3

DEFENDING THE WEST

1950–1953

The contest taking shape between the United States and the Soviet 

Union was a global struggle that involved Europe as one arena 

of conflicting interests. The United States’ policy of containing 

Soviet expansion reached beyond traditional European boundaries to the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey. President Harry S. Truman 

included Turkey in his speech of March 1947 and made the country one 

focus of Western defense against communism. The North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) included Turkey and Greece in its area of mutual 

defense and admitted them into the alliance in 1952.

The Berlin Blockade focused attention on Germany as the land in 

contention. In great measure the blockade had been the Soviet reply to 

an initiative to establish local government on a liberal democratic basis in 

the three zones in western Germany. The United States, Great Britain, and 

France had encouraged the Germans to draw up a constitution, hold elections, and create a representative government. The process culminated 

in September 1949 with the formation of the new Federal Republic of 

Germany. The Soviet Union responded with the declaration of a competing state, the German Democratic Republic, officially established just a 

month later.

All these events created a political framework for the presence of the 

U.S. military in Europe that was vastly different in 1950 than it had been 

in 1945. Beginning in 1950 the Army engineers had to develop airfields in 

Turkey and the support facilities to make flights from these bases possible. In Germany, they scrambled to find and construct facilities to accommodate the dramatic increase in troops stationed in there, an influx that 

also increased the need for dependent housing and support facilities. At 

the same time, the Army engineers had to adjust to the end of the occupation regime and to West Germany’s gradual assertions of autonomy, 

factors that influenced both the financing and the execution of military 

construction. The new relations translated into projects whereby the engineers contributed to the improvement of German communities in which 
64

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

the soldiers lived and worked. To protect against possible Soviet aggression from Eastern Europe, the European Command (EUCOM) also had 

to reconsider its lines of communication and logistical support. Adjusting 

the lines of communication stimulated more military construction for the 

Army engineers.

The Troop Base in Germany

The outbreak of the Korean War in late June 1950 profoundly shocked 

Europeans. They were acutely aware of the similarity between divided 

Germany and divided Korea. In September 1950, with the North Korean 

attack fresh in their minds, representatives of the NATO states met in 

New York and announced that they would consider any attack on the 

new West German state or on West Berlin as an attack upon themselves. 

They unanimously adopted a resolution that called for an integrated 

military force under a unified allied command to defend Europe. They 

also announced that they would increase the number of allied and U.S. 

military forces in Germany and position them without regard to zonal 

lines.1 This declaration—that the Western Powers in the coalition to defeat 

Germany just five years earlier would now defend the fledgling West 

German state—illustrated the dramatic changes in political conditions in 

Europe between 1945 and 1950. To accommodate the new strategic situation, the three Western Powers agreed to relinquish their military rights 

under the occupation regime and accorded the year-old Federal Republic 

of Germany the right to maintain their troops in Germany by invitation.

The new situation required the Western alliance to convert its military 

presence in Germany into a credible defensive force capable of repulsing 

an attack from the east. To achieve this status, the number of troops in 

EUCOM—by 1949 reduced to around 80,000 combat soldiers—had to be 

increased. Early in 1950 the Department of the Army authorized increases 

for Europe to take place late in the year and throughout 1951. The command anticipated a troop basis of 164,000 in four divisions plus support 

units, a figure that was surpassed in the first year. Troop strength almost 

tripled during 1950 and 1951; total military strength in EUCOM increased 

from 106,610 to 255,721.2 The personnel receiving support from EUCOM 

or United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), during 1950–1953 rapidly 

increased as the U.S. military expanded its presence and assumed its 

NATO responsibilities. Only among European civilian employees of the 

U.S. forces did the numbers decline substantially. (Table 1)

In September 1950 the commander in chief of EUCOM, General 

Thomas T. Handy, asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to mobilize a field army 

to command the additional troops. The Seventh Army, activated early 

in the autumn of 1950 as part of the overall plan to establish an effective NATO fighting force in Europe, set up headquarters in StuttgartVaihingen.3

 By 1 December 1950, the Seventh Army, headed by Lt. Gen. 

Manton S. Eddy, became the first fully operational American field army to 

exist in Germany since February 1947. General Eddy assumed the opera-
65

Defending the West, 1950–1953

Table 1

Personnel Receiving European Command Support 

1950 and 1953

 Percent 

 Personnel 1 Jan 50 30 Jun 53 Change change

U.S. Army 83,394 215,242 131,848 158

U.S. Air Force 19,244 37,453 18,209 95

U.S. Navy 400 1,115 715 179

U.S. civilian employees 6,681 6,257 –424 –6

European civilian employees 1,405 269 –1,136 –81

Labor service troops 22,664 26,449 3,785 17

Dependents 40,616 78,709 38,093 94

Total 174,404 365,494 191,190 210

Source: Historical Division, HQ USAREUR, “The U.S. Army Construction Program in Germany, 

1950–1953,” prepared by George Tays, p. 12.

tional authority of USAREUR over all Army units within the European 

Command. By the end of 1951 the Seventh Army contained two active 

corps—V Corps and VII Corps—with a total of five divisions. Between 

late 1950 and 1952 USAREUR continued to exist as the Army’s administrative command under EUCOM. Unlike the Seventh Army, the Twelfth 

Air Force remained independent of EUCOM, answering directly to the 

Department of the Air Force in the Department of Defense.4

Within the new command structure the engineers continued to operate as an element of the EUCOM general staff, but in a reduced status. 

When Brig. Gen. Don G. Shingler left his position as chief engineer in 

November 1949, troop levels in EUCOM had fallen below 100,000 and the 

position was downgraded. Shingler’s successor was Col. Willis E. Teale, 

who served as EUCOM staff engineer from 1949 to 1952. Only in the mid1950s, after the substantial buildup of troop strength to around 250,000, 

did EUCOM again designate the position for a one-star general officer.5

The American Zone in Germany

No command-wide construction program of any significant volume 

existed in EUCOM before the augmentation of troops began in late 1950. 

For several years the Engineer Division of EUCOM headquarters had 

engaged primarily in rehabilitating buildings and executing routine maintenance and repair. It had begun a modest program to construct family 
66

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

housing in 1949. By the beginning of 1950 the need to expand construction 

to accommodate the changing requirements of the occupying forces clearly called for changes in the management of engineer activity.6

 American 

military supplies stored in vulnerable positions near the borders of East 

Germany and Czechoslovakia had to be shifted to more tenable locations 

west of the Rhine to make them more secure and to shorten lines of supply. Both the repositioning of supplies and the increase in troop strength 

involved the Army engineers of the European Command in planning and 

executing major building programs.

In April 1950 EUCOM set up a planning board to oversee the construction projected to accommodate the imperative to return requisitioned 

property to the Germans. Representatives from the relevant EUCOM 

headquarters divisions—Seventh Army, Twelfth Air Force, and Naval 

Forces Germany—served on the board and set general guidelines for 

the construction program. In May the EUCOM Engineer Division took 

construction out of its Operations Branch and established a Construction 

Branch. The Operations Branch retained the responsibility to draw up, 

review, keep current, and approve specifications for construction and to 

establish policies, procedures, and standard specifications for the types of 

buildings under consideration.7

Once the Operations Branch had processed guidelines formulated by 

the planning board and approved by the EUCOM chief of staff, the plans 

moved to the Construction Branch. Projects then passed to the appropriate post engineers, who let the contracts and managed the construction. 

The Construction Branch supervised the execution of the contracts and set 

up inspection teams to aid post engineers in obtaining satisfactory work 

from contractors in the field.8

For several months after the reorganization in 1950, one person 

commanded both the Operations and the Construction Branches; but 

construction activity intensified with the outbreak of the Korean War 

and the anticipated augmentation of troop strength in Germany. As 

a result, EUCOM assigned Col. David H. Tulley to take charge of the 

Construction Branch in August 1950, a post he held for nearly two years. 

