Carl Schurz Kaserne, Bremerhaven

Access road to the Army gate (center) of Marine Barracks, 1950s

View of Marine Barracks from the Ludwigstrasse bridge, 1950s

Marine Barracks, 1945

Marine Barracks, 1951

Marine Barracks, 1951

Research Request

Information is being compiled for a history of the U.S. Army installations in the Bremerhaven, Bremen, Flensburg and Soegel areas, 1945 to 1990s. Help keep the memories alive!

1. Historical information on installations and units Requester: Webmaster Subject: Looking for historical information on units and military activities including base support in the Bremerhaven, Bremen, Flensburg and Soegel areas between 1945 and the 1990s. Contact: webmaster 2. Aerial & ground photos of kasernes & housing areas Requester: Webmaster Subject: Looking for period photos of the US Army installations (including dependent housing areas, schools, shopping centers, service (gas) stations & miscellaneous storage or maintenance facilities used by EES/AAFES, Quartermaster, Ordnance, Signal and Transportation units/activities) in and around Bremerhaven, Bremen, Flensburg and Soegel from 1945 to the 1990s. Contact: webmaster 3. Installation maps Requester: Webmaster Subject: Looking for facility/post engineer maps of the various installations, activities and housing areas in the Bremerhaven, Bremen, Flensburg and Soegel areas from 1945 to 1990s. Contact: webmaster 4. Military Community map Requester: Webmaster Subject: Looking for a map that shows in detail the Norddeutschland military community boundaries for the period 1974-1990. Contact: webmaster

Was armored car gunner 1946 in Bremen Enclave, District Constabulary (DC).  Cannot find any decent maps of the "Enclave" or little else that I recall.

I was in service in the Bremen Enclave from maybe December 1945 till the following year, as I recall.  I am now 77 years old - but still hale and hearty considering my "cohort" as the Social Scientists term one's peers...*grin*.  I never thought much back on my Service days or told anyone much about them - but a chance discovery recently of the Tamiya kit stirred old memories and by the time I was done making it, I began to wonder if there was any info anywhere at all about the "Bremen Enclave" - and the 'old days' that is how I found your websites earlier (which you forwarded below). 

We were "detached" (they said) from the Infantry and sent north to this Cannon Company.  Someone said we were in the Cavalry... and others said Armored... and rumors flew and these designations changed every few days in a bureaucratic confusion.  But we kept our same unifom and the blue piping of the Infantry.  We were told we were going to be "trained" for a new kind of Police Force or something called the "Constabulary."  We were to be "allowed" then to wear jazzy uniforms and jump boots as I recall, and a (coveted) yellow scarf and special (gaudy) helmet liner and we were to be the cat's meow among the Occupying Troops.

And if you read some of the Web histories, they seem to say that is what happened.  But what really happened is that this highly visible uniformed "Constabulary" only emerged down in Occupied Austria and other of the large American sectors - never in the Bremen Enclave!  We wore fatigues, cast off tanker stuff - and mainly the plain garrison uniforms of infantrymen.  No jump boots, and (especially!) no yellow scarf!  LOL!  Many guys seized on this and complained all the time, but somehow we were "different" from the other American Constabulary.  I have often wondered if this was maybe because we were basically in the British Sector and for whatever reason they maybe did not  want such heightened visibility, etc.  Who knows?

The only concession ever made to us was a small yellow "DC" painted right in front of our helmet liners - that is all.  No encircling stripe or anything.  And the same yellow "DC" (for District Constabulary ...which is what we were called, by distinction to the forces in the American Zones with their multi-stripe liners, and a big sort of medallion thing I have seen in front, etc. etc....) was painted on the turrets of our M-8's.  And that was it.

We never received the "special training" at all: we were largely basic infantry replacements with minimum motorized skills and a few old combat-hardened sargeants, etc.  We patched together a sort of ragtag setup whereby we got the armored cars running and made patrols every day: a preferred method being to go out with an armed jeep in front, the M-8 following, and a jeep in the rear.  As time went by this kind of broke up into each vehicle going its own route over its own choice of roads...  I was assigned as gunner in an M-8 and rode there for the better part of the year.  It was cold and rainy  and open in the turrets: we had big reversable parkas we mostly wore there.  And our jeeps always had the ragtops up.  Summer is short in that area...

