Giebelstadt, Germany

Memories of the U-2 at Giebelstadt

Web site comment - Were you assigned to the 602nd AC&W Squadron between October 1956 and 15 November 1957 when the U-2 flew from this location? We sure would like to hear from you. Feel free to send us an email message and let's work towards getting your memories on our web site.

Barnhouse, Bill - I arrived in Giebelstadt in January 1956 as a Radar Operator. It was about October when the U2s first arrived. Prior to that time we had launched tall weather balloons from Giebelstadt that went east. We did speculate about that. Before the U-2s arrived a lot of civilians came to the base, first taking over a couple of the old WW2 Luftwaffe hangars that were still intact. The first thing the civilians did was put fences around the hangars with guards and mirrors. After the first U-2 arrived we had a Commanders Call for all troops. The Commander told us that these strange looking aircraft were for upper air sampling, and we could not take any pictures, including even pictures inside of our own barracks. We thought that was a little much.

Riding to the radar site located on the other side of the new runway we would see them working on the runway for a launch. The pilots were always wearing what I would say were space gear very much like the astronauts. The aircraft was not painted, and they were unmarked except for a tail number and NACA on the tail. Being a radar operator, the "NACA" people would call us whenever they launched with tailnumber and length of flight, which was over anything we had as far as length of hours. The aircraft would climb straight up and out of sight. Tracking them on our radar, they would go off the top of our height finder radar. It was hard to believe. We finally figured out what they could be doing whenever we received a message that we were to turn the height finder 180 degrees away from the runway whenever one of the aircraft was departing or landing. The height finder put out a lot of RF energy, and evidently we had inadvertly exposed some film. We came to the correct conclusion of what their mission was.

Campbell, Herb - I was a radar operator and I was assigned in Giebelstadt between July 1956 and December 1958. I remember tracking the U-2. We were told that it was a weather recon plane!

Bill Barnhouse and I got to know one of the pilots. I can't remember the pilots name but I do remember he bought rounds of drinks at the Flieger Hollander (Flying Dutchman) Gasthaus in Wurzburg, drove a gull wing Mercedes 300, had a big German Shepherd dog and a gorgeous girl friend.

The U-2 used to drop into our radar on return missions and it could slow to about 150 mph. The pilot always maintained radio silence so naturally we would scramble fighters (F-86's or F-100's). He would wait until we turned on the beam and then speed up. I don't remember out of all of the intercepts if our pilots ever saw the U-2 on an intercept.

One of the U-2's was like a glider and had wheels only in the center of the fuselage. When it landed it would tip to one side and the pilot would sit until a crew came out and removed him and the capsule he was sitting in with a rig that looked like a tow truck and whisk him away, inside the bubble, no doubt -- to get the "weather report,"--- fond memories!!!

Condry, Joseph - I remember the U-2 unit arriving at Giebelstadt around October of 1956 and they only stayed for a little over a year or so. They did contribute a lot to the base. Prior to the unit arriving there were about seven buildings on base. They built a new gymnasium, an "O" Club, bowling alley and quite a few BOQ's. We were not too happy about putting up with them, but we enjoyed the good things once they were gone. We were not allowed to take any pictures.

Crofoot, Edward - My story starts at the Radar Maintenance School which was located at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. It appears that I was volunteered to proceed from the school as an E-3 A/2C Heavy Ground Radar Maintenance Technician to Giebelstadt Germany. I flew from the USA to Frankfurt Germany and proceeded to Wurzburg by train -arriving at the 602nd AC&W Squadron at Geibelstadt in February 1957.

I would guess that there were about 200 American military personnel at Giebelstadt when I arrived. Recreational facilities included a bowling alley, a rod and gun club, a photography studio and an Airmen's/NCO Club. During my off duty hours I spent my time at the bowling alley, the photography club and I drank beer - not necessarily in that order.

I was a Radar Technician and I worked with a variety of radar equipment such as the MPS-11, MPS-14, TPS-1D, TPS-10D, GPS-4 and the MPS-7 while stationed at Giebelstadt. The radar mainmtenance section had no direct involvement with the U-2 aircraft that were on base. It never was an open topic of discussion but we all knew that the U-2 was there. As radar technicians we were never officially advised about the U-2 or its mission and we really never paid that much attention to the U-2 as they were just another unit on the other side of the flight line.