Contemporaneously, the Department of the Army assigned twelve engineer specialists to Tulley on temporary duty to equip EUCOM’s engineer 

staff to deal with the increase in construction. The department also authorized him to hire fifteen civilian engineers.9

The occupation statutes stipulated that Germany pay all costs of 

maintaining the U.S. forces, but the new partnership between the United 

States and West Germany made new arrangements imperative. During 

the early years of occupation, the Army had requisitioned private homes 

and state properties. American officials proposed that the German government now pay instead the costs of constructing new facilities. EUCOM 

formulated a five-year budget for construction that the U.S. high commissioner, John J. McCloy, presented to the German Ministry of Finance. The 

Federal Republic agreed to fund the construction as a long-term capital 

investment in real property that would revert to German use when the 
67

Defending the West, 1950–1953

Americans vacated it. EUCOM agreed to submit budgets yearly through 

the high commission to the West German government.10

As the building program got under way, German federal and state 

construction agencies raised objections. U.S. Army engineers, they complained, were cutting them out of the planning and bidding processes and 

dealing directly and exclusively with private German contractors. During 

the summer of 1951, American military leaders, West German government 

authorities, and the U.S. high commissioner held talks to work out procedures to include the German Government Construction Agency (Deutsche 

Bundesbauverwaltung, or DBBV) in the solicitation of bids and in negotiating with German firms for design and construction. Over the next several years the practice of including the DBBV in the contracting process 

formed the basis of the contracting system, dubbed indirect contracting, 

that evolved after the Federal Republic attained full sovereignty in May 

1955. In the early 1950s a series of bilateral agreements between EUCOM 

and the new West German government left the major part of U.S. military 

construction under Deutschmark (DM) funding.11

Including German government agencies in the process of design and 

in construction programs represented a precedent-setting step in adjusting relations between the United States and the new Federal Republic. 

Equally as innovative, the Germans began formally to propose alternatives when the Army requested use of a facility. As early as 1949 associations of citizens and communities had offered to finance and build 

housing for American military families in exchange for the return of requisitioned homes to their German owners.12 The practice continued on an 

informal basis throughout the 1950s, and it eventually grew into a major 

program labeled alternate construction.

Troop Housing

The impending influx of Army officers and soldiers posed the most 

immediate concern for EUCOM’s commander, General Handy, in 1950. 

Handy proposed a four-part program to alleviate the prospective housing 

crisis. He wanted an increase in the density of troops in existing casernes, 

the immediate rehabilitation of all available casernes, an accelerated turnover of casernes still held by the International Refugee Organization, and 

the rapid construction of semipermanent barracks facilities.13 To ensure 

space for the arriving soldiers, McCloy directed the West German government to make available eleven casernes in the U.S. zone by 1 November 

and another twenty-five by 1 December. McCloy’s directive hastened 

the German government’s plan to move the displaced persons out of the 

casernes. Speeding up the process gave the construction crews more time 

to repair and rehabilitate the facilities before troops began to arrive in 

1951.14

Handy charged three separate elements to cooperate on planning, 

setting priorities, and executing the construction needed to accommodate the augmentation of forces. The three elements included the director 
68

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

of logistics (G–4), the Construction Branch of the EUCOM/USAREUR 

Engineer Division, and the Logistics Division planning board that Handy 

had established in early 1950. The director of logistics was responsible for 

the overall plan of construction for the command. The planning board 

prepared forecasts, reviewed requirements for projects submitted by the 

military posts, settled priorities and locations for construction, and prepared the yearly construction budget submitted to the high commissioner 

for transmittal to the Federal Republic.

The EUCOM/USAREUR staff engineer, Colonel Teale, was responsible for establishing work procedures and specifications for projects. The 

Engineer Division approved projects, construction contracts, and construction budgets coming from the military posts. It provided detailed technical and administrative procedures for construction activities and prepared a master plan.15 Teale was the nominal superior to Colonel Tulley, 

who commanded the Construction Branch of the Engineer Division, but 

Teale was ineffective. The newly arrived Communications Zone (COMZ) 

commander in France described him as “a sad-sack [who] has slipped 

immeasurably.” Under the circumstances, EUCOM’s chief of staff, Maj. 

Gen. Daniel Noce, an engineer officer, instructed Tulley to take charge 

of the construction program and to report directly to him while keeping 

Teale informed.16

With Noce’s active encouragement and support, Tulley visited every 

military post commander to explain the intensified construction mission 

and to get authority to deal directly with the post engineer on construction matters. Tulley also instituted emergency construction procedures. 

These emergency procedures specified that the bidding process include 

a minimum of three contractors and that the post engineer give contractors a tour of the project site, provide a written description of the project, 

and solicit a lump-sum proposal from each contractor. Provided that a 

post engineer observed these steps, the emergency procedures gave him 

authority to initiate contract negotiations and award the contract to the 

lowest bidder. By reducing paperwork and levels of approval, the procedure increased the tempo of activity and shortened the time it took to 

rehabilitate a caserne from six to four months.17

To facilitate coordination, troop units deploying from the United States 

sent advance parties to Germany to consult with the Construction Branch 

concerning their anticipated requirements. This practice established sound 

relations between the engineer staff and the eventual users of facilities, 

which persisted once the units arrived on site.18 Post engineers organized 

their staffs into branches for real estate, repairs and utilities, construction, 

and troop supply and field maintenance. The post engineer offices drafted 

their requirements and submitted plans to the Construction Branch of the 

EUCOM Engineer Division, which incorporated individual post projects 

into a master plan. Each project was identified as either new construction or 

rehabilitation, but projects from both categories progressed simultaneously.19

When Handy issued his guidelines in September 1950, U.S. forces 

held about 100 former German army casernes. In addition to the facili-
69

Defending the West, 1950–1953

ties provided by the German government, EUCOM received facilities 

from French occupation forces in their zone west of the Rhine, from the 

International Refugee Organization, and from the U.S. high commissioner 

for Germany.20

In February 1951 EUCOM headquarters requested through the Office 

of the High Commissioner that the German government make available for incoming troops fifty-two additional casernes located in the U.S. 

military posts of Augsburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Garmisch, Munich, 

Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Würzburg. In March and April EUCOM 

requested still more casernes. Simultaneously, EUCOM engineers proceeded to rehabilitate the casernes already under American control. Of 

the 158 casernes and other installations under reconstruction in 1951, 80 

were completed and occupied by the end of the year. During 1951 and 

1952 EUCOM obtained 169 additional casernes from the Germans, all of 

which the command engineers rehabilitated and repaired using German 

contractors. The contractors qualified through a standardized bidding 

process managed at the local level by the post engineers with the participation of the Engineer Division in EUCOM headquarters.

Concurrently with rehabilitation of casernes, the engineers managed construction of tent camps and cantonments designed to accommodate troops while more permanent facilities were being completed. 

Wildflecken, thirty miles north of Schweinfurt, received one of the first 

tent camps, constructed between 8 January and 10 April 1951 at a cost of 

In the early 1950s, U.S. troops moved into the refurbished Reinhardt Caserne 

in Neu Ulm, near Augsburg.
70

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

Despite austere guidelines for housing construction in 1952, Army engineers did 

build some amenities, including this enlisted men’s club in Pirmasens.

more than DM 5 million. A camp for 20,000 men served as a staging area 

for arriving troops after it was constructed at Sandhofen near Mannheim 

in the summer of 1951. Similar camps were put up near Mainz, Fulda, 

Giessen, and Baumholder in the French zone.21

In Grafenwöhr, the training area thirty-seven miles northeast of 

Nuremberg, an 8,000-man winterized tent camp constructed during 

1951 remained in use well into 1952. In Bremerhaven, construction on a 

5,000-man temporary tent camp used as a staging area for arriving and 

departing troops began 9 June 1952 and was completed on 1 December. 

