________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
of an airplane, or another one that was a little more buglike. As I mentioned, there were still
city blocks in Hanau that had rubble in them.
The populace was very friendly. There was not the kind of mix between the populace and the
military as there was later when I was a brigade commander, as I think about it. Then, I really
don't know how much interaction there was between my battalion commander--the higher-
ranking folks at that time--and the Germans. I do remember one very interesting experience
I had was when I was selected as the junior officer to accompany the battalion commander to
Koblenz to meet with a newly forming engineer battalion of the new Bundeswehr. Germany
had just reformed the Bundeswehr that same year. We had a very nice evening out, drank a
lot of beer, and ate a lot of good soup--interacting with a bunch of very fine German officers
who were just forming this new battalion.
Q:
Yes, this isn't that long after the war. Germany's still recovering during this period.
A:
That's right, it was still a recovery period. I did a lot of personal travel around because I was
interested in the area. We could drive to the Taunus Mountains nearby and we could drive
down to Wrzburg and see the very nice bridges and castles down there. Later we could drive
up to--I think it's the Hartz Mountains--and take my new Porsche and run it around the
Nurburgring. You could make a 14-kilometer spin around the Nurburgring for two marks.
You might be doing that and a Formula-one car would come up behind you, or maybe you
would pass a tour bus. Pay your money, and you get a chance to go around Nurburgring.
Q:
I wanted to turn back to your experience in the unit as a platoon leader, but I think you
referred to the fact that then you went on to be part of the company commander's staff?
A:
I was a platoon leader for a year and a half, and one of the interesting things at that time was
that the 3d Armored Division was a gyroscope division. It had come to Germany in the
summer of '56, and I joined in March of '57. There were only a few of us that came in as
individual replacements. After two years I was still one of the five most junior officers in the
battalion because it had gyroscoped over with a full complement of officers. Hardly anybody
left and it stayed with almost the same group of people for two and a half years. They then
left together in the summer of '59. So, opportunities didn't open up very well.
It was so much so that the battalion commander was even thinking of having some people
who had been pulled up to be company executive officers go back to be platoon leaders to
give other platoon leaders the opportunity to be company executive officers.
I was fortunate that I was picked to be a company executive officer, and I moved to E
Company, the bridge company, after about a year and a half in the platoon. I was ready to
move. I then spent about nine months as E Company's executive officer.
Of interest at that time in E Company, we did the field tests on a new equipment item called
the armored vehicle launched bridge [AVLB]. This had just arrived--the first time the
scissor bridge had been in a field unit. We did the field tests on the AVLB, which identified
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