We knew roughly the direction that the aircraft came and went from but we did not have any idea as to the aircraft's mission. I personally saw the U-2 arrive and depart on many occasions in both daylight and in darkness. As I remember, the U-2 flew randomly several times a week. We were not supposed to track them with our radar when they took off, but we did. Once airborne, they would turn and head out over East Gemany. We were making use of the MPS-14 height finder at that time and the U-2 would climb right off of the accessible height coverage - which was 75,000 feet. We would see them come and go and see the people that worked there in the cafeteria. Gary Powers was there at that time but he was just another worker on that project and most of us didn't even know his name until after he was shot down in 1960 and we recognized him on TV. I left Giebelstadt in August 1958 and U-2 aircraft were still flying in and out at that time. As I remember the early birds were of a silver color but when I left in 1958 they were black.

I eventually left Giebelstadt in August 1958, and as luck would have it - I went right back to Keesler Air Force Base at Biloxi Mississippi for more training on long range radar equipment.

Grover, Wayne - I was assigned to Giebelstadt in April, 1955 from my home station of Birkenfeld, Germany where I had been since July, 1954. Giebelstadt had reopened its radar operations and several radar operators and technicians were sent to help man it. I originally went to Germany via troop ship and returned the same way.

When I arrived, I was an A/2C. When I first saw the base, it was basically empty with most of the buildings bombed out and the hangars, just metal frames, devoid of covering.

There were no operating aircraft when I arrived. I was assigned to an old Luftwaffe barracks of three floors and a basement. I lived on the first floor. At some point during the war, a 500 pound bomb had come through the roof and passed through all the floors, coming to rest, partially buried in the cement floor of the basement. One of my friends had his bunk over the exposed bomb fins and often gave it a kick. A few months later, EOD found the bomb still active and evacuated the barracks while they dug it out and defused it.

The radar site was across the runway where we went to work in the back of a “six by” canvas covered truck. Until the U-2s arrived, I liked to walk to work. After that, I HAD to ride. Our mission was radar surveillance of the East German border and later tracking the U-2 on height finder and surveillance radars. We had a range of 220 miles in any direction. The height finder was so powerful, it would light up fluorescent tubes, up to a mile away. The radar operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we all worked rotating shifts. A typical radar shift had about 15 men assigned as scope dopes, DF, Movement ID techs and Intercept Control Officers and airmen. When we saw Russian or East German planes stray near our borders, we called for interceptors to launch from Hahn or Furstenfeldbrook in F-86s to check them. Remember during this time, the USA was still one of the occupation powers in Germany. We had an explosion one winter, (56) of the gasoline heated stove that heated the quonset hut where our Radar Operations was located. I was behind a scope which took the blow, leaving me unscathed. The guys behind the plotting board were burned and injured but all survived. The radar squadron was a mobile entity and as such, we could be ordered to take down the entire unit, pack in it trucks and drive to a distant location and put it all back together and become operational in under three days. Each of us had specific parts to disassemble and reassemble and a specific truck to drive to haul it to the selected next stop. A major move to Ingolstadt occurred in October, 1956. We made the schedule, ran the unit a few days, ate chow from a tent and dug latrine ditches. I have many photos of this particular mobile assignment.

We did get a T-33 on the base for a short while for the pilots to get their required flying time. One young pilot buzzed the crew change truck about ten feet overhead as we went to the radar site. He thought it was funny. The base commander didn't and sent it back to Hahn.

All our assignments were for three years. There were perhaps 150 USAF men stationed there, with our Orderly Room in an old Luftwaffe office building. I remember an old German who worked around the grounds we called "Ach So", because he always smiled when we spoke to him and said, “Ach So.” There were zero recreational facilities at the base. Most of us used our time going to Wurzburg to meet the local women. At that time, Wurzburg was just rebuilding from the fire bombing of 1944 and rubble still marked many residential areas. The US Army had a base with the Big Red One division at Leighton Barracks and offered a movie theater, bowling alley and a gym of sorts. Not much. The food in Giebelstadt was served in a communal dining hall and was what was expected at the time. Nourishing but tasteless crap. There was a small Gasthaus near the base entrance were we often made "chow runs" to supplement our young appetites. Most of the Americans liked the German beer and schnaps but I never drank alcohol so I cannot comment on that feature.

