7

THE TRANSITION PERIOD 

1974–1978

The establishment of the United States Army Engineer Division, 

Europe (USAEDE), on 1 July 1974 marked the first time that the 

chief of engineers rather than the theater commander controlled 

contract construction for U.S. forces in Europe. Although the 

line of authority and command governing engineer services was new, 

the tasks remained much the same. On both sides of the Atlantic, people 

worked to make the transition from the United States Army, Europe 

(USAREUR), to the Corps of Engineers successful, to redistribute the 

resources of the Engineer Command (ENGCOM), and to reorganize 

USAREUR’s other support services. The organizational changes affected 

thousands of Americans and Germans working in Europe.

The Corps of Engineers introduced a new culture and a different way of 

doing business. The people working in Frankfurt and throughout the area 

covered by USAREUR already had years of experience doing business in 

Europe and thought that their experience would be valued. In spite of the 

tensions that developed, division personnel provided the services expected 

of them. On a purely administrative level, the reassignment of people and 

distribution of resources was completed quickly; but the transition period 

persisted through 1978, and turbulence and dislocation remained the dominant feelings recalled by those who lived through it.

Brig. Gen. James C. Donovan, serving under the USAREUR commander in chief, commanded the new division only until mid-August 

1974, when he was reassigned.1 It fell to Donovan’s successor, Brig. Gen. 

Louis W. Prentiss, Jr., to shape the new entity as an operating division of 

the Corps of Engineers. And it was the task of his successor, Brig. Gen. 

Norman G. Delbridge, Jr., to forge a cohesive organization from the “oldtimers” who remained and the “newcomers” from the United States.

New Management

General Prentiss, whose father had been deputy theater chief engineer under United States Forces, European Theater, in 1946–1947, report-
182

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

ed in Frankfurt on 1 September 

1974. He was the first division 

engineer to serve under the chief 

of engineers in Washington. 

Prentiss came to Frankfurt from 

Stuttgart, where he had served as 

commander of the 7th Engineer 

Brigade, VII Corps engineer, and 

community commander since 

July 1973.2 Prentiss graduated 

from the U.S. Military Academy 

in 1950 with Donovan. As a new 

lieutenant, Prentiss served three 

years in Germany with an artillery unit. When he returned to 

Europe in 1973 as the staff engineer for the VII Corps commander, Lt. Gen. George S. Blanchard, 

Prentiss heard firsthand the dissatisfaction of the corps commanders with the Engineer 

Command.

The agreement of April 1974 transferring engineer functions from 

the commander in chief of USAREUR to the chief of engineers defined 

USAEDE’s responsibilities very generally: to plan, direct, and supervise 

design and construction of new military construction and family housing programs; to inspect and supervise design and construction carried 

out for the Army by host-nation agencies under indirect contracting; 

and to furnish design and construction services on a reimbursable basis 

as requested by USAREUR.3 Because USAEDE was an operating division, headquarters incorporated both the oversight and review functions 

assigned to a stateside division and the contracting and project management functions assigned to a stateside district. Civilian administrators 

from the Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE) had worked with the 

organization’s deputy division engineer, Col. Edwin S. Townsley, and 

other staff to create the structure.4 (Chart 10) Prentiss found the new engineer organization still in its formative stages.

Exactly how the USAEDE would fulfill the terms of the April agreement became one of Prentiss’ major concerns. Between April 1974 and 

January 1976, the division negotiated a dozen supplemental or implementing agreements covering such matters as USAREUR’s provision of civilian personnel and real estate services, base support, funding and billing, 

and the services that the division would provide to USAREUR regarding 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) construction and recoupment, Alternate Construction, and project development.5

Prentiss and division staff also had to establish internal operating procedures and mold the organizational pieces of the division into a functionGeneral Prentiss
183

The Transition Period, 1974–1978

ing whole. Adding to the challenge, the division was understaffed; and 

Prentiss faced low morale, changes in senior leadership, additions in territorial responsibility, and growth in the workload. Years later he recalled 

his tour as “a very difficult period, because nothing was normal.”6

The issue of what name the new organization would use was symptomatic of the need to define everything. Although officially designated 

the United States Army Engineer Division, Europe, the organization’s 

common names became European Division and EUD. After the Corps of 

Engineers became a major command in 1979, headquarters asked the division in Frankfurt to use the name Europe Division. EUD continued to be 

the most frequently used short designation.7

Administrative tasks in the early weeks included organizing recruitment, drafting procedural documents, implementing Corps of Engineers 

reporting systems, establishing field offices, and purchasing equipment. 

This work was complicated by uncertainties regarding levels of funding 

and staffing and by changes in mission assignments.8

Area Offices

The 1974 reorganization of USAREUR created three regional commands—V Corps, VII Corps, and 1st Support Brigade (later 21st Support 

Chart 10: Organization of the Europe Division, 1974 

U.S. Army Engineer Division, Europe

Executive Office

Division Engineer

Office of the

Comptroller

Personnel

Office

Construction

Division

Contract

Administration Branch

Office

Engineering Branch

Supervision and

Inspection Branch

Procurement and

Supply Division

Contract

Branch

Supply

Branch

Automated Data

Processing Office

Office of

Administrative

Services

Office of

Council

Area Office

Frankfurt

Area Office

Stuttgart

Area Office

Kaiserslautern

Engineering

Division

Project

Management Branch

Budget and

Reports Branch

Design

Branch

Technical

Review Branch

Special

Assistants

Boards and

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

Command)—and each region became the focal point for the base support 

functions and the facilities engineering support previously provided by 

the Theater Army Support Command and ENGCOM. The headquarters 

of each region provided utilities and maintenance and limited engineering design to the community commanders who managed installations 

within the regions. (Map 14) The Europe Division provided support when 

engineering tasks exceeded the professional skills available through the 

regional staffs.9

By terms of the agreement between USAREUR and the chief of engineers, the Europe Division located area offices with V Corps headquarters 

in Frankfurt, with VII Corps headquarters in Stuttgart, and with the 1st 

Support Brigade headquarters in Kaiserslautern. During the first year the 

division headquarters struggled to provide personnel and administrative 

assistance for the area offices and their subordinate resident and project 

offices. Because of other priorities, the division gave staffing and support 

of the three area offices secondary consideration.10

Initially, military and civilian personnel who had served in 

ENGCOM’s resident offices staffed EUD’s field offices.11 Many of the 

positions previously held by military officers were converted to civilian 

slots. Nevertheless, the division had considerable difficulty stabilizing the 

military leadership in the area offices. In late 1974 Lt. Col. John L. Buxton, 

former comptroller of ENGCOM, was named area engineer in Frankfurt; 

Lt. Col. M. R. Carson served in Stuttgart. A civilian, E. M. Grigsby, served 

as acting area engineer in Kaiserslautern until Maj. Robert M. Faxon took 

over early in 1975. In July 1975 Maj. Brian W. Teates, Jr., replaced Faxon, 

and on 1 August Lt. Col. T. L. Doherty replaced Carson in Stuttgart.12 This 

rapid turnover of leadership in the area offices complicated the effort to 

achieve stability.

