AFCENT HQ was formed on 20 August 1953 at Fontainebleau, France. AFCENT HQ was established to exercise command and control over Land Forces Central Europe (LANDCENT), Air Forces Central Europe (AIRCENT), and Naval Forces Central Europe (NAVCENT) under one Commander-in-Chief (CINCENT).

During the development of the new AFCENT HQ, peace and war establishments were revised, new emergency defence plans were written and detailed plans prepared for the integration of German Land and Air Forces. AFCENT's responsibility was for day-to-day operations, frequency allocation in Central Europe, and planning for exercises, war operations and the introduction of new equipment.

On the 10 March 1966, The French government announced their intention of withdrawing from NATO. On 29 March that same year, France declared that French Forces assignments to NATO were to terminate on 1 July 1966 and Allied facilities were to be out of France by 1 April 1967. Planning went ahead for the move of the fully integrated AFCENT Headquarters to Brunssum, Limbourg Province, The Netherlands (Hendrik Camp) during the period of January to March 1967. The official opening was on 1 June 1967.

Although LANDCENT, AIRCENT, and NAVCENT had their own autonomous Signal Divisions, a Joint Communication Agency (JCA) was formed in 1962. AIRCENT also formed its own Central Repair Depot (CRD) which was independent of the JCA. When AFCENT was transferred to Brunssum in 1967, and LANDCENT, AIRCENT, and NAVCENT were amalgamated into a single Headquarters at Hendrik Camp, the JCA and CRD moved into an ex-coal mine building (EMMA mine complex) at Hoensbroek, near Brunssum.

The JCA was then reorganized as the Regional Signal Support Group (RSSG) which brought under command CRD as the Central Region Communications Logistics Depot (CLD). In 1971, RSSG became responsible for the first NATO satellite communications system, ACE HIGH, with the implementation of the first station at Euskirchen, Germany.

With the development of the NATO Integrated Communications System (NICS), SHAPE undertook the first manpower survey of RSSG, recommending a considerable reduction of personnel. The NICS was then put under control of several Regional Operating Centres (ROCs). The ROCCENT (AFCENT ROC) control agency was activated at Hendrik Camp with three Local Control Organizations (LCO) located at Maastricht, in The Netherlands, and Baumholder and Senden in Germany.

Finally, in 1979, the RSSG became the Central Region Signal Group (CRSG) as it is known today. In 1982, a microwave system, known as Communications Improvement Program 67 (CIP 67) was activated, providing the bulk of the NATO-owned transmission systems for communications throughout the Central Region. Two years later, in 1984, the Initial Voice Switched Network (IVSN) telephone switches in Brunssum and Telegraph Automatic Routing Equipment (TARE) in Maastricht became operational.

Still it was nice working there at Camp Guynemer in the beautiful Fontainebleau foret during the Cold War days - second or third on the Soviet ICBM nuke "hit-list"!.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Systems Control was located in the communication centre (inside the AIRCENT commo bunker) and all TTY circuits were routed through a relay panel, patch panel installed in Systems Control -- on one side was the microwave terminal room; on the other was the communications centre which consisted of approximately 75 teletype terminals in four or five rows.

The primary microwave terminal was located near the System Control room (40') in the communications bunker. (Not sure if it was Collins Radio or not.) They did bring in the manufacturer from the States to try and iron out some of the bugs.. but it seemed to me that signal fade margins, path/ equipment diversity, maintenance tech. training were not up to snuff and circuits were down for extended periods for days on end. The M/W network linked HQ AIRCENT with terminals at HQ TWOATAF (Mönchen-Gladbach, Germany) and HQ FOURATAF (Trier, Germany).

The primary role of systems control was to maintain teletype circuits between communications room terminals and distant terminals in continuous operation.

The maintenance shop for Olivetti Teleprinters was located adjacent to systems control -- any failure of teleprinter equipment was sent as a fault report to the maintenance shop. Similarly, any detected outage on M/W circuits was passed to the local terminal/maintenance room; landline failure reports were passed to the French PTT. (Sometimes, with persistent landline problems, we contacted the remote terminal PTT in Belgium, Holland, Germany UK, Italy or Norway and worked with them directly.)

An additional role of systems control was to "patch-in" stand-by circuits in the event of  primary (M/W) failure. We were also responsible for operation of back-up HF telegraph circuits to Norway, Naples and Stanbridge in the UK. Working with the local transmitter/receiver sites situated in the Fontainebleau forest.

Standby generator power supplies were controlled by system control as well.

All circuits were monitored on 24/7 basis and any outage exceeding 10 - 15 minutes was subject to detailed inquiry / post-mortem. It was a dark window-less stressful hole in the ground in which to work for two and a half years. I spent my 21st birthday down there! Still the place is fondly remembered by lot's of folks.

We installed the 'A' system through to Soissons, France; then the 'B' system to 4th ATAF in Trier, Germany. As NATO moved to Brussels, Belgium a 'C' system was installed from Soissons to Brussels.

I left in Nov 1953 and discharched Dec 1953 (stayed out 4 years; came back). Sometime after 1955 the 5th was renamed to 1141st Special Activities Sq which ended up in Ramstein, Germany I don't have any info after that date.

Hopefully this answers some of the questions about the 5thRRS

MY information is from memory and pictures that I had identified (correctly, I hope) at the time.

There were other stations that I recall ... I was stationed at:

A-3 (1) , in Plailly, France. We lived in the 'Hotel des Artistes', Mortefontaine, France.

D-5, in Hautes-Butts, and we rented a house in Haybes, France.

I wanted to write this note to you before I forgot everything I remembered. I am going back to the website for more reading. If it is your site, "Ya Done Good!" I "Googled" everything from Camp Guynemer to AIRCENT/AFCENT.

I also remember some guys that were a few miles away from us that were in the 1st RR Squadron. We got together a lot. They were AF also, as I recall ... not Army. I don't remember what their 'Home Base' was. They had their own barracks, and chow hall, and didn't live in hotels or houses as we did.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
(1) After I wrote to you, I rummaged through my military scrapbook and found out that what I told you about Site A-3, might have been, in reality, A-5. The pictures in my book are marked A-5. I've been wrong before! The site designation may be able to be identified by the distance from Fontainebleau. It was/is my recollection that the sites had a transmission capability of only 20 to 30 miles (line-of-sight). I don't have a map that I can study to verify distances, and I'm not that familiar with the Google Earth website to check it out as yet. That's next. When I was there, there were four links attached to our group (Detachment 2), 'A', 'B', 'C',and 'D' link. Major Rankin was our overall officer in Fontainebleau. He handled the on-base training, and link supply as I recall. Captain Smith was our 'B' link Officer.

In my scrapbook, there are snapshots of some of the sites. There are some orders that I ran across assigning me to PlaiIly (A-5). The orders do NOT mention the site designation, just the site location. I also ran across some documents that covered fuel supply and usage ... Those were very inte