Until the U-2's arrived after a flurry of rebuilding bombed out German facilities, Giebelstadt had little apparent activity other than as an early warning radar site. There had been the big balloon releases (Project Genetrix), some of which landed in Russia and caused the USA embarrassment when they proved it was not a weather balloon. After that the balloon launches stopped.

The first indication we had of the coming of the U-2 group was when "civilians" suddenly took over a hangar that the USAF had been building for a recreation facility. We were kicked out, a high security fence was built with short watch towers and a security gate. We were given zero information. I never saw more than two U-2s at Giebelstadt. The day of the first landing, we were all told to go onto our barracks until further notice if we were not at work. I was at the radar site and working when the first one landed. It came in and landed. Period. We had no ATC at the base so no tower or radar approach was involved. Evidently, the CIA had some ATC at the base and brought the bird in. I actually saw it land and roll on its belly wheel, tilt and lean down on one wing runner, followed by a few vehicles. It was silver.

The U-2's were always towed directly to the hangar and out of sight. The USAF never officially advised us about the U-2 Detachment, but rumor quickly let us all know. The CIA guys and USAF support guys did not mix with the rest of us but perhaps not from official orders...just lack of proximity. When the U-2 flew, everyone was told to go to their rooms, don't look out the windows and take no pictures. It was like saying don't swallow. We all saw them come and go. At work as a radar operator, I often tracked the U-2 as it turned West and climbed. We tracked it as it climbed on both search and height finder, seeing it turn East and leave our maximum height capacity of around 75,000 feet. We all knew what it was doing and how. When the U-2s came back, they entered West Germany from the East, too high to see on search radar, descended and came to Giebelstadt from the West to land.

I don't remember the designation of the radar equipment that we had at the time, but I am sending photos of both to this web site. To the radar operators, U-2 flights were nothing special. We flight followed them and the officer on duty probably gave them some special interest, but it was really a non event to the rest of us. Basically, none of the USAF personnel found anything of great interest in the U-2 program or its assigned people. But I was just a twenty year old and may have missed the significance of it all due to different priorities at the time.

My favorite activity on base was the digging up of bombed out buildings left, from the war. Giebelstadt had an extensive underground facility that no one had yet discovered until I and two friends located one of the entrances after we dug out an old German motor pool building and found a concrete ramp that disappeared into the earth. Over the course of a few weeks, we found an immense amount of Luftwaffe supplies. Left untouched for 11 years. We found radial aircraft engines on mounts, aircraft parts including ME-109 wing guns, tools, coveralls, boots, racks of rifles and best of all a full box of mixed P-38 pistols and the so called 9mm Lugars. There was still canned food as well, most of which had ruptured. After we secured the finds we wanted to keep, we notified the base authorities and were ordered never to go back into the immense facility. Somewhat later, I found a huge metal door, covered with growing grass and a smaller door within it. It led to a huge bomb storage area. I left that one alone and notified the base commander.

The weather at Giebelstadt featured wonderful springs, mild summers and during the winter of 1956-57, the coldest, snowiest period in fifty years. Snow stacked up waist deep that year. I loved that winter and often slept outdoors in my "mummy bag."

One anecdote of note. During the closing days of WWII, the Luftwaffe commander, an Oberst evacuated his wife and son but was himself killed when the US Army captured the base. That son's mother married an American and took him to the USA. He later joined the USAF and was assigned to Giebelstadt on my radar crew. His name was Rolf Fields. Six feet five and slim. In 1957, while driving back to the base through a thick fog, his car left the road and hit a building. Here's the eerie part. It was the same building his father had died in while defending the base. How's that for a coincidence?

