Engineer Memoirs
evacuees were to pick up a packet in their car and follow preselected routes into France. We had
to practice that. There were a variety of things going on that kept us in some state of readiness,
and the Engineer School was particularly important.
The Engineer School in Europe presented a very nice curriculum patterned after Fort
I
don't think it was unusual at that time to have schools. I'm not clear on where all the other
schools were but I know the Intelligence School was at Oberamergau.
Q .. Was the school responsible to the theater engineer?
A .. Yes. The school commandant reported to the Engineer, U.S. Army, Europe, in those days. He was
at Heidelberg, and that's where we'd take the budget. I had to go to Heidelberg frequently on
business.
Q .. You were there during a period of pretty dramatic change in Germany in terms of rebuilding after
the war, I guess.
A ..
Yes.
Q .. From 1949 to 1952, you saw a lot of changes over those three years.
A .. Well, yes, that's interesting because when we were in Japan, by now five years earlier, Japan had
done more clean up in 1947 when I left there, it looked to me like, than the Germans had done
in 1949 when we got to Germany or even when I left.
Q .. That's interesting.
A .. The Japanese, though, went about their clean-up operations on a national basis. Every individual
picked up pieces of tin, brick, et cetera. They'd stack it all up by the various categories of material
and it would get hauled away on bicycles and coal-burning trucks and everything else. They had
done quite a job of putting things in order in Japan quickly. In Europe I didn't feel that they'd
been quite as aggressive in that.
We saw a lot of other changes in Germany. For example, when we arrived-they were using the
reichmark, which was the old German money. There was so much black market going on that they
converted that to the deutschmark and gave us scrip, which was at that time pegged about four
to one, .20 in DM scrip to
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in U.S., I think it was.
1. The Engineer School in Murnau had less trouble
Of course, the Army was integrated in
integrating students than we would have had integrating in the troop units, I expect. I don't know.
In Guam I commanded a company of only black soldiers while the officers were white. I thought
integration was the right thing to do and it proved out that it could be done, of course.
Q .. Did you have German civilians in the school there?
A .. As students, no, but my civilian staff as S-4 were all Germans except Fritzinger. Later one other
American arrived, a Mr. O'Brien. The Engineer School staff included many Germans. Some of
the professors were German. We had two German doctors at our little dispensary and they were
quite good. I had firsthand experience when our son fell off and cut his head on the coffee table.
They put stitches in him and you can't even see where, they did such a good job.
The school buildings were in bad shape because of the war and neglect, so we did a lot of
rehabilitation. The houses were nice, however, and the service facilities were good
Q .. Did you have trouble finding German contractors to do the work?
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