Despite the organizational changes in Frankfurt, field offices continued to oversee construction projects, even with inadequate administrative 

support. Jim Wise, a civilian from the Fort Worth District on temporary 

duty in Bad Kreuznach, reported that the secretary in the field office there 

had established a barter arrangement with local German contractors:

I was just flabbergasted, coming from a structured and long-standing organization in the States, [where] logistics is something you 

don’t even think about. Simple things like supplies—typewriter ribbons, paper, pencils, paper clips, all that type stuff—we couldn’t beg, 

borrow, or steal within the organization. Our people were typing letters for contractors in exchange for supplies!13

Dave Cox, assigned to the Würzburg resident office in late 1974, 

recalled the chaos of new procedures, the limited support, and difficulties 

acquiring and maintaining vehicles.14

The creation of a fourth area office severely taxed the division’s resources. In May 1975 EUD activated the Northern Area Office in Dortmund 

to manage two growing construction programs—aircraft shelters and 
Map 14

V C O R P S

V I I C O R P S

1ST SUPPORT

BRIGADE

1 S T S U P P O RT B R I G A D E

Frankfurt

Kaiserslautern

Stuttgart

BERLIN

Rhine R

Danube R

Elbe R

Main R

Rhine R

B A L T I C S E A

N O R T H

S E A

F R A N C E

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

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

E A S T G E R M A N Y

P O L A N D

D E N M A R K

S W E D E N

B E L G I U M LUXEMBOURG

LIECHTENSTEIN

N E T H

E

R

L

A

N

D S

WEST GERMANY

U.S. ARMY, EUROPE

1975

Regional Boundary (approximate)

Regional Headquarters

0 50

0 50 100 150 Miles

100 150 Kilometers
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Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

ammunition security—centered in the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern 

Germany. The chief of engineers, Lt. Gen. William C. Gribble, Jr., denied 

Prentiss’s request for an additional lieutenant colonel, but Prentiss obtained 

a transfer for Lt. Col. Roy A. Brown, who was already in USAREUR and 

eager to change assignments.15 When the new office opened, the other three 

area offices were renamed with geographic designations: the Central Area 

Office (Frankfurt), the Southern Area Office (Stuttgart), and the Southwest 

Area Office (Kaiserslautern).16 (Map 15)

EUD established a fifth area office when the Corps of Engineers reorganized military construction activities in the Mediterranean. Beginning 

in 1952 the Mediterranean Division had performed design and construction for U.S. forces and other U.S. agencies in Africa and the Middle East. 

Since 1957 it had also supervised construction for U.S. forces in Italy, 

Greece, and Turkey. By the mid-1970s, 90 percent of the division’s work 

had shifted to Saudi Arabia and work in Italy and Greece had declined. 

The work in Turkey all but stopped as a result of the reaction of the 

Turkish government to an arms embargo imposed by the U.S. Congress 

in the wake of the Turkish-Greek clash over Cyprus in 1974.17 In January 

1975 the Office of the Secretary of Defense circulated a draft audit report 

recommending a general reorganization in which the Mediterranean 

Division would merge with the Europe Division.18

OCE strongly objected to this suggestion and cited political, logistical, 

and economic reasons against the merger. Politically, Saudi Arabia wanted 

to have the engineer headquarters in its own capital. Logistically, EUD 

would be strained “beyond its capabilities” if it tried to supervise work 

from the North Atlantic to the Arabian Peninsula. Economically, OCE 

argued, the savings that had been predicted from consolidation were 

“greatly overstated.”19 USAREUR responded that while it had no particular interest in how the Corps of Engineers organized its work around 

the world, it had a strong interest in any change that would “bring all 

NATO construction functions under EUD cognizance.” USAREUR also 

expressed opposition to the transfer of any functions to Europe Division 

not related directly to NATO.20

Out of this exchange, the Corps of Engineers developed a plan to 

retain two divisions but to redistribute responsibilities. In 1976 the 

Mediterranean Division was inactivated and a new Middle East Division 

was established with its headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. EUD took 

over responsibility for military construction in NATO member states 

south of the Alps and established the Mediterranean Area Office at Camp 

Darby, near Livorno, Italy, with Lt. Col. Kermit Oelberg as area engineer.21

Personnel from the inactivated division staffed the office, which included 

a design section of about twenty Italians. By June 1976 EUD assumed 

management of the personnel and projects of the Mediterranean Division 

for work in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Portugal.22

The volume of work that EUD inherited south of the Alps was not 

large—construction placement between $10 million and $20 million annually in the 1970s—but the geographic expanse was considerable. Prentiss 
187

The Transition Period, 1974–1978

knew that supervising that work in the new countries added expenses 

and problems of communications and transportation to EUD’s budgetary 

and management responsibilities. He requested help from OCE to facilitate travel and communications, arguing that “bluntly, we cannot perform 

Map 15

Giessen

Stuttgart

Heidelberg Kaiserslautern

Bitburg Bad Kreuznach

Frankfurt

Würzburg

Hoensbroek (relocated site)

Dortmund 

(original site)