All together the engineers supervised construction of nine tent camps in 

Germany between 1950 and 1953.22

The engineers also experimented in Grafenwöhr with another type 

of construction to house a division for year-round training. They used 

pumice stone for exterior walls and corrugated iron for roofs. Conceived 

as semipermanent and designed for rapid, inexpensive construction, the 

experimental buildings proved more economical than tents, because they 

cost less to maintain and could be upgraded for longer-term use. The 

buildings also improved sanitation. By June 1953 the engineers had used 

concrete or pumice block construction on twenty-three cantonments.23

The engineers installed the utilities and services necessary to support 

these developments. In Grafenwöhr, for instance, where the Army’s building program erected 250 structures in 1950, the engineers also constructed 

a reservoir and ten miles of sewer and water lines, installed water heat-
71

Defending the West, 1950–1953

ing units to furnish hot water on demand, and provided a system of new 

hard-surface roads. The cost of rehabilitation, cantonments, and tentcamps came to DM 832,683,600, the equivalent of $198.3 million, which 

represented 35.2 percent of the total spent on all types of construction in 

Germany between 1951 and 1953.24

None of this construction was luxurious by any measure. Standard 

allowances under emergency regulations permitted about 100 square feet 

per person in barracks, one showerhead per 20 men, one toilet for each 

15 to 20 men, and one 2-foot urinal trough per 20 men. Post surgeons recommended that window and door screens, largely unknown in German 

buildings, be installed to keep insects out of medical dispensaries, kitchens, mess halls, and other selected facilities.25 Army austerity occasionally proved penny-wise and pound-foolish. Despite warnings from the 

Germans, the Army engineers decided to save money by not applying 

stucco to troop barracks in Baumholder, relying instead on a cement 

slurry. When wind-blown rain arrived with gale force and penetrated 

the walls, it gave “the appearance of a shower bath” to interior rooms. 

Embarrassed, the engineers applied stucco.26

As of September 1953, USAREUR controlled 282 Army and 16 Air 

Force installations in Germany with a total capacity of about 406,000 beds. 

At that time the facilities housed only about 329,000, including labor service troops and other nonmilitary personnel. To use all of the available 

spaces, commands would have had to split military units, undermining 

their tactical integrity. The apparent surplus of spaces also included unusable facilities and hundreds of requisitioned facilities scheduled to be 

returned to the Germans.27

Bachelor Officers’ Quarters

Although a less pressing priority, building bachelor officers’ quarters (BOQ) proceeded at the same time as the barracks. The command 

received approval for construction of the first 6 BOQ buildings on 

13 December 1950; more were authorized in February. Construction 

began in April on 12 buildings of 68 rooms each: 4 in the Heidelberg 

region; 2 each in Heilbronn, Kaiserslautern, and Stuttgart; and 1 each in 

Mannheim and Ansbach. By July construction was under way at another 5 buildings, and the list of cities extended to Nuremberg. Six BOQs 

were completed by the end of 1951, providing 408 spaces. In March 

1952 the director of EUCOM’s Logistics Division proposed constructing 

an additional 52 BOQ buildings with 2,448 spaces, half of them for the 

Air Force; a month later he recommended that 8 buildings be added to 

the plan. Sites were added in Munich, in the Western Area Command 

west of the Rhine, and in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Würzburg, Schweinfurt, 

Bamberg, and Amberg.28

In the period from 1 April 1950 to the end of June 1953, the Army 

engineers supervised completion of 4,914 BOQ spaces at a cost of DM 53.9 

million (the equivalent of $12.8 million). USAREUR still needed 12,300 
72

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

Facilities constructed near Hohenfels in 1951 included this mock village 

for special training.

more spaces. Moreover, many of the facilities in use as bachelors’ quarters 

were in family structures or located at a great distance from duty stations. 

Thousands more spaces were earmarked for derequisitioning once West 

Germany achieved full sovereignty, factors that increased the overall need.

The task of providing BOQ housing became more complicated when a 

problem arose with the existing standard designs. The four-story design 

used during 1950–1953 exceeded USEUCOM’s new regulations for floor 

space per occupant. The two-story structures, while meeting the revised 

regulations, took from two to two-and-a-half times as much land area per 

person as the four-story structure. Moreover, German authorities objected 

to constructing them in urban areas because they considered the semipermanent cantonment design and corrugated roofs aesthetic eyesores.29

Troop Training Facilities

The augmentation of U.S. forces also imposed new requirements 

for troop training facilities. Even with the acquisition of Wildflecken in 

1949 to supplement Grafenwöhr, the terrain limited action to regimentsize units. The Seventh Army needed space to train division-size units. 

In October 1951, after long negotiations with the Federal Republic, the 

Army secured the use of an area near Hohenfels, southeast of Nuremberg. 

Initially about thirty-eight square miles, this area could eventually be 

expanded to seventy-three square miles. Further removed from the 

Czechoslovakian border than Wildflecken and Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels 
73

Defending the West, 1950–1953

was less vulnerable to sudden attack from the east and a less provocative 

location for large-unit training maneuvers.30

EUCOM had also entered discussions with the French to use jointly a large training area in Baumholder in the French zone west of 

Kaiserslautern. In March 1951 the two powers reached an agreement that 

allowed U.S. tanks and artillery to exercise in the area during specified 

periods. A part of the agreement provided that the Americans would 

build semipermanent camp facilities and permanent facilities for about 

500 soldiers, in addition to training facilities for use by soldiers from both 

nations.31

During 1952 EUCOM had major projects for construction or modification of training facilities active at five sites and smaller projects at 

over eighty locations in fifty different terrains in the French, British, and 

American zones.32 In Grafenwöhr, construction involved firing ranges for 

weapons from pistols to antiaircraft artillery, roads, hardstands for trucks 

and tracked vehicles, permanent quarters for 15,000 men, and concretefloored tents for another 7,000 soldiers. In Hohenfels, the construction 

plan provided for thirty-two ranges of various types; accommodations 

for 17,000 men (10,000 in semipermanent quarters and another 7,000 in a 

tent camp); a railroad terminal at Parsberg, about eight miles away; and 

surfaced roads from the terminal to the training area. By 30 June 1953, 

EUCOM had put over DM 35 million ($8.3 million) into the construction 

in Hohenfels.

More building went on in Wildflecken. Army engineers oversaw rehabilitation of facilities for 5,000 soldiers, upgrading of a 90-mm. stationary tank 

firing range, and construction of 30,000 square feet of hardstand. During 

1951 and 1952 in Baumholder, EUCOM constructed permanent housing for 

10,500 troops; semipermanent quarters for another 3,000; and firing ranges, 

roads, and courses for rocket launchers, rifle grenades, hand grenades, and 

close combat training. By 30 June 1953, EUCOM had spent about DM 17 million ($4 million) on construction in the Baumholder training area.

Late in 1952, by agreement with the British, EUCOM acquired the 

use of Todendorf, located in the British zone about 125 miles northeast 

of Bremerhaven. At this site, the Army engineers built firing ranges for 

tanks, a firing range and training area for antiaircraft units, and a semipermanent camp.33

These major areas dedicated to troop training, plus the eighty-two 

other small ranges and lesser facilities, cost about DM 93.3 million ($22.2 

million) between 1 January 1950 and 31 January 1953. This type of construction was particularly amenable to troop labor, and engineer troop 

units participated extensively, giving them training, speeding construction, and reducing the cost in Deutschmarks.34

Dependent Housing

During the early years of the occupation, American military construction in Germany, financed by the Germans as part of the cost of occupa-
74

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

tion, emphasized facilities for combat troops. Although dependents were 

permitted into the theater after April 1946, construction to accommodate 

them had been largely limited to rehabilitation and maintenance of existing facilities. Before 1950 only 324 new family units were built for military 

personnel; most military families lived in requisitioned or confiscated 

facilities—that is, private residences, including both houses and apartments. In 1950 American families, single officers, and civilians remained 

in possession of 20,000 units of housing scheduled for return to their 

German owners. The dramatic augmentation of troops in Germany and 

the concomitant increase in the number of dependents created an urgent 

problem for EUCOM. As requisitioned facilities were returned, housing 

needs became even more acute.35

By late 1950 the modest building program begun a few months before 

the outbreak of the Korean War had been overwhelmed by the changes 

in military planning, and EUCOM faced a critical shortage of housing. 

