headed up the autobahn in a northerly direction. At some point we turn off and head east, away from the Taunus mountains, and into Fulda Gap. The road is just slightly wider than my tractor and when I go through a village, there is little clearance between the houses and the trailer. The villages are centuries old and the second floor extends out to the edge of the walkway creating an overhang. Clearance is tight, very tight.

We are traveling in a north to south direction through the town and at the north end the convoy is making a hard left turn. I find later that the actual turn is something greater than 90 degrees. The smaller trucks have no trouble with the turn. I am almost 40 feet long. When I get to it, I have to make several attempts to get around. Finally, by backing up and putting a bunch of wheels on the sidewalk, running over some brush and some sort of a small wooden enclosure, through a garden, I manage to get around the corner. This has taken several minutes and as we get straightened out, we realize that there no lights ahead of us. The convoy didn’t wait.

We continue on and as you might expect, we come to a fork in the road. Still no lights ahead of us. There is a sergeant with me and we look at each other and shake our heads. Remember, there are lots of trucks behind us. Where we go, they go. I don’t know who called it, but we went to the right. A narrow road that was getting narrower. I had a bad feeling. Sure enough, after about three-quarters of a mile we end up on top of a hill and in some farmers beet field. Looking down into the valley to the west we can see the convoy stopped and waiting on us. I did the only thing I could do. Drove into the field and made a U-turn. All the trucks behind me are doing the same thing. I go back down as far as I can and have to wait. Finally, someone has the presence of mind to break the line and have them wait until we clear. I have often wondered how much money our government had to pay that German farmer for all those beets we destroyed. All because of the lack of a road guard.

COMMENTS by Eduard Witzmann
As always, great, great site. Happy to see your recent addition and entry of the 322nd Sig Bn in the 7th Army, Signal Corps section, with photo and text submitted by John Raquet. This is a great article with detailed descriptions, especially for many of us who were there at the time, 1949 to 1953. The photo, of course, is GIBBS Barracks, on Giessener Strasse, Frankfurt. The time should be 1953, just prior to relocation of the entire 322nd unit to Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne in Darmstadt. Background in the photo (#2) is the officers club, dining hall and administrative offices in the upper floors. (Note, the classic, oversized German Eagle.) On a recent trip back to GIBBS and CAMBRAI-FRITSCH, my wife and I took some photos, that really bring the difference of 50 plus years to life. Great memories, thanks John Raquet and thank you Walter.

We had permanent teams with 3rd Infantry Div., 3rd Armored Div, 14th A/C, with two sites on the East border. And at times, we had at least two relay sites. Also, there was a site at Corps Headquartes in the Farben Bldg. in Frankfurt.

All companies, other than E, had a unit citation patch. The story we were told was that Company C had lost their colors in the war, and E company was created to replace C. Do you know the story?

I was assigned to the 32nd Signal Bn as a switchboard operator and stationed at Darmstadt in 1960. The sergeants were Sgt Black & Sgt Young.

In garrison we were Victor Base and in the field we were Victor Switch. The switchboards were the same on base as in the field and also the same at Gibbs (just like the one in the photo above). The switchboards in the field were installed in the front of 18 wheeler trailers. The linemem would bring telephone lines to the guys in back of the trailer I believe. There were three of them (switchboards). We went on maneuvers on Winter Shield 1 and Winter Shield 2. While we were in garrison, the 18 wheeler was kept in the motor pool on base.

I was in Darmstadt for about a year then went TDY to Gibbs in Frankfurt. I worked at the IG Farben complex up on the 7th floor. Our switch boards were along side the German civilian switchboards. We had to ride the strassenbahn to get to work from Gibbs.

On base (Gibbs) there was a german civilian in the back room to take care of the mainframe for our boards. .

When we had guard duty, if you were outstanding in your appearance, spitshined boots, clothes neat, etc the CO would dismiss you from guard duty and you would get a 2-day pass.

I don't remember the name of the building but like the others we had a German tailor downstairs. There was a pizza place outside the fence that we used to order and they would bring it to the fence. We had a barber shop on base. EM club - at the EM club we would see great entertainment. Lose money to the one armed bandits (slot machines).

Always stood in a long line to eat (at the mess hall). Food was great though. We used to eat at different mess halls just to check them out to see if the food was better or not. The was a transit mess hall by the IG Farben building along with others. Air Force also had one in Darmstadt

At the IG Farben, when we first arrived at Gibbs, we were told to tell the tram conductor where we wanted to go. We would say I G Hochhaus. All I remember about the 7th floor (IG Farben Bldg) is where I worked, nothing else. I was a 19 year old kid just going to work. Worked one day and you got one day off; worked two days got two days off; worked three days and you got three off. It was a good job. Throw in a two day pass and you could take a vacation.

From there I was at the end of my enlistment leaving as a short timer in Oct 1962.