The Korean War had broken out and in a wave of patriotism, I decided to enlist in the Army. The Marines had a four-year hitch and that was a bit too long. After considerable thought, based upon total ignorance, I felt that the thing to do was go Airborne Infantry. So down to the Church Street Recruiting Station in lower NYC I went. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, I got lucky on that initial IQ test they gave me and managed to get a perfect score! So every place I went in the "processing path", the first thing the interviewer did was look up in the upper left hand corner of the top sheet where the score was. When I got to the final station, the man at the desk never looked up and stamped my paper "APPROVED "and then added underneath it "NOT APPROVED AIRBORNE." Why? He wouldnąt tell me. What now? I was directed to a kindly looking sergeant sitting at a desk over in the corner and... you know the rest. It was the ASA Recruiting Sergeant, a breed derided and abused throughout the history of the Army Security Agency. But it all sounded great, I was interested in radio stuff, so on Columbus Day, October 10, 1950, I set sail for Fort Dix, New Jersey, for the "short tour" basic training cycle.
I will spare you, for the time being, the usual basic training stories, the despised West Pointer who was Company Commander and head coach of the Fort Dix football team; he had been the offensive center on the Davis-Blanchard team and I still think he played too much without his helmet.
In any case, after the post-Basic leave, I headed for Washington, DC, and Vint Hill Farm Station for a few days, thence to the Army Security Agency School at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, as beautiful a post as existed in the Army. I started listening to code day in and day out, since I already knew how to touchtype. After a month or two the word was around that the school was moving to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and in another week we were packing all the gear.
As the first detachment of ASA to arrive at this post, we had quite a bit of freedom to bs the locals. Everyone wanted to know what ASA stood for, and we made up some pretty wild stories about the Antarctic Seal Administration and other such things. The antenna farm was an obstacle course for carrier pigeons. We quickly got a reputation as a bunch of smart ass guys. Colonel Benjamin Hurless was the school's CO and he was the ranking bird-colonel on post, so when he arrived the entire officer corps had to shift homes to accommodate his rank. Made many friends for us, he did!
The major outfit at Devens with us at the time was a Regimental Combat Team from the Tennessee National Guard that was being put into shape for shipment to Korea. Every morning before our reveille you could hear them tramping along the road heading to field exercises, canteens clanking, shoes shuffling... and every evening after chow, you would hear them trudging back. It provided great incentive for doing well at school, since the standard rumor was that if you flunked out, they would transfer your tail into that RCT.
One of the highlights of the stay at Devens was the arrival of Patti Page for a show, and when she sang "The Tennessee Waltz" there wasn't a dry eye in the place... the place went wild. The town of Ayer was not a very lively place so on the weekends many of us would head for Boston or home to NYC. I remember driving through Worcester during the winter while headed back to camp... so dark and desolate and cold. However, Ayer did have some attractive young ladies and one of my buddies married one of them after his return from Germany. Because a number of the ASAers were from the Boston area, they also served to set up blind dates for some of us, as well as having female companionship for our Company Dances.
I had just about passed 20 wpm when my TS clearance came through and I was given a choice of taking the traffic analysis or cryptanalysis courses. I have always been interested in crypto-stuff, Orphan Annie enciphering rings, and all that, so I opted for that... and finished at the top of my class. The story was, and I continued to hear it over the years, that those that finished at the top of the class were given their choice of assignments. Mine were 1) Asmara, 2) Hawaii, and 3) Europe. What actually was done was that the married guys were assigned to Arlington Hall, the A-Ms went to the Far East, and the N-Zs to Germany. So off to Germany I went and so much for the "top of the class" rumor...but I never regretted it. Of course, we were concerned about our buddies going to FECOM. We had a reunion at Camp Kilmer before we were mustered out; some had coped, and some had not coped very well. One had decided to return to Japan to marry a Japanese girl and live there...and he was scared of telling his parents.
We arrived in Bremerhaven in October 1951, and were packed onto a train for
the overnight trip to southern Germany, a Replacement Depot at Sonthofen in
the Allegaeu. Reputedly a former SS Training School, it was placed in an
incomparable alpine setting. Got to learn what the rest of the Army was like
also...being in the top 10% can distort one's thinking, you know! After a
few days wondering why they didn't simply drop us off at ASAE HQ at
Frankfurt on the way down, we were concerned that some infantry outfit would
requisition our bodies for some other type of work.
At this time, Frankfurt was still about 75% destroyed, especially the Old City, where you could still smell death and find small pieces of bones . The old cathedral stood out, although somewhat damaged, within a sea of debris and gutted houses. Gutleut Kasern was about three or four blocks from the Frankfurt Main RR Station whose immediate vicinity was the hot spot for all black market and "other" activities. The story was that the Kasern was an old German cavalry unit barracks but, unlike US Army barracks, these were brick with slate roofs and built to last a century or more. The ASA HQ detachment (8620 AAU) shared the Kasern initially with an MP Battalion and we became rather friendly with them. It saved a number of ASAers from embarrassment after too long a bout with Steinhager und Bier. They took care of us. Initially, one building was still being repaired and the courtyard was a sea of mud. As time passed, everything was tidied up.
The EM Club was an old stable that had been converted. Sergeant Bob ran it and provided some of the entertainment, while the buxom Sonny provided the singing talent, obliging the newcomers with a stirring rendition of Lili Marleen as required. The Club was my home-away-from-home and I made friends with many of the German waitresses and waiters. My high school German enabled me also to move around the city more easily and I tried to make friends with such Germans as would be willing to be friendly to an American. Another place that became available was the JazzKellar, a private club near the Hauptwache. The students at Frankfurt University would play old-time jazz music, with a heavy tuba accompaniment, and a great sense of comraderie developed among the few GIs that frequented the place, almost all of whom were ASAers. Sometimes we would sit in and play with the band.
The IG Farben building was, during the WW2 and at the time, the largest office building in Germany. Unlike other buildings in Germany, it was covered with a light ochre type of marble. The building stood out like a sore thumb but it was not touched at all by any bombing. There were rumors of a secret understanding between the Germans and Allies about certain places that were not to be bombed. However, along the upper floor facade in the rear there was a string of machine-gun bullet holes in evidence. The Putzfraus (cleaning ladies) told me that the holes were put there by a French pilot during the war who wanted to show his patriotic fervor and distaste for the Boche. By the time he returned to his base, so the story goes, the Germans had already notified the French authorities of their anger... the pilot was court-martialled and broken in rank for his outburst.
One of the interesting things about the Farben Building is the use of its "continuous elevator", known as a Pater Noster. Why that name, I don't know, unless it was the prayer that you said when you got onto one. It was a continuous belt elevator with open compartments that would hold two people at a time. It never stopped so you just had to jump on and jump off at the right time. There was one elderly WAC that just did not have the courage so she would ask someone to push her on or off... she couldn't do it on her own. The real fun was riding one "over the top".
The Farben Building was primarily used by the High Commissioner of Germany and also served as the US Army HQ for Europe, so there was always a lot of brass around. One day, returning from the cafeteria in the rear, I saluted a group of high-ranking officers who were headed to the field-grade Officers Club. I collected 25 stars of salute in return, including that of General of the Armies Omar Bradley.