EUCOM was responsible for a long list of American civilians, including 

employees of Stars and Stripes, the Armed Forces Network, the dependent 

schools, EUCOM Central Welfare Fund, the American Red Cross, Douglas 

Aircraft Corporation, International Business Machines, the Esso Export 

Corporation, American Express, and other organizations that had some 

official service-related role.36 To accommodate the large number of eligible persons, the command placed arriving families in transient hotels 

or recreation centers in Bad Morgentheim and Bad Kissingen, both in the 

Würzburg area, and in Chiemsee near Munich.37 During 1951 and 1952 

By the early 1950s, facilities in Bremerhaven for troops, dependents, and supplies 

included family apartments and a theater.
75

Defending the West, 1950–1953

dependent housing took 25 percent of the construction budget in Europe. 

This was substantially less than the 56.5 percent that went into troop 

housing and training facilities in the same period, but almost three times 

more than the next-largest category, which included shops, technical service facilities, and depots (9.1 percent).38

At the outset of the new construction program, EUCOM had no 

standard plans or criteria for family housing units, so the command’s 

Engineer Division drew up plans. Because the United States agreed to 

turn the new buildings over to the Germans when no longer needed to 

support U.S. military personnel, officials insisted that twelve-unit buildings be designed for easy conversion into eighteen apartments.39 Later 

designs had four stories rather than three, included sixteen to twenty-four 

family units rather than twelve, and offered somewhat smaller quarters 

(1,215 square feet as opposed to 1,371 square feet). The later designs incorporated a different roof and a different arrangement of kitchens, bathrooms, and quarters for domestic help, making them more economical to 

build. All building types were designed as permanent construction, with 

basements of reinforced concrete, exterior walls of hollow pumice blocks, 

and interior walls of brick. The floors were concrete with a parquet hardwood overlay.40

Although the command scheduled slightly more than 4,000 apartment 

units for construction during April 1950–March 1951 (corresponding to the 

German fiscal year), by September 1950 it became clear that EUCOM would 

Engineers used ribbed-concrete floor construction for housing in 

Mannheim, Germany.
76

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

need another 4,000 units. In early 1952 another 5,000 units were added 

to the plans. The engineers hastened to capitalize on the availability of 

Deutschmark funding before West Germany’s pending sovereignty ended 

the country’s obligation to pay reparation costs, including construction. 

Translating the resolve into action meant that the building plan for dependent housing was revised several times during 1952 and the first half of 

1953 to include as many projects as possible. By 30 June 1953, EUCOM engineers had supervised the construction of just over 17,000 family housing 

units. (Map 7) In addition, between July and October 1953, Army engineers 

built about 2,000 units for Air Force and Navy personnel.41

The Helping Hand Program

Not all the engineer activity during the augmentation of U.S. forces 

benefited only the military. The soldiers themselves worked in a program 

labeled Helping Hand—part training, part community relations. In 1953 

alone Helping Hand involved an estimated $500,000 of work that was in 

effect donated to German communities.42

Wilhelmsfeld, a small community near Heidelberg, profited from a 

Helping Hand project. The community wanted a sports field and playground for its young people. The community had land available, but clearing and leveling the terrain with traditional German hand labor would 

have taken more time and money than the local government could afford. 

Through a U.S.-German advisory council set up at the military post to 

improve relations, the town requested the help of the Army engineers.43 In 

March 1951 personnel of the 77th Engineer Construction Battalion and the 

Engineer Field Service Center took heavy earthmoving equipment into the 

forest at the edge of the town. The soldiers moved thousands of tree stumps 

and tons of earth, working through Good Friday to the surprise (and probably the chagrin) of the Germans. On Saturday evening, with the work completed, the townspeople held a festival-celebration for the Americans. The 

local choral society sang, children performed, and town leaders bestowed 

honors on the men who had helped make their sports field a reality.

A more ambitious and far-reaching project took place in 1952 and 

1953 in Weingarten, a small community east of Karlsruhe and south of 

Heidelberg. The local government asked a unit of the 39th Engineer Group 

stationed in nearby Ettlingen to resculpt the farmland near the town. For 

generations the land had been subdivided among family heirs successively; small plots divided by hedges and shrubs severely limited the tillable area. Regional planners wanted to consolidate the strips into more 

efficient fields and settle new farmers on plots large enough to permit the 

use of farm machinery. A key to the plan was the use of the earthmoving 

equipment available to the Army engineers.

The project anticipated that the troops would survey the land, remove 

the topsoil, level the hedgerows and terraces, and then replace the topsoil. 

The community of Weingarten agreed to feed the soldiers during their 

workdays. The town mayor selected a local inn to provide food and drink 
Map 7

E A S T G E R M A N Y

LUXEMBOURG B E L G I U M

C Z E C H O S L O V A K I A

S W I T Z E R L A N D A U S T R I A

F R A N C E

N E T

H E R L A

N

D S

D E N M A R K

W E S T E R N A R E A

S O U T H E R N A R E A

H Q

A R E A

N O R T H E R N A R E A W I E S B A D E N

M I L I T A R Y P O S T

Neubrücke

Idar-Oberstein

Baumholder

Zweibrücken

Landstuhl

Pirmasens

Vogelweh

Münchweiler

Kaiserslautern

Heidelberg

Mannheim

Karlsruhe

Worms

Frankfurt

Wetzlar

Giessen

Bad Nauheim

Büdingen

Gelnhausen

Hanau Bad Kreuznach

Oppenheim

Kirchheimbolander

Babenhausen

Darmstadt

Mainz

Fritzlar

Hersfeld

Würzburg

Aschaffenburg

Wertheim Kitzingen

Bamberg

Stuttgart

Vaihingen

Nellingen

Bad Cannstatt

Ludwigsburg

Möhringen

Böblingen

Heilbronn

Schwäbisch Hall

Crailsheim

Ellwangen

Schwäbisch Gmünd

Göppingen

Scheyern

Bad Tölz

Landshut

Munich

Garmisch

Straubing

Hohenfels

Regensburg

Schwabach Ansbach

Herzogenaurach

Fürth Nuremberg

Berlin

Bremerhaven

Neu Ulm

Leipheim

Gablingen

Augsburg

Erfurt

Dresden

BERLIN

Hannover

Hamburg

Bremen

Cologne

Metz

Mulhouse

Pilsen

Innsbruck

Leipzig

Rhine R

Elbe R

WEST GERMANY

FAMILY HOUSING

U.S. ARMY, EUROPE

30 June 1953

Area Command Boundary (approximate)

Family Housing Project Site

Other Project Site

0 50

0 50 100 Miles

100 Kilometers
78

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

for the soldiers. The innkeeper’s daughter, who spoke good English, acted 

as an interpreter for the enlisted man supervising the surveying, Robert 

Rodehaver. Town officials communicated with Rodehaver through the 

interpreter, and he informed the engineer troops of the jobs covered by 

the plan. The troops moved equipment and earth over several hundred 

acres, transforming the farmland in a revolutionary way. After his tour in 

Germany, Rodehaver went home to Wisconsin accompanied by the innkeeper’s daughter, whom he married. In 1959 they returned to Germany, 

where he built a long career as a civilian engineer for the Army.44

Not all Helping Hand projects ended as happily as Rodehaver’s story. 

