I have numerous photographs that inform your page, plus actual copies of our base newspaper published at "Fursty". If you are interested,

I never got to the Pubs Center HQ (at Höchst), but I can describe the Graphic Arts Section.

We were housed inside the I. G. Farben chemical plant (possibly the rest of the Center was there too, but in other buildings). Our operation was inside a small former administration building in the middle of large old former chemical production buildings.

I have a photo in my files of that building, but it might be in black/white negative only. I'll have to search for it. I also have some other photos shots inside the office as well as outside, showing the Farben plant facilities at that time (1947/48).

The Graphic Arts Section was headed by Captain Dale Boatman, whom I met in June, 1946, whike on TDY in Frankfurt. We stayed in touch, and he extended an employment offer in September 1947, for one year. Again, I have my papers somewhere so I'll try to find them including the pay grade, etc.

My basic job was as a cartoonist for posters, slide presentations, etc. Captain Boatman noticed my work in 1946 when I won second prize in a command-wide Overseas Artists Competition run by the Höchst Chapter of the American Red Cross. Because the Theater Commander, Gen. Joseph McNarney, was scheduled to present the prizes, my base commander put me on TDY as well as his personal twin-engine Beechcraft so I could fly to Frankfurt for the ceremonies.

The attached photo of a fire scene shows one of the nearby buildings on the same street as our small office building. I also recall that we had an annex operation in an adjacent building, where we had at least one Photostat machine and some silk-screen presses, as well as photo darkrooms.

I also have a lot of info about the ETO redeployment and demobilization of troops in the months following the Nazi surrenders. My data include hard-to-find facts about the "cigarette camps" on the Normandy coast near Le Havre, which processed all the EM and officers, including thousands of POWs, who were returning to the ZI (or who were redeployed to the Pacific before the Japanese surrender).

Attached are three in-plant views of that chemical plant in Höchst. The building fire was on the same street as our little office building, if I recall correctly. The inside view of the fire shows some equipment that might help to determine the type of building usage. I'm still looking for the photo of our building's exterior, but I'm certain I have it. I'm not as mobile as I used to be, so my daughter has to help me and she's often busy with other things, The third photo shows a general view of the plant, the sort of scene I walked through every day going to work.

By the way, did you know that the AFN radio station also was located in Höchst, in a castle(!). I visited them several times and they let me use a turntable to listen to 16-rpm recordings of music. I have some photos of that building if you're interested,.

The rest of the group consisted of a few artists that worked for the Training Aids Division, clerks to handle requests and distribution of publications and training aids, various drivers, warehouse and the in-camp personnel.

Not having worked in the other areas, I can’t describe their functions at work, but saw a lot of the activity in the rest of the printing and binding areas. As I mentioned before, a majority of this work in the non-classified areas was performed by German civilians, as linotype operators, hand compositors, pressmen, camera/platemakers and binders. I think the same was true of the Training Aids Area.

Some of the work that was done in the non-classified areas, were ration coupons: done on large sheet-fed off-set presses, then cut down into smaller sheets, sent to the letterpress area to be printed with numbers on Heidelberg Presses. (Various military personnel were assigned weapons and acted as guards for phases of the ration coupon work. Each night the coupons and scrap were all taken to a vault until shipped. They had a large “street value.”) Another large job each month were menus for the Army and Air Force mess halls in Europe. If my memory serves me right, the type for the menus was set on the linotypes. I’m not sure of everything else that was produced on the offset presses, but that is where the majority of the printing was done.

Shortly after the new plant opened an old Kelley flat-bed press was brought into the letter press area and was used to print score sheets for the military bowling alleys.

#752 also housed the Germans.

#753 and 754 were occupied by a Quartermaster outfit that drove gasoline trucks and supported units in the field during alerts. The 2 large cylindrical buildings under #677 were gasoline storage tanks. (Webmaster note: a third, larger, POL storage tank was located on the southwestern end of the post, west of Bldg #666.)

#758 was a clubhouse that was built for the Germans, but was used by the GIs as well.

The buildings underneath #652 were apparently storage buildings, altho, one was a club for the GIs, but I only remember it being open one or twice, and not used much after the club for the Germans was built.

#749, don’t know, was never in it.

#750 was the Mess Hall.

#s 656-659 were quonsut huts, probably used for storage. Rumor was they were left over from WWII.

That’s it from my perspective. Was never in the rest of the buildings.

I understood that there was also a Raytheon Missile Plant close to us to the North. We had a detachment of Security MPs attached to us for rations and quarters, whose duty was to guard the Raytheon Plant. They came from units all over Germany, rather than from a specific MP Unit. More on this in the narrative to follow.