Our job was to secure signed (and stamped!) papers from the Burgomeisters in all the little dorfs and villages throughout the Enclave - each day - and they were to say on them "Alles ist in Ordnung" (All is in Order) - or if they were having trouble with displaced persons ("DP's") or renegade military people or whatever - we had to look into it and raid their barns and houses, etc.  Search for contraband, guns, etc.  Eventually, we were all assigned to a bastard Infantry Regiment (no Division) - and I seem to recall this was the 29th Infantry Regiment (the histories here seem to emphasize the 29th Infantry Division here as the main occupying force in the Enclave - but strangely I do not remember any 29th Division guys or outfits around at all....????).  We were just a detached bunch of sort of "orphans" who were stationed alone up at Bremerhaven  in an old Flak and Gunnery School - but I cannot remember the (German) name now: it was right on the canals...  The 29th Infantry Regiment lapel "pins" were large gaudy sort of "crests" - that from a distance the device on them looked kind of like a plate with a knife and spoon on each side... You can imagine the hoorah's we got in the messhalls when we showed up with these "markers" on us...grin.  I had mine made into cuff links after the War - but they seem to have disappeared somewhere.  Perhaps you  know of this Regiment?

I have a few old black-and-white photos of these highjinks if you would ever want to see them - and notes and all of those days - and of raids we made, and dumps we blew up, and of sites on the Weser just like the better known ones at Peenemunde where the infamous buzz-bombs were launched against the Brits during the Battle of Britain, and all... they were just lying all over in the woods there where the Germans had run away and left them and no one even knew what they were!  (We thought they were torpedoes of some kind for the German subs!...grin) - and even copies (still) of some of the "Alles ist in Ordnung" papers, etc. etc.  I would be glad to share them with you and answer any questions or provide any info I could.

FOLLOW UP:
I think what happened was that the main body stayed down at Grohn and this was "our" main headquarters in the Enclave. And yes, this was the home or base of "Cannon Company."

But a platoon or so of us were sent north for permanent station in Bremerhaven.  (We occasionally had to make forays all the way back down to Grohn as best I can remember and maybe stay overnight sometimes I can't remember really... for lectures and what not) but mainly we were in and around Bremerhaven and the surrounding area to the north all the time it seems to me.  I probably never made it down to Bremen proper more than maybe 3 or 4 times the whole year I was there. l remember the big "Doppelganger" Cathedral there, and a huge statue of Roland von Bremen (who was said to buried in the cellar there preserved by lead salts from groundwater and what not - but never got to see it (him!) or his crypt myself...).  There was a "famous" beer hall or bierstube there too, but we (our Bremerhaven patrols) were always "travelling through" and sticking together ourselves pretty much and our "orders" were always to get back to Bremerhaven all the time and not be roaming around all over this far south out of our domain (at least as best I can recall now).

I believe also there was one other "detached" platoon or group out of Grohn, too - and it may have been assigned somewhere over on the west side of the Weser maybe but I don't know where they operated out of, or were stationed really or anything. I don't believe we ever ran into their patrols on the road... But you are right: the main headquarters were down at Grohn and these headquarter people patrolled themselves out of there - I imagine they were in and around Bremen itself much of the time...

I seem to remember also that the Grohn patrols had M-20's more than the M-8's (these are armored cars without the turrets).  We had only the M-8's (maybe four or five of them and maybe a dozen jeeps).  That is all.  We had a corner of this Flak and Gunnery School "kaserne" (fortress) as you refer to it - but again - this was right on the canals at Bremerhaven, not Grohn.  There were some other US troops there but I don't remember what they were: support troops or something... medics, a band, what?  I do remember there was a quite large contingent of British troops in the other end of the "quad" of this barracks - and on Sundays they would march out there and their band would play music and we would all go watch...