In the small town of Busenbach, also near Karlsruhe, the 291st Engineer 

Company from nearby Ettlingen began work on 12 September 1954 to 

help widen a footpath from the railroad station into town. A year earlier 

this group had built a soccer field for the town.45 This time, four days after 

the work began, an Army bulldozer hit a tank mine left from the war; the 

explosion killed the operator, Pvt. Roy L. Mattson. To honor the young 

soldier’s memory, the town erected a monument. Contributions from 

people in fifteen communities that had been assisted by the Army engineers helped finance the memorial, and the leaders of Busenbach invited 

Mattson’s parents to Germany. Neither the Mattsons, who worked a dairy 

farm in Minnesota, nor the communities that funded the memorial could 

afford the cost of a transatlantic flight, but the Minnesota congressional 

delegation persuaded the Pentagon to arrange a flight for the family.

On 13 February 1955, Private Mattson’s parents attended the dedication ceremony in Busenbach. The German county commissioner characterized the memorial as a symbol “for the peaceful and benevolent cooperation and understanding between peoples, [a symbol] that will serve to 

exhort us all to work together in peace, understanding, and freedom for 

the well-being and happiness of all peoples.”46

Peace seemed elusive in the early 1950s. The West Germans feared 

an invasion, and East German propaganda played upon their fear. After 

the fall of Seoul, the South Korean capital, East German leaders spoke of 

the impending collapse of the “Bonn puppet government” and evoked 

the prospect of trial in a “people’s court” for the pro-Western leaders.47

The construction managed by the Army engineers in Germany between 

1950 and 1953 gave tangible expression to the formation of a common 

defense for Europe and West Germany. More than bricks and mortar, the 

construction helped transform U.S.-German relations. The dollars spent 

on military construction provided a visible sign that U.S. forces would be 

present in Germany as long as a threat of invasion existed.

Building West of the Rhine

As more troops arrived in 1951 and 1952, construction of new installations proceeded at a frenetic tempo. Creating an entirely new base of 

operations in the Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz) typified the intensity of 

effort that accompanied the expansion of U.S. forces.
79

Defending the West, 1950–1953

More remote from a potential attack and more defensible because it 

lay west of the Rhine River, the Rhenish Palatinate had become the French 

zone at the end of the war. By 1950 the cooperation among Western states 

had made such distinctions unnecessary, and diplomatic representatives 

worked out agreements to shift U.S. forces, depots, and installations into 

the area around the principal city of Kaiserslautern.48 The Army transferred tons of supplies into this area from the exposed depots east of the 

Rhine. Along with the movement of materiel came scores of service and 

headquarters units.49

To accommodate the shift, the Army established its biggest supply 

base outside the continental United States.50 Beginning in March 1951 and 

spending more than $1.19 million a month, the post engineer of the new 

post, Col. George E. Pickett, managed work on an unprecedented scale. 

This work included construction and rehabilitation of troop housing, 

training, support, and recreational facilities; nine major technical service 

depots with related tactical supply points; radio sending and receiving 

stations; landing fields for light aircraft; medical facilities; and a host of 

other military installations.51 The program also provided 4,800 family 

apartments for the Army and Air Force, shopping centers, gasoline stations, motor-repair shops, schools, chapels, theaters, and clubs for both 

enlisted men and officers. The Army engineers oversaw all this construction between the summer of 1951 and the summer of 1953.52

When Lt. Col. A. M. Eschbach arrived in June 1951 as chief of construction in the post engineer’s office, very little planning had been done 

for the pending construction in Rhineland. Men, supplies, and equipment 

were arriving; and he had no facilities in place to accommodate them.53

Because no established U.S. military headquarters existed in the Rhenish 

Palatinate, Franco-American procedures for cooperation had to be worked 

out on the spot. To further complicate Eschbach’s task, the area was 

sparsely populated, its towns and small cities had been badly damaged 

during the war, and it remained a distressed and depressed area even in 

1951. Kaiserslautern supported a population of almost 60,000 in structures 

with evident war damage.54

The size of the undertaking, the need for speed, and the expansion of 

demands as the program progressed all made the buildup in the Rhenish 

Palatinate a challenge. Troops of the 2d Armored Division, who arrived 

during the summer of 1951, found the facilities they were to occupy still 

under construction. Some troops had to spend the 1951–1952 winter in tents, 

but many more were housed in hastily constructed semipermanent barracks. The engineers also rushed construction of depot facilities for medical supplies. Contractors rehabilitated a commissary to serve about 200 in 

September 1951. In July 1952 a new building opened to serve almost four 

times as many troops. In January 1954 a commissary opened with eleven 

times the capacity of the original.55 Such was the pace of expansion.

Throughout Germany, local workers and managers had difficulty 

dealing with American imperatives in fast-paced construction programs. 

Eschbach explained that German craftsmen and professionals “well 
80

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

understood what was meant by the word ‘rush,’ but not by [the concept 

of] ‘expediency.’”56 The Germans wanted to build carefully, solidly, and for 

the long term, but the Americans were under pressure to get the job done 

rapidly, economically, and with only semipermanent construction.

A lack of qualified personnel plagued the building program in the 

Rhenish Palatinate from the outset. Engineer officers were in short supply in 1951 because of a general shortage throughout the Army and the 

demands of the Korean War. As in Austria and elsewhere in Germany, the 

Army recruited civilians in the United States, but many were reluctant to 

take up residence in Europe, especially in the depressed Palatinate. Low 

unemployment in the United States made it difficult for the Army to offer 

salaries equivalent to those obtainable in industry and government. In 

October 1951 the building program west of the Rhine employed only 15 

percent of the American personnel deemed necessary for a project of its 

size. Only 20 percent of the requisite German personnel were on hand. 

Most of the laborers employed by German contractors came from outside 

the Rhenish Palatinate.57

To compensate for the chronically short supply of labor, Eschbach 

obtained permission to use troop labor. Most of the soldiers had no 

construction experience, but they proved willing workers. Teams were 

assigned on a ninety-day basis, but Eschbach requested several teams to 

remain for six months. The engineers also used the labor service units 

made up of former displaced persons from East European countries.58

Construction of a Shipping and Receiving Warehouse near Kaiserslautern, 

March 1952
81

Defending the West, 1950–1953

The infrastructure of the Rhenish Palatinate could not support the U.S. 

military construction. The electrical network was barely adequate to serve 

rural villages and some small factories in larger communities. To upgrade 

the Mangin Caserne, an old facility in Mainz, the engineers increased the 

expected electrical utilization from 400 to 2,000 kilowatts and increased 

the water system by 400 percent. The family housing project in Vogelweh 

on the edge of Kaiserslautern used an average of 870,000 gallons of water 

a day and produced 609,000 gallons of sewage. In Vogelweh, they created 

a separate water supply system and paid subsidies to Kaiserslautern to 

enlarge its existing sewage disposal plant. The increased demand on the 

electrical grid that served the area necessitated expanding the generating 

capacity throughout the region and increasing the transmitting capacity 

of the main and feeder lines. Similar problems existed for the road network. The rail network provided adequate lines, but the Army engineers 

had to build special freight yards and access lines.59

The plan to relocate U.S. troops to the Rhenish Palatinate called 

for developing medical facilities west of the Rhine, to the rear of any 

expected attack. The engineers built 1,000-bed hospitals in Münchweiler, 

Neubrücke, and Landstuhl and a series of large dispensaries. They also 

rehabilitated a former German military hospital and increased its capacity 

from 150 to 500 beds.60

As usual, hospital construction imposed a myriad of special demands. 

