Someone I served with sent an email asking if I still had some pictures. Yes, not the greatest quality after 55-56 years of benign neglect. Maybe some of you might enjoy them.
The title picture is a float bridge across the Rhine at the place Patton crossed. We could only close the river on Sunday for an hour or two.
LL talked about the Danube, which is the Donau in Deutschland. This is our bridge across it in the dead of winter. The water was so cold when you filled a bucket and set it down, the water immediately froze. If the picture seems especially weird, we were being covered with a smoke screen.
The Army was modernizing, slowly, and going to what was called a Mobile Assault Ferry. This unit didn’t succeed in building a complete bridge.
The next picture is a footbridge, all built by muscle, and not much different than the Romans used. That is ice floating in the water.
We used 27’ Bridge Erection Boats, powered by two 6 cyl gas engines. The stern section rode in a 2/12 ton truck with the bow section in a towed 1 ½ ton trailer. A crane was necessary to launch.
With no NCO’s around, the lads wore Air Force Mittens for this picture. The truck wasn’t stuck; just in Rhine River mud as was the 5 ton with a bridge section. The trucks could always move but sometimes had trouble getting out of the ruts.
Finally, two PFC’s ready to hit the Strasse and find some trouble.
6 comments:
Is the-at 2-1/2 ton truck also what they called the "6x6"? I've heard they'd go just about anywhere, mud, snow, water, sand, they just kept moving.
drjim
Probably. We never used the term. Several different sizes were one front axle with two tires and two rear axles with two tires per axle. Both rear axles were powered and the front could be. We also had wreckers and heavy haul tractors (trucks) to pull our bulldozers. everything was capable of all wheel drive. We had several 3/4 ton Dodge "Power Wagons" (radio section had one with a "camper"), a complete machine shop mounted on a 5 ton truck, and several M 151 "Jeeps". If memory serves, some 100 vehicles overall.
Three axles, all driven, sounds like what I think a 6x6 is.
A friend of mine back in SoCal had a Power Wagon with the radio "hut" on it. He was in to collecting military radios, and just had to have "The Whole Set", including the mobile Radio Room.
drjim
Our only voice radio was short range - maybe a mile. The commo section ran Morse Code. To end the transmission the send sent F T and the receiving operator responded with an A.
You cleaned up pretty good back in the day! :-) And that had to be COLD work in the winter!!!
Old NFO
Even for a Colorado Mountain lad it was bitterly cold. The man next to me was Tom O'Connor. We met on the train from Denver to Ft Leonard Wood and were in every unit together. We took pride in being discipline problems. However, give us a job, and it would get done. Neither of us received a Good Conduct Medal but both of us made E-5. One tough 5'5" Boston Irishman.
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