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The company barracks, motor pool and TTB was located in the northwest corner of the base. We shared the motor pool and maintenance bays with an artillery battalion, the7A 3F-37. The base had everything. A clinic, NCO and officer clubs, PX and a movie theatre. We loved our location because we had the pro shop/restaurant of the golf course 100 yards from our barracks. It was more for the local Germans but we used it as our �own� club.
We were TTB. We�ll see from the bumper on one duce and a half this marking. You can also make out the sign on the detachment wall in another. Det B ran an emergency help truck (civilian style) along the autobahns in our area for break downs.
I also saw a sign which we kept in the barracks that the longer serving members of the 77th took off the last truck they drove out of France. It was a large white sign with two lines. The top line said �Lafayette Old Boy�, then a large green frog sitting in the middle of the sign, followed by a line on the bottom �We Tried!� Sorry, no photo but that�s what survived the move to Dachau.
It was a diverse group of guys. Oregon, Mn, Ohio, Cal, NY. Older and real young. White, black, latino, American Indian. It was the late 60�s so we had a lot of peace signs going on (note the photos). The company consisted of 4 truck platoons, a maintenance platoon, and headquarters platoon. Pretty basic.
We had our million mile drivers and a few accidents (see photo). We also had one fatality. The cab looked twice as bad as the one in my photo. Germany had (and I don�t know if France had) many high crown cobble stone roads. Very slippery in the rain and snow. This driver lost control and smashed into a tree
Some of the towns the 77th went to were Augsburg, Bad Tolz, Landshut, Wurzburg, Giessen, Nuremberg, Bamberg, Darmstadt, and of course Munich.
Many of the building on our side of the base were closed for many years at that time. The area always very quiet lending to the eerie feeling since the concentration camp was very close. There were many stories of ghosts and sounds in our building. I and friends experienced them. Most of these have been knocked down by the Germans, including most of the 77th�s buildings.
I drove for a period of time for the 77th, then was transferred to headquarters platoon to fill a vacancy. When they were preparing to deactivate the company they sent me and a few others to Battalion. The rest of the company was split between the remaining companies or rotated state side. We heard (not officially ) that the Germans were seeking to remove the US Army foot print in the area before the 1972 Olympics
Azbill barracks was basically two large buildings. Headquarter�s offices and their barracks in one and the 78th trans company and mess hall in the other. There was a large field in front ( see command change photos ) and the motor pool and TTA behind. We had no other support there so we were forced to go to Wiesbaden AFB for medical and PX services. They ran a small club in the Headquarters building but that pretty much died. As you see from google maps the base has been wiped away by the Germans accept for the building we used for the headquarters. Time marches on.
I helped run the coordination of trailer deliveries through our LOC with 5 other NCO�s. I never got to see the new IHC 4070 tractor before I rotated back in March of 1971. Like I said before I wish I knew the history of the battalion then. You know, when you�re in it can be awful sometimes and great other times. You meet a lot of people, good and bad. But years later, it sure seems better. I got to travel to Amsterdam, Spain, Garmisch, the German alps and a little of France on leaves.
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