Each facility occupied a large area. Crews grading the terrain had to 

ensure that the slope for ramps would not exceed the maximum of five 

New facilities west of the Rhine included this family housing complex in 

Vogelweh, near Kaiserslautern.
82

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

Medical Facility under Construction in Landstuhl

degrees. The hospital structure—a central building with wings projecting 

out from each side—required a specially designed heating plant. Medical 

Corps personnel insisted that wards be oriented to achieve the most 

favorable conditions of light and air. Because hospitals operated with both 

German and American equipment, they had to be wired for both 110- and 

220-volt electrical circuitry. The air, gas, and oxygen supply lines required 

copper tubing. The terrazzo floors in surgery rooms had to be equipped 

with special copper screens grounded to prevent static charges from causing a spark that could ignite ether or other volatile substances. Cork flooring was installed in some therapy rooms to absorb and dampen sound, 

but the cork created maintenance problems. It could be cleaned only with 

a cold wet mop; the customary cleaning agent, hot soapy water, dissolved 

the glue binding the cork particles.61

At the beginning of the construction program in the spring of 1951, 

only a few hundred American military personnel served in the Rhenish 

Palatinate. By the end of 1953 more than 40,000 soldiers crowded the province, and more than 70 percent of the buildings used by the U.S. military 

had been built from scratch in less than three years. The building program 

cost approximately $250 million—half of it new construction—and at its 

peak employed an estimated 40,000 Germans. The construction program 

succeeded in creating the largest Army installation outside the continental 

United States. It provided apartments for 6,000 families, schools for 4,000 

dependent children, and facilities for the supplies that would flow from 

France in support of a force totaling more than 60,000 in the area.62
83

Defending the West, 1950–1953

Air Force Infrastructure in Turkey

In 1947 the U.S. government sought to implement the Truman Doctrine 

by sending military advisers to Turkey. Under the assistance program, the 

Joint American Military Mission for Aid to Turkey (JAMMAT) coordinated the work of several service groups—The United States Army Group 

(TUSAG), The United States Air Force Group (TUSAFG), and The United 

States Navy Group (TUSNG). Each group pursued its own particular 

activity in support of the Turkish military.63

In 1948 the U.S. Air Force began an ambitious program to develop 

facilities and upgrade existing bases in Turkey and to train the Turkish 

air force. After a year of effort the progress on the construction was 

unacceptable. Moreover, the inclusion of Turkey in the Mutual Defense 

Assistance Program of 1949 meant additional construction would be 

planned for the Air Force. To execute the Air Force’s construction program, one of the officers of the American Military Mission in Turkey, 

Col. Thomas H. Lipscomb, recommended creating an Army engineer 

organization comparable to an engineer district in the United States. 

JAMMAT adopted his suggestion and on 10 May 1950 established The 

United States Engineer Group (TUSEG) with headquarters in Ankara, 

Turkey’s capital. (See Map 8.)

TUSEG began working directly under the chief of engineers in 

Washington, D.C., but quickly passed to other Corps of Engineer commands: North Atlantic Division in December 1950, East Ocean Division 

in November 1951, and Mediterranean Division in February 1952. In May 

1954 the Joint Construction Agency under the commander in chief of U.S. 

forces in Europe took over responsibility for construction in Turkey and 

Greece. Through all its changes in chain of command, TUSEG’s character 

and mission remained essentially the same: construction and engineer 

support of U.S. Air Force personnel, bases, and electronic listening posts 

in Turkey.

TUSEG began with a small number of dedicated personnel. In part 

because the customs, religion, and mores of the local population created 

a living situation vastly different from either Europe or the United States, 

Americans assigned to work in Turkey developed a strong esprit de corps. 

TUSEG’s Central Office in Ankara never had more than fifty people, and 

the number of the staff in the field waxed and waned as projects came 

into the program. From the outset TUSEG faced a vexing problem of 

communications. The group always had project sites scattered around 

Turkey; it also had nonengineer agencies in its chain of command. Mail 

and telegraph services within Turkey were rudimentary and unreliable. 

Telephone communications, both within and outside the country, were 

discouraging at best, so contact with the supervisory office in the United 

States was rare. Radio equipment for inland communications had the 

potential to solve one aspect of the problem, but the Turkish government 

was reluctant to concede radio channels to the group. Air Force airplanes 

acted only intermittently as couriers.
84

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

TUSEG’s problems extended beyond difficulties of communications. JAMMAT had established a general supply depot near Ismir in 

Cumaovasi, to which construction equipment, much of it left over from 

World War II, was shipped in the late 1940s. When TUSEG’s engineers 

tried to draw construction equipment from the depot to begin their jobs 

in the early 1950s, they found that the American ambassador to Turkey 

had loaned essential pieces to the Turkish government’s Department of 

Public Works. The Turks resisted returning the equipment to the U.S. 

military engineers, and the chief of TUSEG had to struggle with Turkish 

authorities to recover the equipment essential to his mission. Other equipment had been assigned to the Turkish Air Force for projects unrelated to 

TUSEG’s priority tasks. When the engineers finally recovered it, much of 

the equipment had been destroyed by misuse. In one instance, the Turks 

had replaced brake fluid in a consignment of thirty trucks with normal 

engine oil, which had dissolved all the rubber parts in the brake system, 

making the vehicles useless.

The plan that governed TUSEG’s work during the 1950s projected construction or reconstruction at eight locations across Turkey: Diyarbakir, 

Eskisehir, Kayseri, Bandirma, Erzincan, Balikesir, Afyon, and Merzifon. 

The projects in Erzincan and Afyon were never built; the project in 

Kayseri, although begun, was quickly suspended and only completed 

much later. Other construction was added to the original program, notably in Batman and in Incirlik near Adana. By the summer of 1952, TUSEG’s 

work involved about $30 million in new construction. Subsequent additions brought the total for this phase to about $45 million.

From Truman’s speech in March 1947 through Turkey’s inclusion in 

the NATO defensive perimeter for Europe in the early 1950s, the country 

assumed a special place in the Western military and diplomatic planning. 

It lay on Russia’s border, and building bases there put U.S. military might 

within striking distance of the Soviet Union in the event of hostilities. 

Still, Europe constituted the primary focus of conflict between the United 

States and the Soviet Union during the early Cold War years, and the 

Soviet blockade of Berlin demonstrated how vulnerable Germany was to 

both military and political-psychological pressure.

New Lines of Communications

When Cold War tensions increased after the Soviet blockade of Berlin 

in the summer of 1948, the supply line for the U.S. Army of occupation in 

Germany and Austria became strategically untenable. The line stretched 

from Bremerhaven in northern Germany through Frankfurt into southern 

Germany and to Austria. It paralleled the frontier with the Soviet zone in 

Germany and the Czechoslovak border for its entire length at a distance 

of only about fifty miles. This location made it hard to defend even with 

large numbers of troops; reductions in U.S. troop strength made it impossible to defend the line of communications against any serious Soviet 

aggression.64
Map 8

Euphrates

R

Lake

Van

B L A C K S E A

Tigris R

Bandırma

Balıkesir

Afyon

Merzifon

Erzincan

Kayseri

Diyarbakır

Batman

Cumaovasi

Eskis ̨ehir

Izmir

Incirlik

Sevastopol' BUCHAREST

Burgas

Ortaköy

Çorlu

Çakmaklı

Istanbul

Köseköy

Izmit

Denizli Konya

ANKARA

Sinop

Trabzon

Adana

Erzurum

Mus ̨

Karatas ̨

S Y R I A

I R A Q

I R A N

U N I O N O F

S O V I E T S O C I A L I S T

R E P U B L I C S

B U L G A R I A

R O M A N I A

G R E E C E

C Y P R U S

TURKEY

THE U.S. ENGINEER GROUP (TUSEG)

1950s

Construction SitesGeneral Supply Depots

0

0

100 200 Miles

100 200 Kilometers

300

300
86

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

Military logic dictated a change in the lines of communications and 

supply. The first relocation came in relation to Austria, where since 1945 

U.S. forces had been supplied from Bremerhaven through Germany. 