Jever

Nuremberg

Augsburg

N O R T H E R N A R E A

C E N T R A L

A R E A

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

A R E A

E N G L I S H

C H A N N E L

F R A N C E

A U S T R I A

S W I T Z E R L A N D

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

W E S T G E R M A N Y

E A S T

G E R M A N Y

D E N M A R K

S W E D E N

N E T H E R L A N D S

B E L G I U M

LUXEMBOURG

LIECHTENSTEIN

Leipzig

Hannover BERLIN

Hamburg

Zürich Dijon

BRUSSELS

AMSTERDAM

The Hague

FIELD ORGANIZATION

U.S. ARMY ENGINEER DIVISION, EUROPE

1975

Area Office Boundary (approximate)

Area Office Headquarters

Resident Office

0 50

0 50 100 150 Miles

100 150 Kilometers
188

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

the mission down there without an aircraft.” EUD finally received an airplane in late 1976, several months after Prentiss had left.23

Staff Continuity and Morale

A constellation of problems in the Europe Division’s headquarters 

confronted Prentiss during his first months at EUD. The division had four 

major categories of employees: military personnel, Department of the 

Army civilians (DACs), Germans, and dependents of other military and 

civilian personnel serving in Europe (dependent hires). The division had 

only a few military officers, all in supervisory positions. Some positions 

had been designated for German citizens, and these employees provided 

stability in the work force. Employees carried over from the Engineer 

Command initially occupied the positions designated for DACs, but division leaders had the most flexibility of recruitment and selection in this 

category.

In the transition from the Engineer Element to the Engineer Command 

in 1966, experienced civilian personnel had been encouraged to stay on, 

but in 1974 leaders at OCE in Washington thought that the transition 

offered “the opportunity to make some needed personnel changes in the 

engineer hierarchy then in Europe.”24 A 1973 study had suggested that 

personnel with long service who occupied top management positions 

in ENGCOM be encouraged to retire or to seek positions in the United 

States.25 The old-timers had experience in dealing with the unique problems of overseas construction, and many were fluent in German and other 

European languages; but they were entrenched in positions and at salaries 

that blocked new employees.

The first major personnel change came quickly. In the summer of 1974, 

John Tambornino, chief of engineering since 1956, decided to retire on 30 

November. OCE drew up the list of candidates for his position and included no one with experience working in Europe. Ralph Wheeler, assistant to 

the chief of construction at OCE, Frederick McNeely, emerged as the leading candidate; and General Donovan appointed him as chief of engineering. Other people from the Corps of Engineers subsequently filled top 

vacancies in Frankfurt; the lists that OCE prepared seldom included EUD 

staff or persons with experience in Europe.26 OCE’s priority was placed 

on familiarity with Corps procedures.27 Washington recruited employees 

from Corps districts and divisions in the United States to help institute 

the “Corps system” in Europe, and in the first several months forty-one 

persons took temporary duty assignments of ninety or more days in EUD.

The newcomers to Europe received no briefing or orientation before 

they arrived.28 The incoming chief of the Office of Administrative Services, 

R. L. Rousseau, described the situation in Frankfurt as “chaotic.”29 Jim 

Wise, who later returned to a permanent position in EUD, recalled that 

“there were a lot of people in a very limited space.... They were sitting 

out in hallways; where they were inside offices, you could barely walk 

between the desks.”30 Notwithstanding the confusion, many who came 
189

The Transition Period, 1974–1978

from the United States described their experience in the new organization 

as “exciting.”31

Those who had been working in Europe viewed the transition period 

differently.32 American civilians who had been recruited for work in 

Europe by the Corps in the 1950s and 1960s thought that they had always 

been a part of the Corps of Engineers “family.” William E. Camblor, who 

had served as director of the U.S. Army Construction Agency, Germany 

(USACAG), beginning in 1956, drew attention to this attitude during a 

1961 inspection tour by the visiting chief of engineers. Camblor explained 

that he had organized USACAG “along the basic lines of a normal stateside Corps of Engineers district.”33 The attitude of the newcomers distressed the old-timers, who felt their professional competency and their 

patriotism were being challenged. The choice of Wheeler—rather than 

someone already in Europe—to succeed Tambornino increased suspicions 

that Tambornino had been targeted for removal.34

Most of the several thousand Germans who had worked for the 

Engineer Command had served in facilities engineering. Those who 

joined the Europe Division worked in military communities, where they 

provided the new organization with valuable continuity in managing 

projects and in estimating, indirect contracting, real estate, NATO recoupment, and legal affairs. The attitudes of the newcomers also distressed 

these employees: “They said, this is not the way the Corps does it. They 

didn’t pay any attention to the fact that they are not in the States, [that] we 

are working under entirely different rules and conditions.”35

General Prentiss (left) with John Tambornino in November 1974
190

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

The newcomers had little knowledge of indirect contracting, little 

regard for the experience and knowledge of the old-timers, and little 

disposition to learn from their new colleagues. Almost two decades after 

the activation of the division, long-term employees spoke of the 1974 transition as “traumatic” and “horrible.” The adversarial atmosphere remained 

one of the strongest memories of the period.36

Division leaders soon realized that they did not have adequate staffing for their mission. General Prentiss thought that OCE had failed to 

take into account the difficulties of doing business in Europe, where staff 

had to observe both American and European design criteria. Also, indirect contracting required project managers to coordinate with layers of 

host-government agencies, and the language differences made translators 

and interpreters essential. These factors made EUD’s work more labor 

intensive than managing construction in the United States. The division pressed its recruiting effort to fill vacant positions with permanent 

employees. By March 1975 EUD’s staff had increased from the 280 who 

transferred from ENGCOM to just over 400. By the end of the year the 

staff numbered almost 500.37

In September 1975 the chief of engineers, General Gribble, told Prentiss 

to expect “some reduction in military spaces” in fiscal year 1976 because 

of ceilings that Congress had placed on the military. Prentiss protested 

that EUD needed more employees.38 A manpower survey conducted in 

mid-October confirmed that the division’s workload justified nearly 600 

employees, but Gribble informed Prentiss that the staff would remain 

below 500 for the foreseeable future. OCE suggested the continued use of 

personnel on temporary duty.39

In addition to the shortage of personnel, Prentiss had to deal with the 

growing concern in OCE over the position of women and minorities in 

the Corps. The command inspection team visiting EUD in September 1975 

advised the division to create an equal employment opportunity (EEO) 

function and a race relations program. Prentiss had begun to implement 

such programs, but he had so few people that he chose to staff the EEO 

position only part time. Because USAREUR’s Civilian Personnel Office 

in Frankfurt served EUD, the division prepared only a supplement to the 

USAREUR Equal Employment Opportunity Action Plan.40

Prentiss began to make personnel changes. As he came to realize 

the importance of establishing and maintaining good relationships 

with international leaders, Prentiss involved William Camblor more 

extensively, especially in contracting. Commensurate with Camblor’s 

rank (GS–15), his experience, and his skills as a negotiator, Prentiss 

changed his title from “assistant to” the division engineer to “assistant 

division engineer for intergovernmental affairs.”41 After appointing the 

comptroller, Colonel Buxton, as area engineer for the Frankfurt Area 

Office, Prentiss promoted Buxton’s deputy, Randolph S. Washington, to 

the position of comptroller. Prentiss believed that this promotion made 

Washington the only African American civilian managing an administrative division in the Corps of Engineers.42 Another African American 
191