Most of the Wurzburg businesses were run by women as the majority of the men had been killed in the war. There was a severe lack of young, able bodied men and the German women flocked to the strong, young Americans who spent easily and were not complicated like the average German male. I met a German girl named Ursula Seubert, age 16, who worked the popcorn concession at Leighton Barracks and we married a year or so later. She spoke flawless English with no accent. Her sister married another American, Ed Malloy, who became the youngest E-9 in the USAF.

Cigarettes were the main barter item and just about anything could be exchanged for them. We non smokers really made out with our ration. I lived in Giebelstadt for a few months after I was married. No kitchen, an outhouse, cold and so close to the road I could lean out the window and touch the trucks growling by. It was an awful ordeal and we moved back to Wurzburg.

I sold my car in July, 1957 and took my wife and baby girl back to the USA via a troop ship, the “General Rose.” I stayed in the USAF and retired on July 1, 1976.

Heffley, Ralph - I quit High School in 1954 and with my dads permission I inlisted in the USAF. I went to Boot camp at Parks AFB in California. I was there for 11 1/2 weeks and then went to Bellevue Illinois for Tech School (Cook, Butcher and Baker). Upon graduation I recieved orders to Lackland AFB for 60 days TDY, then onwards to Germany APO 800. I arrived at Frankfurt Germany, Rhinemein AFB in October 1955. I was told that I was going to have to be held over until my orders could be straightened out because they read APO 800 which was a US Army Command so I was at Frankfurt for about two weeks.

I was eventually told that I would be put on a train to Wurtzburg and that I would be met by Military Police, and that was all they knew. I was met by Air Police in Wurtzburg and taken to Giebelstadt in a Volkswagon caryall. I arrived in Geibelstadt near the end of October 1955.

There was not too much there at that time. I recall a large two story building which housed the Commanding Officer, the Administration staff, the Air Police, an Operations Officer, and a Class Six Store where they kept all of the liquor rations locked up. A second building served as the Mess Hall and it also housed the cooks and a small Dispensary. A partially bombed out building served as our movie theater. This building also was used by the Base Chaplain and it had a small club for refreshments.

After I had been there about three months (January 1956) the 818th Eng. Division arrived and started work on the bombed out runway so it was real mess arround there for a while. Being a Cook, I had to serve the Eng. guys coming through our Chow Line and of course I was told that each man was allowed so much food. I got tired of being threatend so I put in for a change of jobs, and this is how I became a Fire Fighter.

Looking back, my assignment at Giebelstadt was quite an accomplishment. I went to Leighton Army Barracks and obtained my High School GED. I also went to German classes so that I could speak a little German. I never learned to write in German, but I quickly found found out that the people were so much nicer to me when I tried to communicate in their language.

It was evident that the base at Giebelstadt was building up for something as we started to receive a number of civilian personnel in the early summer of 1956. The repairs to the runway were completed in June and construction commenced on a very large hangar. We started to receive handling equipment that we had no idea about, and it was put in the new hangar. Other propeller driven aircraft started to arrive and this was followed by the 11th Air Borne Division. They stayed in tents.

I believe it was in October 1956 that the U-2's arrived. Two of them came in and landed at Geibelstadt. No one was allowed anywhere near them. As I mentioned, I had changed jobs from Cook to Fire Fighter. As a member of the Crash Rescue team, we had to sit by the runway in case of problems or a crash. We were instructed that we could not get around the U-2 if they had a problem, so it was a very mysterious situation. When they were going to fly the U-2, civilian guards would come out and patrol the runway. They would tow the U-2 out to the runway and then the pilot would be brought out to the aircraft in a car. He would climb into the cockpit and the crew would lock him in. Then they would hook up a huffer and turn the engine over. It sounded like a rocket engine on take off. It didn't have to go very far before it would lift off. The "helper wheels" would fall off, and the U-2 would go straight up. The helper wheels were located on the end of the wings and they were something to see.

The strange thing about "security" was that when this thing flew, military personnel were not authorized to take pictures of the aircraft. However, at the end of the runway, a German magazine called the Bundespost was taking pictures and when their magazine came out, they gave a complete description of the U-2 along with appropriate detail such as an approximate speed and altitude that it flew. The USAF personnel at Giebelstadt thought that this was very strange.