EUCOM shifted the line of supply by making the port of Livorno, Italy, its 

starting point. From Livorno, the line ran through Verona and the Brenner 

Pass into Austria. Italy and the United States signed an agreement in June 

1951 to establish facilities to service this new line of supply.65

Similar concerns about the vulnerability of supply along the northsouth line prompted the commander in chief for Europe, General Lucius 

D. Clay, to seek authority in October 1948 to relocate his line of supply. He 

proposed a line across France and instructed his staff, including his chief 

engineer, General Shingler, to gather the information needed to begin constructing such a new line.66 In early 1949 staff began studying a route from 

Bordeaux east through France into Germany. (Map 9) Although the route 

was 650 miles long and would involve extensive construction, it had the 

advantage of being perpendicular to the projected front of battle in case of 

any attack and thus less vulnerable.

In October 1949, when the Western allies met in Washington to discuss 

military requirements to implement the North Atlantic Treaty, they formally endorsed a new line of communications and supply across France. 

In the spirit of cooperation that underlay the development of NATO, the 

French were willing to approve the relocation of the major supply lines 

through their country. Late in the year the State Department began diplomatic negotiations with France; a year later the two countries reached an 

agreement to establish and operate U.S. military installations in France.

In the negotiations the French government expressed special sensitivity to potential domestic political protests against the introduction 

of foreign military bases. German occupation during the war and criticism from the French Communist Party made any military presence a 

touchy issue. As a result, both parties agreed to use “line of communications” when referring to the buildup rather than Communications 

Zone, the label used during the war. By the summer of 1951 the ploy had 

served its purpose and the command in France was redesignated as the 

Communications Zone under the European Command.67 By mid-1952 

COMZ was a major command under USAREUR in charge of administering construction in France for the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy.68

From the beginning of the discussions, the French government insisted on sovereign control of activities on its soil. French contractors were to 

execute all construction on the network of rail lines, waterways, airways, 

highways, and pipelines necessary to supply the U.S. forces in Germany 

from ports in western France. The French government agreed to furnish 

supplies, services, and facilities at cost. All installations would pass to 

French ownership once the U.S. military no longer needed them. The 

Army would supervise construction—that is, establish specifications, 

approve plans, let contracts, and conduct technical inspections—but 

it could neither use American contractors nor deal directly with local 

French contractors. It had to deal with French contractors through French 
Map 9

Seine R

Seine

R Loire R

Marne R

Rh

ni e

R

hR

nô

R

e

B a y

o f

B i s c a y

Cherbourg

Le Havre Rouen

Dreux

Chartres

Orléans

Trois-Fontaines

Strasbourg Nancy

Toul

Vitry-le-François

Verdun

Metz

Châlons

Reims

Fontainebleau

Melun

PARIS

Kaiserslautern

Saarbrücken Pirmasens

Lyon

Turin

Geneva

BERN

Dijon

Troyes

Le Mans

Tours

Chinon

Saumur

Angers Ingrandes

Nantes

Donges

Le Croisic

St. Nazaire

La Rochelle

Poitiers

Périgueux

Bussac

Rochefort Fontenet

Angoulême

Braconne Limoges

Brest

Caen

Mérignac

Captieux

Bordeaux

I T A L Y

S W I T Z E R L A N D

BELGIUM

W E S T

G E R M A N Y

LUXEMBOURG

LINES OF COMMUNICATION

FRANCE

1950s

POL (Petroleum, Oil, Lubricant) PipelineRailroad

0 50

150 0 50 100 Miles

150 100 Kilometers
88

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

military and civilian agencies.69 This indirect contracting system anticipated the similar arrangement that emerged in West Germany after 1955. 

The establishment of sovereign control by the host nation became an issue 

wherever the U.S. forces built during the Cold War.

The extensive work in France required the establishment of a new 

American military unit. On 1 December 1949, in anticipation of the successful completion of negotiations then under way between France and 

the United States, the European Command established the 7966th EUCOM 

Detachment. With headquarters in Paris, the detachment succeeded the 

Graves Registration Command that had been active in France since the 

end of the war. The detachment’s initial mission was to prepare, develop, 

and operate the line of communications across France.70 Because the Air 

Force would be involved in developing facilities in France, Air Force officers were added to the staff of the 7966th EUCOM Detachment in January 

1950, making it almost from the start an interservice unit.71

Brig. Gen. Howard L. Peckham commanded the detachment initially, 

with Col. Mason J. Young as his engineer. They organized the staff to handle and convey 100,000 tons of supplies arriving each month in Bordeaux 

and La Rochelle to Germany by rail or to depots in France. The detachment 

had to construct supply depots and other installations to receive these supplies. By the end of January 1950, U.S. military engineers working with 

French counterparts had selected sites in Bordeaux, Rochefort, La Rochelle, 

Fontainebleau, Verdun, and Metz. Eventually, the line of communications 

included installations in Orleans, Toul, Chinon, Angoulême, Ingrandes, 

Saumur, and other locations. In April, Young became commander of the 

7966th, and he was promoted to brigadier general shortly thereafter.72

From the start the detachment operated shorthanded. Although established with 1,000 military positions, it suffered personnel losses almost 

immediately because of existing policies aimed at reducing military 

positions in Europe. The detachment did not reach full strength until 

late 1950. At year’s end, the 7966th moved its headquarters from Paris to 

Orleans and received the additional mandate to provide logistical support 

for the American contingent at the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers 

Europe, just being organized in Paris.73

American military strategists were eager to start storing supplies in 

France. They quickly ordered an ordnance company and a quartermaster 

truck company from Bamberg and Mannheim, respectively, to form a 

300-vehicle convoy to pick up rations and several hundred tons of ammunition from dumps in exposed positions in Germany and move them to 

Bordeaux. The convoy arrived on 11 November 1950. Later that month, just 

days after the agreement with the French had been signed, the Americans 

rerouted to Bordeaux three ammunition ships headed for Korea through 

the Panama Canal. Unfortunately, neither the port of Bordeaux nor a storage site for the supplies was prepared to receive the materiel or the 1,000 

men from the convoy.74

The location chosen for the first ordnance depot was Captieux, about 

sixty miles south of Bordeaux. The site in Captieux had the political 
89

Defending the West, 1950–1953

advantage for the French government of being government-owned land. 

It had been a military base since World War I and therefore no local landowners had to be displaced. On the negative side, the terrain in Captieux 

was a huge bog. Because of the composition of the soil and a water table 

just two feet below the surface, ground water could not drain away. 

Access roads and rail lines were not yet in place, and the heavy rains of 

November 1950 threatened to wash out the roads that did exist. The buildings left from earlier military use were no more than stone shells. The 

roofs and interior appointments had been stripped off and sold by the 

Germans during their occupation of France in World War II.75

The rains continued through February, turning the area into a gigantic 

mud bowl. Despite water everywhere, drinking water for the men in the 

camp had to be brought in from twenty-four miles away. Although the 

site was inappropriate and preparations inadequate, Captieux received 

sixty railroad cars daily for the first six months of 1951, each loaded with 

ammunition. Much of the ordnance sat along the soggy roadside.

By summer a profusion of insects infested the area; Captieux became 

known as “the Siberia of France.” In September 1951 the 83d Engineer 

Construction Battalion, which had arrived in late May as the first construction battalion assigned to France, began to drain the area. With bulldozers, cranes, draglines, and a supply of mosquito netting, they dug over 

eight miles of drainage ditches; the principal ditch was over four-and-ahalf miles long. It took another year before the site began to resemble an 

adequate facility.76

Construction of the line of communications across France began badly 

in Captieux, and progress was distressingly slow. In January 1951 EUCOM 

learned that Congress had appropriated $51.5 million for the construction. 