The Transition Period, 1974–1978

civilian, Jacques Bouchereau, served as deputy chief of the Construction 

Division.

Prentiss was not satisfied with the chief of construction, H. Jace Greene. 

Greene had served in Frankfurt since the beginning of USACAG, and his 

involvement in military construction in Europe went back to 1946. Prentiss 

asked his deputy, Colonel Townsley, to monitor Greene’s performance; 

Greene found this supervision insulting, and a contest of wills continued 

for months. In November 1976, after an extended medical leave, Greene 

retired. By that time both Prentiss and Townsley had left the division, leaving it to the next commander to select a new chief of construction.43

Adjustments in the Comptroller’s Office

When the command inspection team submitted its report, it acknowledged that “the transition from the administrative and command procedures 

of Engineer Command to those of the Corps of Engineers” created major 

problems for the Europe Division. These difficulties were compounded by 

the “shortage of experienced personnel in the administrative activities.” As a 

result, the team concluded, “full and effective support of the operational mission” was lacking.44 Harmonizing practices in the new Comptroller’s Office 

presented special challenges for the Europe Division. The dissolution of 

ENGCOM had shifted employees who had little accounting experience into 

the Finance and Accounting Branch. Turnover among staff in the basic clerical positions was exceedingly high—at times over 100 percent a year—which 

made it especially difficult to maintain continuity, to train, or simply to get 

the work done.45 Several key positions in the Comptroller’s Office—chiefs 

of finance and accounting, budget and programs, and cost accounting—

remained vacant for several months.46

OCE sent people on temporary assignments from other Corps offices 

to work with EUD staff while recruitment continued. They were not prepared for the complexity of tracking costs of projects in seven countries 

and seven currencies, each at varying rates of exchange for the dollar. 

Furthermore, each project might use funds from a mix of two or more 

sources or appropriations.

In EUD all posting was done by hand. Comptroller Washington and 

the deputy division engineer, Colonel Townsley, had expanded the standard five-column account sheet used in the United States to fourteen 

columns. The additional columns allowed them to monitor fluctuations 

of the exchange rate between the day EUD awarded a contract and the 

actual payment for work, delays arising from the indirect system of contracting through host-nation agencies, and a half-dozen other variables 

that stateside offices never had to worry about. One of those variables—

inflation—compounded the comptroller’s headaches: In 1975 inflation 

amounted to 20 percent on dollar purchases and 7 percent on purchases 

in Deutschmarks, the worst rates in over twenty years.47

OCE’s plan to implement the Corps of Engineers Management 

Information System (COEMIS) encountered serious problems. Overall, 
192

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

COEMIS was ill suited to the European environment: It could neither 

handle multiple currencies nor maintain the personnel records of a labor 

force that included German employees, DACs, and locally hired dependents. EUD’s computers, installed in 1974, turned out to be incompatible 

with COEMIS.

The command inspection team that visited EUD in August 1975 did 

not appreciate the ingenuity of the system that Washington and Townsley 

had cobbled together. They saw only that the system was complex and 

unwieldy, the general ledger frequently did not correspond with subsidiary records, and the records proliferated in “distressing” ways.48

Townsley and Washington cooperated with the Comptroller’s Office 

at OCE to reconcile the two systems and to recruit new employees, but 

progress in the Comptroller’s Office was painfully slow. Incompatibilities 

between COEMIS and EUD’s needs took many years to resolve.49

In-House Design

Tensions arising from the clash of old and new personnel and procedures were exacerbated by the OCE decision to establish an in-house 

design capability to EUD. None of the Europe Division’s predecessor 

organizations had maintained such a capability, although stateside Corps 

districts generally accomplished from 25 to 50 percent of their design inhouse. This practice helped maintain the technical proficiency of engineer 

personnel and saved money. Thinking to apply the same logic to Europe, 

the transition team wrote a design branch into the Engineering Division 

in EUD’s organization chart.50

When Ralph Wheeler arrived in Frankfurt as the chief of the 

Engineering Division in the autumn of 1974, he intended to develop 

a Design Branch capable of handling about a quarter of the division’s 

design requirements. He expected the remaining 75 percent of the work to 

be passed to architect-engineer firms either under direct contract to EUD 

or as indirect contracts through a host-government agency.51 Wheeler 

received approval from OCE for an authorized strength of more than 

eighty people for the Design Branch and began recruiting when notified of his appointment as chief of engineering. By the time he arrived in 

Frankfurt, more than twenty people from all over the United States were 

committed to the Design Branch.52

Wheeler was conscientious and enthusiastic, but neither he nor his 

recruits understood the international agreements and conventions that 

governed indirect contracting and limited the division’s ability to do 

design work in-house. Neither were they equipped to prepare design 

documents in metric measurements and in both English and the language 

of the host country.53

Wheeler also failed to appreciate that the Europeans took a radically 

different approach developing a design package from Americans. As a 

result, his arriving personnel would have to learn a totally new system of 

preparing contract specifications. American design engineers put every-
193

The Transition Period, 1974–1978

thing that the design demands on the drawings (plans) for the project. 

