Bad Hersfeld was the site of the nearest U.S. militart instillation to Altefeld. It was here we went to the PX and doctor if needed. The installations name was Mcpheeters Barracks. It is located on the Autobahn from Frankfurt to Hamburg. This is also the intersection of the autobahn towards Berlin. When I was there the Berlin autobahns bridges were blown away just west og Herleshausen. This was to force crossing the border to East Germany in Herleshausen.
I was only at a shooting range one time after basic training. It was here in Bad Hersfeld. The day that we were to go to the range i was at the operation site. When I got to the range there was no rifle for me. So I passed out ammo to the others and when all others were done Sgt Swenk gave me a 45 pistol with a full clip to shoot. The range was adjacent to the autobahn. We parked on the sholder of the road and crawled down over the bank to the range. This was just east of the kaserne (Mcpheeters barracks) in Bad Hersfeld. I read in a book about world war2 that Pattom had his headquarters here for a short time when advancing eastward towards Berlin.
There is a lot of information about Bad Hersfeld in Wikipedia.
New Page July 7, 2010