A Response to "Early Days of 6-52 in Germany"
Dear D.R. Hamilton:
I read your story with great interest. I was in the HOS 5, which was the name we had for the 6th Msl Bn., 52nd Arty. I was Lt. Michael O'Keeffe, TCO of "A" Btry and head of the Firing Platoon. Lt. Carl Bell ran the Launcher Platoon. Our C.O. was Capt. John Waldron ? or some name like that, along with Lts. Ken Milner, Sutliff and Rice. Milner and Sutliff went to H&HQ Btry in Wurzburg. My platoon Sgt. was Sgt. George Bolling, a wonderful guy from eastern TN.. I have a partial list of the Btry members and would like to do a reunion.
I remember the sea trip being from Brooklyn, not NJ, on the Buckner, but I might be wrong. Part of the Btry and the equipment went from Beaumont, TX and we all met up in Wurzburg. I got married at the little chapel in Emery Kaserne, invited my whole platoon and have some photos of them, including LTC Tichenor, who was a particularly good friend & who attended my wedding, adding some pomp! I lived at Leighton Barracks and was later transferred to the 32nd Art. Bde (ADTOS) at an AF radar site outside of Kaiserslautern, where I was controller of many HAWK firing units.
I am trying to do research on the period around 13 Aug 61, when the Wall went up and we moved part or all of the Btry up to the E. German border, quite a crisis & thank God no one panicked. Maybe you can help. My home email is <okeeffe@itis.com> but I also use this one at work. Thanks,
MIKE.OKEEFFE@WIMADI.ANG.AF.MIL
3110 Mitchell St., Madison, WI 53711
Tel. (608) 232-0520, Fax: (608) 245-4429
DSN: 724-8515 DSN Fax: 724-8429
Also read the Deployment of 6-52 to Germany