Specifications then define how or according to what standards various 

jobs are to be accomplished, for example, how to mix the concrete, prepare 

a surface before painting, and lay roofing. Construction contractors, working from the drawings, determined the scope of services, quantities of 

materials, and type of equipment needed to complete the work. Then they 

submitted a bid based on their own calculations.54

Specifications in the German design package had to contain a detailed 

list of the materials and services required by the project. American engineers expected the contractors to generate their own list. For standards on 

the quality of work—the “how to” set out in American specifications—

Germans turned to the Deutsche Industrie-Normen (DIN). The Germans 

had a DIN on roofing, a DIN on painting, and a DIN on structural steel, 

and so on, each of which tells how to do specific tasks in every phase of 

construction.55

The German specifications became an expanded bill of materials so 

that all bidders started with the same definition of how much work was 

to be done. This approach placed the responsibility and the risk on the 

designer rather than on the contractor. Europeans “didn’t want construction firms going broke because somebody had underestimated the job.”56

The American approach placed greater responsibility and risk on the construction contractor. He had to calculate how much material to purchase 

and risk losses if his estimates were wrong. Joe G. Higgs, who succeeded 

Wheeler as chief of engineering at EUD, explained: “In the United States 

you look at the plans and then you read the specs. In Germany they read 

the specs, and they don’t even look at the plans until they start construction.... In Germany, if it is not in the specs, it doesn’t count.”57

Wheeler put a tremendous amount of personal effort into making in-house design succeed, but there were too many obstacles. The 

learning curve for the new staff was steep, and the backlog of design 

increased. In-house design never exceeded 11 percent of the workload of 

the Engineering Division and averaged below 5 percent.58 Wheeler had 

compounded the problems when he put almost twenty of the long-time 

employees who could have helped the new design engineers—they had 

experience with the DIN, metrics, and local materials—into a Technical 

Review Branch.59 After less than two years he recombined the Design 

Branch and the Technical Review Branch into a technical engineering 

branch headed by Lou Brettschneider, the engineer who had served as 

chief of that branch after Saul Fraint retired in 1973.60

Support for Facilities Engineers

The April 1974 agreement signed by the chief of engineers and the 

commander in chief of USAREUR provided that the new Corps organization would “furnish engineering design and construction services to the 

regional commanders ... as requested,” and referred specifically to “OMA 

[Operations and Maintenance, Army] and minor military design and con-
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Building for Peace: U.S. Army Engineers in Europe, 1945–1991

struction projects,” which EUD was to execute “on a reimbursable basis.” 

Although USAREUR expected this support for the facilities engineers, it 

could offer EUD no staff positions to cover the work.61

In the inactivation of the Engineer Command and the establishment 

of the Europe Division, the regional corps commanders assumed the 

function for installation support. The transfer of responsibilities did not 

go smoothly, and relations between the EUD staff and facilities engineers 

were not cordial. No one had a very clear idea which new tasks or projects 

would go to the regional Directorates of Facilities Engineering and which 

would go to EUD. People at EUD doing work very similar to the work 

done in facilities engineering positions had been given higher grades and 

salaries. The facilities engineering personnel in the regions saw no reason 

to channel new work to Frankfurt.62

The division’s first challenge was to complete projects left unfinished. 

Brettschneider recalled that ENGCOM’s Facilities Directorate had a large 

number of projects under way in 1974, and the departing staff “dumped 

cartons into Mr. Tambornino’s office.... It took months and months of 

tremendous effort to clear the decks.”63 To complete design work on these 

projects, the division turned to stateside districts for help and intensified 

recruiting for additional personnel.64

General Prentiss placed a high priority on establishing good relations 

between EUD and the facilities engineering organizations. He did not 

want to be criticized, as ENGCOM commanders had been, for failing to 

provide adequate engineering support to the military communities. In 

early October 1974 he met with the regional directors of facilities engineering for V Corps, VII Corps, and the 1st Support Brigade to outline EUD’s 

capabilities and to offer assistance with architect-engineer contracts and 

with the supervision of construction and design.65 From his experience in 

Stuttgart, he thought that facilities engineers in the communities needed 

EUD’s technical expertise and help in managing contracts. He also knew 

that the facilities engineering workforce had little capability for even 

minor new construction or inspection.66

Prentiss and Wheeler told the commanders that EUD would help 

them with their operations and maintenance program.67 Division personnel met monthly with facilities engineers. The three directors of facilities 

engineering began asking the division to assist with design and supervise 

construction. Project funding came from family housing maintenance, 

nonappropriated funds, and OMA budgets.68

EUD also devised a new way to obligate year-end OMA funds that 

might otherwise have reverted to the U.S. Treasury. The procedure 

involved encumbering funds by using reimbursable orders—a form of 

purchase order between government agencies—for work to be done in the 

next fiscal year. Once obligated, the funds were carried over into the next 

fiscal year to finance work in progress.69

Prentiss and Wheeler’s efforts succeeded almost too well: The workload increased rapidly. In April 1975 Wheeler created the Facilities 

Engineering Support Section to handle the influx of work. Headed by 
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Tom Conner, the section began with just three project manager positions; 

by June the regional Directorates of Facilities Engineering had given them 

300 projects with a value of $47 million. By August they had more than 

450 projects with a total value of $54 million; some single projects were as 

low as $1,700. The section grew to six people, and by the end of 1976 the 

number of projects had more than tripled.70

A severe backlog of design work developed in the Engineering 

Division and attracted the attention of OCE’s Directorate of Military 

Construction. OCE warned the division against taking on “too much 

work” in facilities engineering. The command inspection team that visited the Europe Division in August 1975 recommended that USAREUR be 

“requested to provide adequate manpower spaces to EUD to undertake 

the work [for facilities engineering].”71 To General Prentiss, this advice 

exemplified OCE’s lack of understanding of the division’s mission. He sent 

the director of military construction, Maj. Gen. Bates C. Burnell, a copy of 

the USAREUR agreement with pertinent passages underlined. Calling 

USAREUR’s requests for engineering services “legitimate,” Prentiss questioned whether the people in OCE had read the agreement.72

Work for the facilities engineers remained an important part of EUD’s 

operation and a concern for each successive commander. Army auditors 

ruled that the division’s device of obligating the year-end money through 

special purchase orders violated government regulations, but the division 

developed other instruments such as open-ended contracts that allowed 

the communities to group small jobs into larger bid packages. The division 

also established guidelines that eliminated the very small contracts. Both 

of these steps eased some of the pressure on the Engineering Division.73

Assessing the First Two Years

In May 1976 General Prentiss moved to the position of deputy chief of 

staff, engineer, in USAREUR.74 In his final letter to the chief of engineers 

from Frankfurt, Prentiss boldly addressed his difficulties with OCE. He 

protested against “those on your staff with great authority and no responsibility,” against inspection teams who arrived in Frankfurt with “an obvious bias,” and against the lack of information in headquarters about “indirect contracting and about our support agreement with USAREUR.” He 

called OCE’s control of referral lists for staff openings a “major irritant” 

and cited his search for a new chief of construction. The list he received 

included “only three names that I recognized, two OCE long-timers and 

another former OCE member who refused my offer of a job a year ago.” 