You say the 29th was the "occupying" force and I believe you!  Now that I think on it - I do recall guys with that ying-and-yang emblem on their sleeves - but somehow they were not right around us or we did not "interface" (as they say nowadays) or "fraternize" (LOL!) with them much (?).  I remember there were a number of troops with a squarish patch of squiggly lines or something (I could look it up maybe: you might know it) - but they had all been in "Hertzogovinia" as they called it, to quell some kind of post-war uprising or something - and this is part of Yugoslovia or something and they had been transferred back to this part of Northern Germany.  I don't know what their assignment was - we often drank with them in the 'stubes...

We were always being referred to as part of some new group or other - but our shabby uniforms stayed the same throughout and we never were issued patches or insignia or anything of our "latest" assignments - save that one time I told you when we got lapel crests for our Ike jackets and these were big ungainly sort of regimental crest affairs, for what I recall as "...the 29th Infantry Regiment"  further identified as a "bastard" regiment assigned to no larger group (?).

Perhaps Bremerhaven was sort of an "orphan asylum" (LOL!) for bits and pieces of all kinds of outfits in these very earliest days of the Occupation. (???).  I know we were ourselves pretty conscioius of being a "lone" type of group up there...

I might also add that one time we were said to be (temporarily!) "assigned" to the 7th Cavalry - and someone said that that was Custer's historic outfit, etc.  (I only mention because much later in life I became very interested in Western History and all so knew about Custer, etc.).

Hopefully, some day before long I can get to my photographs and send copies to you: they show this barracks I am referring to - and our patrols and all drawn up in front of them.  And I have other photos showing me and The Burgomeisters and lots of little kids in wooden shoes, with the storks on the houses, and the windmills, etc. that might interest you.  As you know, this part of Germany is very much like The Netherlands. I will never forget the time it first dawned on me that we were all lower than sea level here...

We were zooming along the countryside outside Bremerhaven somewhere and there was a long grassy ridge maybe 20 or 30 feet high stretching along the horizon in the distance.  Our driver followed a dirt track through the fields and he zoomed right up the bank to a roadway on the top and my heart almost stopped!  There was the ocean as far as you could see and it was right up almost to the top of the bank on the ocean side! LOL!  That is when I first understood why all the canals and ditches and the constant pumping of the windmills everywhere to keep it all drained, etc.

Did I tell you I was "Sailing Master" of our Infantry platoon? LOL!  I was the only one in the outfit who "knew boats" and how to sail.  One time I "discovered" an unknown German Yacht Club down on the Weser, and its boats were still intact!  I induced Lt. George who was our commander, to let me take him sailing one time.  He went bonkers for it - and wanted to go all the time thereafter! LOL.  So he made me "Sailing Master" of the outfit and I was so-carried on the duty roster for a while - always being on "detached" duty for the day (to take Lt. George sailing!).  We used to sail on the Weser and anchor at night among the herring fleets as they knew where the minefields were - and we did not!...

There were maybe dozens (it seemed) of scuttled German U-boats on the sandy flats near the mouth (munde) of the Weser: we often "explored" them at low tide.  Helgoland was off further up to the north - with great red sandstone cliffs and one day the Brits or somebody blew the whole damn island to smithereens!  Like a mushroom cloud it was and because someone said that Helgoland had been an arsenal for explosives and what not for two World Wars for the Germans, and they just blew it to smithereens so it would never be used again!

I remember some (but not all) of the names of some of the group...Lt. George was in command (he must have been all of 25 years old!).  From St. Louis he was.  Sgt Chandler was 1st Sgt. - a tough old combat sarge he was, and drinker from Amarillo, TX...he was almost never sober.  My driver was mostly a guy named Acton from Indiana.  Hall was another driver.  If I think on it, I might come up with the names of the radio operators.  Your map brought back memories: I recall the names Vegesack, Blumenthal, Nordenholtz (I think there was an airbase there or near there...?) and Grohn itself, of course, being places we had to check all the time...

The first, last, and only "Division" I believe l was ever actually in and whose patch I wore and where my records were and what I got discharged under was the 78th, or "Lightning" Division.  I just cannot recall somehow the relation here to your "29th" - but this is not too important: there was a lot of mixing and shuffling of troops and assignments back then, etc...

Bremen Port Commander,
Nov 30, 1945

S&S article,
Feb 10, 1946

Bremen, 1946

Bremen, "GI Paradise," 1946

Aerial of LDCK in 1978-79