I left Giebelstadt in July of 1957 and proceeded to Ramstein AFB. I stayed there until June 1958 when I returned to McGuire AFB in New Jersey for an Honorable Discharge. I will never forget Giebelstadt or the people. They were great.

Horner, Harry - I took my radar training at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi and it was at that time that I volunteered for overseas duty. I was an A/3C when I departed Keesler and proceeded home for 18 days of leave prior to my departure for Germany. I flew from New York to Frankfurt by way of military transport and continued from Frankfurt to Wurzburg by train. From Wurzburg, I proceeded to Giebelsadt by bus, arriving in Giebelstadt in January 1957.

There were about 200 people at Giebelstadt when I arrived. I was to be employed with the 602nd AC&W Squadron which meant that we would be operational 24 hours a day. The U-2 was there when I arrived and I thought it unusual that there was no special security for the U-2. As an example, there was a large hole in the fence just behind my barracks. The Germans would come and knock on our windows trying to buy Lucky Strikes. We could buy them for $5.00 a carton and we would sell them for $10.00 a carton. If we were working at the radar site when the U-2 took off or landed, we could go outside and watch it. I remember that it would go off the height finder real fast at an altitude of 75,000 feet.

We had a bowling alley, movie theater, photo lab, and an Airman's/NCO club. We could drink, order sandwichs, or play the slot machines at the club. We had pingpong and pool tables. Off duty we would use the facilities at the base or go to town.

The weather was cold in winter and hot in the summer. We had to walk at least a mile to get our mail when I first arrived, but they finally moved the mail room closer. I remember two of the people that have already checked in with your web site - Herb Campbell and Bill Barnhouse.

One of your photos has a white van parked outside. That was the back of our chow hall. The gate by the dispensary was not guarded, and we passed through that gate to go to the radar site. I don't remember what year it was but about 40 German air force personnel were stationed to our base. They had one wing of our barracks. We were each assigned one German to train in the operation of our radar. They all spoke good English until they made a mistake, then they would say that they didn't understand. We would just laugh. Talking about security - on Sundays the Germans would walk through our base. One other thing - we had a T-33 training jet stationed at Giebelstadt. Some of the guys got to go up in it, but I never got the chance. We also had a C-47 called "ruby lips" because it had a big set of red lips painted on the nose. This aircraft was used for morale flights. I was lucky to travel to Copenhagen on one of these flights.

One final comment. The big hole in the fence was still there when I left 3 years later 1960.

Wilson, Clifford - I was stationed at Geibelstadt from October 1955 to October 1958. I graduated from Air Base Defense School at Parks AFB, CA. I went to Europe on the Simon T Buckner, a troopship. When we arrived at Bremenhaben, we were put on a train and transported to Wurzburg. At Wurzburg, we were transported to Geibelstadt by AF bus. We couldn't help but wonder, "where is the base"? When we got to the main aget at Geibelstadt, the AP got on the bus and asked, "Any Air Police here"? There were 18 of us. He was happy to see us as the AP section was under manned. When Project Genetrix started we had to go after the balloons which came down in West Germany. One of the balloons was shot down right near the Czech border by a MiG. A recovery team (me included) went up near Hof to retrieve the "package" before the Soviets could come across the border and grab it. I still remember looking over my shoulder and making sure there wasn't a "Ruskie" watching.

When the U-2s arrived in 1956, we had to secure the runway so it could take off safely. I remembere one day there was a NATO exercise on the base, and there were many aircraft from different NATO nations there. A U-2 was pulled out and towed to the end of the runway (as was the normal thing). It was faced toward the end of the runway and fired up. The NATO personnel were flabbergasted when the bird lifted off in about 100 yards and went straight up, out of sight.

Giebelstadt was my first base and I enjoyed the tour. I remember the C-47 "Ruby Lips". When it was our time to DEROS, the bus that was to take us to Ramstein broke down behind the Base Ops hangar. Our Commander (don't recall his name) was a "gooney" pilot and flew us to Ramstein in Ol' Ruby Lips.