He was “amazed” to find neither of the two names he had recommended 

on the list. Prentiss had registered these complaints months earlier in correspondence with OCE, and many of his successors echoed them.75

For all the problems, Prentiss had a sense that the division had made 

progress. Although there were many procedures and administrative 

guidelines to be worked out, he felt that EUD’s energetic support of facilities engineers at the community and regional levels and its acceptance of 
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expanding responsibilities in the Mediterranean had earned the organization credibility throughout the Army.76

The assessment Prentiss presented to his own staff was more critical 

than that in his report to OCE. In one of his last staff meetings he pointed 

four administrative shortcomings: missed deadlines, failure to supply 

interim responses alerting customers to delays, poorly written correspondence, and failure to record policy decisions. He commented on the 

tendency to conceal problems so as to avoid criticism and urged just the 

opposite, that civilian employees bring problems into the open for discussion.77 Two years after its activation, the division had dissatisfied people 

and sloppy procedures.

Change of Command

General Delbridge arrived at the division a few days after General 

Prentiss moved to Heidelberg. At the end of the war Delbridge, just eighteen, had enlisted in the Army and had gone from the ranks to Officers’ 

Candidate School. As a young lieutenant he supervised airfield construction in Berlin from 1947 to 1949. He then won an appointment to the 

U.S. Military Academy, where he graduated in 1953. Delbridge served 

three years (1958–1961) with the U.S. Engineer Group in Turkey. In 1975–

1976, just before taking over at EUD, he had commanded the Support 

Command of the 3d Armored Division in Frankfurt.

Delbridge was gregarious, and he wanted to create an atmosphere at 

EUD in which the staff would feel they were part of a large family and 

share in “the closeness and professionalism” associated with the Corps.78

From his first days at the division, however, he was troubled by the cliquishness among the staff and the absence of cordiality toward him and 

his family. Delbridge concluded that there was something “desperately 

wrong.”79

The new commander began to work on staff morale immediately. 

During a command inspection, Delbridge asked for pictures he could use 

for a briefing, emphasizing that he wanted photos not only of construction projects, but also of division personnel at work: “secretaries typing, 

inspectors inspecting, supervisors supervising, reviewers reviewing.”80

He also went “shopping” for a full-time public affairs officer, someone 

to take responsibility for the internal issues of staff morale and cohesiveness as well as the public image of the division. He remembered a young 

woman from the San Francisco District who had given “a magnificent 

presentation ... full of fire and humor.” Early in the summer of 1976 

Delbridge contacted Shirley Kappa, and she agreed to come to Europe.81

Kappa took over editorship of the division’s newsletter and put it on a 

monthly publication schedule. She filled it with news about staff members 

and division activities. The newsletter featured pictures of both military 

and civilian employees, with prominent attention to German employees. 

Initially, the publication used the title EUD Bulletin, but Kappa asked for 

suggestions for a more imaginative name. The July 1977 issue featured the 
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The Transition Period, 1974–1978

new masthead—a woodcut print 

of ten hard-hatted men linked 

shoulder to shoulder, each with 

one very large shod foot kicked 

high in the air. (Figure 3) Across 

the soles of the shoes appeared 

the letters “c-o-r-p-s-’-l-i-n-e.”82

Kappa also organized “Kastle 

Keepers,” a group of American 

and German staff members who 

planned activities for employees and their families, including 

ski trips, holiday parties, sports 

teams, and “Meet and Mingle” 

afternoon get-togethers. To welcome new employees, Kappa put 

together a photo brochure on the 

division and set up a program 

matching an employee “sponsor” with each new employee. 

She promoted the idea of business cards for staff and had them 

printed. Delbridge believed that 

Kappa’s “little things” helped to 

foster an identity for EUD and to 

improve staff morale.83 Her energy and enthusiasm mirrored Delbridge’s 

style of management: His deputy, Col. Carlyle “Chuck” Charles, said, “I 

don’t think there was a person he didn’t know by first name—and what 

they did.”84

The Projects Board

Delbridge wanted people at EUD to see themselves as part of a team, 

to look beyond their particular jobs, and to develop a sense of the entire 

organization. In his first meeting with the staff, on 25 May 1976, he 

described this philosophy and quoted the renowned English physicist 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers European Division Frankfurt, Germany Vol II No. 6

July 77

c

o

r p

s

li

n

e

Figure 3: New Masthead of the Europe Division Newsletter 

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

and novelist C. P. Snow: “Judgment is the ability to look at many things 

at once in their interdependence, their related importance, and their consequences.” In his first weeks at the division, Delbridge found that “too 

many people were making judgments by looking down a straw.”85

When he looked at the EUD workload, he found that the staff was not 

able to report on all of the active projects and contracts. He concluded that 

the division needed a tracking and reporting system to monitor expenditures and keep work on schedule. Such a system could also encourage 

everyone to take a broad view of the work and activities. Delbridge asked 

each division to prepare reports for staff meetings. He also asked them 

to devise a method to “permit monthly review of ‘key’ projects ... [to be 

conducted] as part of a monthly review by the entire EUD staff in the new 

conference room, which will be designed to present the total workload of 

this division in a visible manner.”86

“The board” became a fixture of Delbridge’s tenure. Three walls of the 

conference room were hung with large magnet-sensitive display boards; 

each of the nearly 1,400 projects under contract within EUD was listed on 

a separate magnetic card about ten inches wide. The cards contained the 

pertinent information for the project, including project manager, contractor, amount spent, and current status; they were arranged on the boards 

by funding source, and they could be updated in grease pen. Delbridge 

made the “board review” a monthly event, and just before the review the 

comptroller put a red flag next to any project on which reports showed 

overspending or deviation from the schedule.87

The review sessions were detailed and time-consuming, because 

Delbridge asked the project managers to report on every project. When 

Delbridge judged an explanation inadequate, he bore down hard and 

demanded answers. John Lewis, who had arrived from the Huntsville 

Division on 1 September 1976 to succeed Greene as chief of construction, 

managed about 250 projects in his division and acquitted himself well. 

