FRONTISPIECES:

(photos from Training Manual)

(Photo courtesy of E. Johns - all rights reserved)

(photo by Helmut G. Haak, Giebelstadt, Germany, taken with LINHOF Technika)

The sign on the bumper reads:

"GEFAHR 280mm KANONE
30m LANG"

[DANGER 280mm CANNON
98½' LONG]

These are Ed's comments, only slightly edited by SB,III {bracketed comments are mine}:

Ed was a draftee (24 Mar 53 to 19 Mar 55); after 16 weeks of infantry training, he had 8 weeks of 105 artillery training at Camp Chaffee, Fort Smith, Arkansas, then a 2-week furlough, and was then sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for radar school.&nbsop; They kept him over for 3 more 8 week training periods as an instructor.

One year to the day after he was inducted he left Fort Sill for a 30 day furlough before reporting to Camp Kilmer to be processed to go to Germany.  When he reached his battery in Baumholder, it was Sunday right after dinner.  As he unloaded his gear, several of the troops coming back from chow said, "Here is my replacement".  He had 10 months left at that point and he shipped home before a couple of the wise guys!

Below is one of the 280's on the road.  Sometimes the drivers would drive in different lanes on the Autobahn, which made them look like they were traveling slightly sideways.  Ed did not think the officers approved of this style of driving.

With the steering on the front and the back, the 280 could maneuver down a street that a semi-truck could not traverse.  Once, an auto was parked far from the curb and the prime movers could not get past.  A dozen of the guys gathered around the small car, picked it up, and moved it out of the way.  The driver must have had fun getting his car moving again; they deposited the car over the curb and onto the grass, between two trees with just inches clearance front and back.

(This and following photos courtesy of E. Johns - all rights reserved)

{The following also may well have been normal, but it is definitely how NOT to get anywhere:}

{A heck of a lot of hauling and that steel ramp, emplaced by British Engineers, did the trick;
once all gets straightened out, you can shoot the fool piece
(that night shot again):}

As noted above, Ed Johns was in the radar section of the 868 Field Artillery Battalion, Seventh Army, stationed at Baumholder, West Germany.  They tracked the outgoing rounds.  They might just as well have been home in bed; not once was information passed between their radar unit and the officers or gun crew.  It was if they were not there.  The old-time officers did not think much of the "new" electronic way of tracking shells.  They could track a round, 280 mm or small mortar round, to impact within 30 feet or less.

Once, on the screen, Ed saw that a round had exploded at the high point of the arc of travel and told their warrant officer that ran the radar unit that there had been a premature air burst.  He said Ed was wrong as the round was still over populated air space.  A minute or two later the forward observer could be heard on the radio saying the round was overdue.

Here's how Ed got overseas and back (NINE days on a troopship each way):

Ed was sea sick almost before New York was out of sight.  The next day he was "volunteered" to go up to the civilian crews mess hall for KP.  What a happy chore that turned out to be.  They set the table, served the food to 40-50 crew members, and cleared the table.  Others did dishes.  They could hang around that area all day if they wanted.  They ate the same food that the officers, the officers's dependents, and the crew ate.  One evening, they had on the menu (yes, there was a printed menu that he still has somewhere) a choice of leg of lamb, roast duck, and a standing rib roast.  For desert the was pie or baked Alaska (something with a scoop of ice cream that was put in a browning oven for a few seconds and then served).  Down in the hold, the troops had C-rations that day.

By the seventh day, it took 4 quarts of milk to get a glass full of liquid to drink.  It did not taste too bad.  One night, when he cleaned up, he asked what to do with the huge chunk of standing beef rib.  "Throw it over the side with the trash" was the answer.  The chief cook said the ship left New York with a hold full of food - XX amount of potatoes, XX amount of other food, and XX sides of beef.  If they left with 50 sides of beef and came back with 4 sides, the new supply of provisions would include only 46 sides of beef including the 4 old sides (not 46 plus the 4 old sides).  He said any beef sides (and other supplies) that were going to be left over when the ship arrived back in New York would be thrown overboard.  Our tax dollars hard at work!  {The right way, the wrong way, and the Army way, eh?}

On the nine day trip home, Ed was stuck eating below.  He had six meals a day; three meals down and three meals up.  By the time he got ashore, he was dehydrated and started drinking fluids.  He stopped to drink at every drinking fountain; he had four cartons of milk at dinner plus any other liquid he came across.  By the time he boarded the plane for the trip to Fort Sheridan, he could have backed up to a screen door, let loose, and nothing would have been left on the screen. At the processing center, he could not keep food down.  After two days, he went on sick call and they gave him something to make his stomach settle down.  He went to bed and slept 30 hours (and, yes, he got up to go to the bathroom).  Ed missed roll call and all the meals; he does not know how or why the Sergeant moving them through their discharge process let him off without hollering.  His buddies tried to get him up for meals but he would have no part of getting up.

Ed says these pix should be very familiar to anyone with experience on a troopship; the hard part:

And the nicer part:

{More water crossings} The 868th Field Artillery Battalion crosses the Rhine:

They crossed the Rhine River one Sunday when the river traffic comes to a stop.&jnbsp; Engineers put up this 60-ton pontoon bridge.  The cannon plus the two prime movers exceeded 60 tons by many tons.  The weight was spread out, so the pontoons lowered only a little.  Ed was driving the 6x6 truck right behind a 280 and was glad to get across and still be dry.  The four officers are standing on a steel plank roadway and talking to the officer that was in charge of laying the planks:

That's Ed Johns on the unit.  The cabinets were all jammed full of radio tubes, any of them that could go bad and shut them down.  It did not happen often.  Today the racks of tubes are probably replaced by a small box of transistors and chips.

When looking through the 2-powered scope when the radar was tracking a round it was possible to see the 280mm round in flight {I used to watch 8" rounds with my naked eyes and 280mm = 11"}.  The scope was used to triangulate in your location from three or more known points such as church steeples or other known object that were on their very detailed maps.

(Preceding photos courtesy of E. Johns - all rights reserved)

[Full captions added 08/12 Mar 2006 - sorry 'bout that!]

Baumholderer, I {SB,III} hope you enjoy this bit of nostalgia!

1954 Stars & Stripes Clipping.
(clipping courtesy of E. Johns)
[click on the image for a larger one]

Ed also found this old photo in family things; he thinks it is from Baumholder, not Fort Sill (I can't tell):

(photo courtesy of E. Johns - all rights reserved)
[artificially lightened by SB,III]

(extracted from photo courtesy of E. Johns - all rights reserved)
[artificially lightened by SB,III]

Xmas 2007 - Ed Johns was looking for the shipboard menu noted above and found this photo from the Counter Mortar Radar training school (or some such) at Fort Sill; the Q9 was in service before the Q10 seen above:   (26 Dec 07)

(photo courtesy of E. Johns)
[click on the image for a larger one]

[They are slightly out of order in order to fit better on the page.]
{Thumbnails 3 and 16 were unavailable due to typos in HTML coding;
they have been fixed and 7 has been resized.}   (03 Jan 04)

(Thumbnail images; click on photos for larger images.)

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