By the end of the year, EUCOM had committed just over half ($29.4 million) to specific projects. More than eighty projects had been authorized 

for 1951; by year’s end, fourteen were completed and only fifteen others 

under way.77

To account for this unsatisfactory pace the engineer’s office in Orleans 

listed twenty-one factors that contributed to delays in construction. The 

list included differences in language and culture, absence of heavy construction equipment and power tools, limited experience of the French 

construction industry with large-scale projects, tardiness and absenteeism owing to poor local transportation and living conditions, excessive 

bureaucracy on both the American and French sides, and restrictions—

which the American engineers identified as “beaux arts”—imposed by a 

French government agency charged with the aesthetic protection of the 

French landscape. The engineers ventured a prediction: “It is doubtful 

that our program will be completed within time schedules thru contractual sources in France.”78 Two years later a journalist from the Saturday 

Evening Post visiting the line of communications found the same problems 

still evident.79

Delays continued during 1951 because the Americans kept expanding the scope of the line of communications. At the same time they hoped 
90

Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

In the early 1950s, U.S. troops in Trois Fontaines lived in tents and prefabricated 

barracks, often under snowy and muddy conditions.

to negotiate a new agreement with the French. The French refused to 

renegotiate. Continuing American pressure on the French did nothing to 

improve relations.80

Poor planning, inefficiencies, and delays meant that U.S. troops arriving in France in 1950 and 1951 found only marginally adequate shelter. For 

the first winter the men used tents; only one of the barracks made available by the French had central heating. Even in the winter of 1951–1952 

nearly 10,000 soldiers still bunked ten to a tent. The Army engineers winterized the tents with wooden floors, siding of wood and tarpaper, and 

a stove at each end, but they were no substitute for permanent housing. 

Moreover, many tent camps were without conveniently located running 

water. With inadequate paths and roads, the soldiers remained mired 

in the mud.81 American military dependents in France fared little better. 

They faced an almost total lack of housing and no schools, hospitals, or 

service clubs. Because of the rapid influx of personnel, the rental market 

was tight and overpriced.82

In seeking to build the line of communications across France, the 

Army engineers fought more than mud, insects, and tight French control 

of the construction process. They also faced interservice rivalry: The U.S. 

Air Forces, Europe, had an agenda for construction in France that did not 

always coordinate well with the agenda of the Army. Air Force personnel participated on both the staff of the 7966th EUCOM Detachment and 

the staff of COMZ, but the Air Force chafed under the arrangement that 
91

Defending the West, 1950–1953

placed military construction in France in the hands of what they considered an essentially Army command. Starting in December 1950 the 

Air Force had done its own site surveys for airfields in France. In April 

1951 the Air Force announced that it planned to build its own line of 

communications and supply, raising the prospect that the two services 

would “collide and compete” for contractors, heavy equipment, materials, 

and supervisory personnel.83 Early in 1952 the Air Force opened its own 

Construction Office in Paris and engaged the services of an engineering 

company, Construction Management Engineering Associates, to manage 

the Air Force’s construction program in France.84

It was not just the Air Force that contributed to competition for personnel and supplies. In 1951 six independent U.S. military commands 

operated in Europe.85 All were participants in the rapid expansion of 

forces. All needed construction and needed it quickly. All wanted rapid 

responses from the builders, but they were incapable of setting firm 

programs for the engineers and contractors to follow. During 1951 and 

1952 COMZ’s engineers received ten revisions of the Army’s construction 

program. Air Force specifications changed as often. These constant redefinitions of requirements led to logistical confusion, escalating costs, and 

ever-increasing postponements of completion dates for specific projects.86

In addition, the COMZ engineers trying to push construction forward 

had to contend with the French. On many of the air bases, construction 

plans called for American engineers to build such elements as operational 

pavement and hangars for U.S. aircraft, barracks for U.S. troops, and similar support facilities. These were, however, supplementary to French construction, which provided the basic construction and facilities for the air 

bases being built for use by NATO. The U.S. construction was thus dependent on the progress of French construction, and American commanders 

had no power to hurry their French colleagues.87

The U.S. military construction in Europe and in North Africa, combined with the demands of the Korean War, strained the capacity of the 

Armed Services to manage the program and of the foreign economies to 

absorb it.88 In France alone, the American military had launched a halfbillion-dollar construction program. The line of communications was 

planned initially to store supplies for an army of 100,000 men for forty-five 

days and within two years to expand to supply 260,000 men for sixty days. 

In 1950 there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. military personnel in France to 

manage this extensive program. Unlike the situation in Germany during 

the occupation, the U.S. military had no authority in France to requisition 

land and facilities. The Americans viewed the French construction industry as stolid and uncooperative. It was certainly overtaxed by the construction load stemming from the expansion of U.S. forces. By April 1952 

forty-two projects, each worth more than $100,000, had been contracted, 

but not one had been completed on time.89

In the face of these obstacles, the line of communications was only 

haltingly taking shape across France. At Camp Bussac, twenty-nine miles 

northeast of Bordeaux, the 83d Engineer Construction Battalion built a 
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Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

water system for 3,000 troops. The engineers established a water purification point and laid out a system of pipes across the post to distribute 

water. They repeated the work in Chinon, where they added a water cistern on a ten-foot tower that created enough pressure from gravity to distribute the water throughout the post.90 In Bordeaux, this unit converted 

an old Ford Motor Company plant for use by the Air Force. The buildings 

had been heavily damaged during the war and needed concrete floors, 

reinforcing for walls, and windows. At the Merignac Air Force Base just 

outside of Bordeaux, the 83d also furnished utilities and equipment for 

French prefabricated buildings that were used as mess halls and latrines. 

Its personnel surveyed about a dozen different campsites throughout 

France for placement of prefabricated housing.91

Other sites also came on line: a tank farm at Toul, an engineer depot 

at Chinon, ordnance storage at Angoulême, quartermaster facilities at 

Metz, signal corps facilities at Saumur and Verdun, and a pipeline to 

transport petroleum products from western French ports into Germany. 

When the military exercise Combine was held in West Germany in the 

autumn of 1951, military materiel traveled along the line of communications across France rather than along the Bremerhaven line.92 By 1952 over 

fifty American installations dotted the supply line from Bordeaux to the 

German border.93

The results of two years of effort were not, however, commensurate 

with either the need or the money available for the line of communications in France. With the confusion of the ever-changing construction 

programs, the waste and friction of the interservice rivalries, and the 

slowness of progress traceable to problems with the French system, 

the enterprise was clearly floundering.94 Although EUCOM created the 

Communications Zone in mid-1951 to manage the augmentation of U.S. 

forces in France and to oversee the construction of the new line of communications, it failed to staff it adequately. When Maj. Gen. Samuel D. 

Sturgis assumed command of COMZ in early 1952, he found that the 

officer contingent assigned to him represented only 5 percent of EUCOM’s 

officer strength, but that it carried 40 to 45 percent of EUCOM’s officer 

shortage. In his judgment, COMZ was so understaffed that maintaining 

a coherent construction program remained virtually impossible. He spent 

the balance of the year working to correct the command’s shortcomings. 

In November 1952 Sturgis succeeded Lt. Gen. Lewis A. Pick as chief of 

engineers and returned to Washington.95

The incessant delays in France prompted officials in Washington 

in 1952 to propose that they establish a single agency to act as the 

Department of Defense’s executive agent for all construction within the 

authority of the commander in chief for Europe. Beginning in 1953 management of all military construction in Europe—except Germany—would 

be brought under one team with representatives from the Army, Air 

Force, and Navy working under the Secretary of the Army.

By the end of 1953 the U.S. Army engineers working under the 

European Command had extended their support network into Turkey. 
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Defending the West, 1950–1953

They had begun to construct bases in France to oversee the new, more 

secure line of communications from the Atlantic into Germany. They had 

also established an American military presence of impressive dimensions 

within the French zone of occupation in the Rhenish Palatinate and, in 

the U.S. zone, built the facilities necessary to handle the rapid increase of 

American troops and personnel from fewer than 100,000 to over 250,000. 

Work in France would expand throughout the rest of the decade; in West 

Germany, the engineers would face the adjustment necessary to cope 

with the establishment of political autonomy, the lifting of the occupation 

regime, and, accompanying that change, the end of Deutschmark funding 

of the American military presence.