Ralph Wheeler’s task was much more difficult: The Engineering Division 

had to track more than 1,000 projects. Preparing for board reviews took 

hours of work, and the reviews could last all day. Heated exchanges 

among the participants were frequent, and the whole exercise was very 

controversial. Some staff found the demands of accountability personally exhilarating and invigorating for the organization. Others resisted, 

complained that they were drowning in detail, and labeled Delbridge a 

micromanager.

Few people in the division understood the board review as a device. 

Delbridge wanted to jolt people into seeing the various individual projects 

“in their interdependence, their related importance, and their consequences.” Despite the staff time required to keep the board updated, Delbridge 

thought that on balance the board succeeded. Several people who worked 

with him agreed: Lt. Col. Roy Brown, Northern Area engineer, described 

the period as “a most dynamic time,” in which the organization improved 

because Delbridge put “many people’s feet to the fire.” The division counsel, Allan B. Aaron, observed that Delbridge “pushed us to do things we 
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The Transition Period, 1974–1978

probably didn’t think we could do in the time frames that were demanded, but we managed because our commander pushed us.” Delbridge’s 

deputy, Colonel Charles, said “the esprit de corps was super in the organization unless you were a slackard [sic].... It was probably a high point of 

my career to see an outfit work like we were doing.”88

From the monthly reviews, evidence mounted that the Engineering 

Division could not handle the increasing design workload. The review 

of 24 January 1977 revealed that 70 percent of the projects in the division were behind schedule; the prediction for February was 80 percent slippage. Delbridge exploded! Although he acknowledged that the 

Engineering Division was understaffed, he held the chief of engineering, 

Wheeler, personally accountable for the delays.89

Addressing Personnel Shortages

Division and branch chiefs reported to Delbridge the same personnel 

shortages about which Prentiss had complained. The new commander 

quickly concluded that the shortages hurt EUD’s ability to accomplish its 

mission.90 To address the problem, Delbridge took two courses of action. 

First, to make the division more attractive to potential employees, he 

requested both an increase in authorized positions and an increase in the 

average grade structure. Second, he ordered internal reviews to evaluate how EUD was using people. Completed in October 1976 and January 

1977, these studies showed that if the division carried its locally hired 

dependents as temporary rather than permanent full-time staff, as many 

as thirty-five additional spaces could be regained and filled with DACs. 

Although most of the dependents worked in clerical and secretarial positions, the recovered spaces could be set at a higher level, making it possible for the division to recruit additional professional staff. Delbridge 

directed that the spaces be reallocated internally to the Engineering 

Division, particularly for project management.91

Delbridge ran into trouble when OCE reviewed his requests for an 

increase in authorized strength. In a visit to Frankfurt in March 1977, the 

chiefs of engineering and construction, Lee Garrett and Fred McNeely, 

respectively, challenged the purported needs and EUD’s recruiting ability, noting that the division had not filled all its authorized positions. 

They proposed that EUD use stateside districts to do more of its design 

work and that the division contract out other work. They also questioned 

the “alleged” need to use indirect contracting for design. Overall, they 

seemed unsympathetic to EUD’s problems; OCE turned down Delbridge’s 

request.92

Delbridge won modest support from the chief of engineers, Lt. Gen. 

John W. Morris, when the two met at NATO headquarters in Brussels in 

May 1977. Delbridge returned to Frankfurt with assurances from Morris 

of limited increases in the authorization for senior-level civilian positions, 

an increase of thirty-two positions in overall professional strength (seven 

military and twenty-five DACs), and an increase in the average grade, all 
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to be added to the authorization for fiscal year 1978. The new authorization was less than the forty-five positions Delbridge had requested, but it 

was a start.93

The new spaces, plus the spaces recovered by internal reallocation 

and openings created by normal attrition or rotation, allowed Delbridge 

to bring in more people with Corps experience. In the summer of 1977 

Delbridge had to select a new chief of construction to replace John 

Lewis, who accepted a comparable position with the new Middle East 

Division in Saudi Arabia. McNeely at OCE did the recruitment and preliminary selection for this position. His choice, Jose Cruz, had twentyfive years of experience in the Corps of Engineers, most recently as 

assistant chief of construction in the Fort Worth District, but had never 

worked in Europe. Cruz started work in Frankfurt in September 1977, 

allowing a brief overlap with Lewis, who remained with EUD until early 

October.94

In this same period General Delbridge decided not to renew Wheeler’s 

three-year contract as chief of engineering. After a national search during 

which he returned to the United States to interview candidates, Delbridge 

selected Joe G. Higgs, chief of engineering in the Savannah District. 

During his career with the Corps of Engineers since 1954, Higgs had 

worked in the Huntsville Division and Mobile District but had not worked 

overseas. Higgs and his family arrived in Europe late in February 1978.95

The decision to replace Wheeler, the selection of Higgs, and the battle 

over authorized positions took place while Delbridge struggled with a 

delicate issue involving the personal links among his superiors in the 

chain of command. Delbridge’s predecessor, General Prentiss, had joined 

a close-knit team of engineer officers serving under USAREUR commander, General George S. Blanchard. Lt. Gen. Kenneth B. Cooper, deputy 

commander in chief, had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy with 

Blanchard in 1944. The chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Richard H. Groves, class 

of 1945, was Prentiss’s immediate superior. General Burnell, also class of 

1945, served as director of military construction in OCE. Burnell initiated 

an exchange of letters with Prentiss, and in early 1977 Prentiss reinstituted 

“the practice of informally updating” the chief of engineers each quarter 

on the engineer activities of USAREUR.96

From his arrival at EUD in May 1976 to the end of 1977, Delbridge 

exchanged letters with Prentiss and Burnell about the policy directions 

EUD should pursue. As the junior officer, Delbridge felt uneasy. Support 

for him at OCE seemed equivocal—the response to his removal of 

Wheeler and his selection of Higgs being examples—and he thought, as 

Prentiss had, that the senior civilians in Washington were undercutting 

him. Some at EUD, including Delbridge, thought that he might be relieved 

as commander.97

Delbridge’s concerns increased when in September 1977 Prentiss gave 

Burnell a series of “suggestions” for revising EUD procedures, particularly urging that the division turn more work over to host nations under 

the indirect contracting system. Delbridge prepared a lengthy reply. He 
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The Transition Period, 1974–1978

reiterated the division’s challenge of “executing an extremely large program with a disproportionately small staff”; but he concluded that “the 

Corps and its European customers would best be served by retaining 

present EUD flexibility which allows us to go either directly to industry, 

indirectly to the host nation, or to any CONUS [Continental United States] 

district for services.”98

Delbridge’s defense reached a new team of military leaders at OCE. 

