I was assigned to the 3rd BN, 37th Artillery, 7th Army in 1966 to 1968 at Dachau, Germany in the former Prison Camp.

We had a BN of 8” Self Propelled Howitzers. The commanding officer was LTC Baker and the European Commanding General was Gen. Poke.

Battery “A”, 2nd Howitzer Battalion, 37th Artillery

By Tim Richards

I was stationed with the 35th Field Artillery Group Headquarters, S-2 Section, in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. I knew a guy in my section by the name of Hauserman who spoke Deutsch. I was in Schwäbisch Gmünd for about six months, before I transferred to Dachau with Battery “A”, 2nd Howitzer Battalion, 37th Artillery from approximately October 1962 to May 1964, when I rotated back to the States and out of the Army. I worked in FDC (fire direction control) under the leadership of 2nd Lt. Hill, a graduate, I believe, from Clemson University, who had a degree in chemical engineering. He was a delightful, friendly officer, slight of build and short, who blended well with the men in our section. When he transferred, Lt. Sudick replaced him.

The battery executive officer, 1st Lt. Lombardo, affectionately known as “Lumpy,” was an outstanding leader, a West Point graduate, I believe, and was well respected by the men. He was Italian, had olive-tone skin, and a husky, stocky build. His stature appeared as slightly hunched — he’d lumber along with moderately slow, deliberate steps. Capt. Gosnell, I believe, was the battery commander.

To the best of my recollection, which is somewhat vague, I first arrived in Dachau to a battalion of 155 mm howitzers (towed) that got replaced with 8” guns soon afterwards. Whether the towed guns were replaced with self-propelled tracks, I don’t remember. There was also a 280 mm gun battery located on base. It had two guns, which were towed by independent “A” and “B” units. I was impressed with the gun’s enormous size upon its hooking up with its towing units each month when ALERT sounded. Remember those? Hurry up and wait.

A few of the names in the FDC section that I remember are: PFC Floyd Pettijohn from Missouri, who was assigned to our section as executive officer driver; PFC Gilbert Diaz, a Mexican man from Texas, who manned the radio; SP/4 Dale Dinger, the horizontal and vertical chart operator; and SP/5 Yarbrough, chief computer of firing data and section chief, until I replaced him when he rotated back to the States. He was from the New Albany, Indiana (area), and became a fireman after he got out.

Another name and good friend of mine was Ron Comstock. He was in Service Battery and rotated on the same day as me. We bought civilian clothes in New York City when we got out, partied and drank for several days, and otherwise spent our mustering-out pay on women before parting separate ways home. He and I nearly reenlisted for warrant officer helicopter school in April 1964, naively not knowing about the escalating war in Vietnam. Luckily, we didn’t re-up. But twenty years later, when I located Ron in Rochester, New York, I discovered that he was a disabled combat veteran. A short time after we got out of the Army, he decided to reenlist, but as an officer. He felt a genuine calling to serve his country in its effort to fight communism in Vietnam, but was cut down in a firefight by machine gun bullets across his knees.

Marty Pesek worked in Headquarters Battery survey section. He and I became good friends and college roommates at Youngstown College when I got out in 1964. Another guy, a happy-go-lucky Italian named Frank Ceranni, hailed from New Jersey. I nicknamed him “Ming,” and we shared a personal phrase, a saying between us when we both agreed on a subject. “Straight,” we’d say laughing, while we flattened out our hands towards each other.

I remember one guy in Headquarters Battery who smuggled a fraulein into his barracks room that faced a railroad track behind the building. She wore his green Army rain poncho over her head and walked up the tracks to the soldier’s room, where he pulled her up through the window and plunked her down gently on his bunk. Das ist sehr gut!

Another time my buddy and I were in München dancing mit frauleins. We got caught up in the fun, forgot about the time (we probably didn’t care), and had to catch the last train to Dachau, which was not good, especially if you had no money for a taxi. It took thirty minutes to walk from the Dachau train station to base, which was too long to get back in time for bed check. In desperate straits to beat the clock on that very foggy night, he and I decided to take a taxi anyway, knowing we had no money to pay the fare. When the taxi stopped in front of battalion headquarters on the quadrangle, we bolted into the dense fog, disappearing quickly into the dark night, then circled around to the back door of our building and got to our rooms in time for bed check. For the next twenty minutes, I could hear the taxi driver repeatedly honking his horn. I guess the CQ finally came out to see what the matter was, because in the morning when we fell out for work call, the first sergeant made an announcement concerning the unsavory deed committed against Kamerad taxi driver. Nothing became of the incident, but it was the last time I took the last train from Munich to Dachau.

One Friday evening at the enlisted men’s club, a pretty young fraulein sat at a table with another soldier. I asked her to dance and soon got to know Ingeborg, a short haired blond with an attractive figure and friendly smile. After dancing several times — and with her assurance that she was not romantically involved with the other soldier — we made a date to meet in the Munich Bahnhof (train station) the following week. I worried about being stood up after waiting twenty minutes beyond our scheduled meeting time, but she hobbled in late on a pair of crutches with a plaster cast around her ankle. She had twisted it a few days earlier. Inge and I became more than friends and wrote each for several years after I rotated back to the States. The last letter I got from her included pictures from her wedding. She married a dentist with two children.

Auf Wiedersehen