Brig. Gen. Richard M. Connell had replaced Burnell as director of military 

construction, and Maj. Gen. Ernest Graves, deputy chief of engineers from 

July 1977 to March 1978, emerged as a supporter. Graves helped to resolve 

the impasse over manpower, and he shored up Delbridge’s authority to 

make decisions for EUD.

General Graves was particularly well prepared to judge whether the 

Europe Division needed the workforce that Delbridge had been requesting. In 1970, while serving as deputy director of military construction, he 

had devised a formula for calculating the appropriate ratio of employees 

to any given level of work in military construction.99 In December 1977 

Graves, accompanied by Garrett and McNeely, made the first of two visits 

to Frankfurt to discuss the division’s personnel issues. About two-thirds 

of the way through Delbridge’s briefing, “Graves slammed his hand down 

on the desk—scared everybody to death—and said, ‘Dammit! You needed 

100 people six months ago!’” Delbridge’s initial reaction was anger, but 

then he realized, “[Graves] wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to the 

guys on either side of him.”100 Graves told Delbridge to have his staff prepare a detailed statement of the division’s manpower requirements.

In March 1978 Graves returned to EUD with Garrett and McNeely 

to review the manpower requests. Higgs, who had recently arrived to 

head the Engineering Division, took Garrett and McNeely aside and 

asked them to “leave us alone. Give us a chance ... give me time to work.” 

Within weeks EUD received authorization to recruit 120 new employees, 

and in the ensuing months the frequency of visits from OCE declined.101

His confidence bolstered, Delbridge launched a broad recruitment 

campaign to fill the new positions. In May 1978 the division sent a fiveperson recruiting team, headed by Shirley Kappa, to the United States. 

Team members visited Washington, Baltimore, Kansas City, New Orleans, 

Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. They gathered several hundred applications from Corps employees, and more than 70 percent of those who 

received offers accepted. This success was especially satisfying because 

Garrett and McNeely had predicted that fewer than half the people 

offered positions would actually accept. With the new positions, routine 

departures at the end of contracts, and an authorized “overhire” of 70 

DACs, EUD added about 120 new employees in the summer and autumn 

of 1978. In the division’s initial year, 1974, its staff numbered 280. That 

increased to 589 by October 1976, five months after Delbridge had taken 

command. In the fiscal year ending October 1977, staff size increased by 

less than 5 percent, but the rate of expansion tripled in Delbridge’s final 

year, bringing the total to about 700 by October.102
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Visiting TUSEG

During his tour as commander of EUD, General Delbridge took special pleasure in returning to Turkey, where an old acquaintance, Herb 

Wooten, represented U.S. Army engineer interests.103 After mustering 

out of his all–African American unit at the end of World War II, Wooten 

had stayed in Paris to indulge his love of classical music. He had held 

various government positions in Europe before joining The United States 

Engineer Group (TUSEG) in Turkey in 1955.104 Wooten had remained in 

Ankara through many organizational changes. When the Mediterranean 

Division was inactivated and TUSEG transferred to the Europe Division 

in 1976, Wooten used his contacts in the government of Turkey and with 

the Turkish General Staff to the advantage of EUD. He had also traveled to 

Frankfurt to help plan EUD’s takeover of responsibilities and had worked 

at the area office in Italy to arrange the final transfer of equipment and 

vehicles from the Mediterranean Division.105

As a captain in Turkey in the early 1960s, Delbridge had known 

Wooten as a GS–5 office manager. By 1977 Wooten had hardly advanced 

in grade, but the general saw immediately the advantages that his longevity brought to EUD.

When I landed in Turkey Herb came out on the tarmac to meet me 

and had a retinue of people and a car.... About 50 yards away was 

an airliner that had landed with several Air Force generals.... They 

were all standing in line going through customs and getting the traditional hard time.... We just bypassed it all! When [Wooten] flashed 

his ID cards, they were all the ID cards we had in the ’50s.... They all 

thought he was a spook, a CIA guy.... And since he knew so much 

about the area, the ambassador would call him in on occasion, which 

again added to the mystery and mystique of Herb Wooten.106

Although U.S. military construction in Turkey declined in the aftermath of the Cyprus dispute, Wooten remained in Ankara even after 

Delbridge left EUD. When work picked up again in 1979, he helped reopen 

the TUSEG office.107

During the second year of General Delbridge’s tenure EUD achieved 

a degree of stability. New procedures were helping incoming employees 

adjust to life in Europe, and increased social activities improved staff 

morale. Much of the tension between the newcomers and the old-timers 

had dissipated. Joe Higgs and Jose Cruz, the new chiefs of engineering 

and construction, appeared to be getting the workload under control. 

Their cooperation helped to dispel friction between their divisions and 

get staff members to work together to review projects, thereby reducing 

the late modifications to contracts.108

Whereas General Prentiss had spent his eighteen-month tour as division engineer struggling to put the new organization into operation, 

General Delbridge had sought to gain control of the workload, establish 
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regular procedures, and improve morale. Their efforts brought results. By 

1978 Delbridge began to feel that EUD had become a “hard-charging organization” made up of enthusiastic people who enjoyed working together. 

His gregariousness put some people off but engaged others and, in their 

view, changed the atmosphere dramatically. Though the review board 

was onerous, it helped establish more effective project management and 

control of funds.109 By the summer of 1978 EUD had moved through its 

transition period.