For Master Chief Communications Technician (T Branch) Albert Astley, the disestablishment this month of NSGA Bremerhaven holds special significance. A veteran of over 26 years o of naval service, Master Chief Astley was on of the first Communications Technicians to be stationed at Bremerhaven.
When he arrived here in August of 1951, he had no way of knowing that five years later a naval security group activity would be formed in the Port City that would eventually become the Navy's largest such installation in the world. Nor did he suspect, when he left Bremerhaven in 1953, that he would return 18 years later to serve at that activity and see it disestablished a year after his arrival.
If anyone can claim to be a "plank owner" of NSGA Bremerhaven, it is Master Chief Astley, for it was as a direct result of the work conducted by him and his shipmates during the early fifties that the following paragraphs, Chief Astley, who is now the command's senior enlisted advisor and relocation coordinator, describes how life was for an American sailor and his family living in Bremerhaven two decades ago.
When I arrived here in 1951, the Navy was organized in the form of the Navy Advance Base and was located in what is now the German Marineschule or "Navy School." At that time, our small group of Communications Technicians worked in an old clock tower there that has since been removed. We had a small operating area in the top of the tower, and we strung our antennas out across the various buildings.
The Navy Advance Base also maintained the Weser River Patrol, the Rhine River Patrol, , and other operations which the German Navy could not participate in at the time. The Navy occupied the entire Marineschule in those days. We had our own Navy Exchange, an outstanding mess hall, and our chapel was located in that portion of the building that is just above the main gate where you drive in. THat same building also housed a library and a small dispensary, and the Navy also had its own fire house in the Marineschule.
In early 1953, the Air Force Security Service and the Naval Security Group began joint operations in what we now know as Building 2. Prior to that time the building had been used as the AFN Bremerhaven radio station. In a joint project with the Army and the Air Force, the Navy renovated the building, built the present antenna farm, and commenced operations alter in 1953.
There were many more Navy personnel of the General Service ratings stationed here untill the Naval Security Group people began to arrive in large numbers I recall a July 4 picnic in 1953, and there were probably about 100 CT's and their families there. The majority of the personnel of the Advance Base were in General Service ratings.
The Army Commissary was located in the same location as it is now, and the Army hospital was at the same location. In those days the entire hospital was in use, rather than the relatively small portion being utilized today. The Army's Post Exchange was adjacent to the Marineschule.
The service club in those days for the Army and Air Force was called the "Windy Corner Service Club." Today, if you go all the way through the Marineschule, clear to the very end by the Weser River, you can see a building with a painted sign still visible on it that reads "Windy Corner Service Club."
The Navy used to be very generous with regard to that club. We'd go down and drink all the Army and Air Force coffee, eat their doughnuts, and use their pool tables. We contributed a tremendous amount of time in using the facilities if nothing else.
The Navy used the gasthaus at the Buegerpark, for their club. It had a small Chiefs' Lounge, and the downstairs portion which is rented to the services now quite a bit, was the Navy Club. And it was the most popular club in the area; we used to have a $1,000 Bingo Night once a month and also many other social functions. The majority of all of the social functions for the Navy enlisted man were at the Buergerpark.
The Army completely controlled the port in those days, the closing days of occupation, and they were primarily concerned with the importation and exportation of people and equipment to satisfy the NATO commitment made by our government. One Policy that prevailed during occupation was that you had to wear a military uniform at all times. My wife and I lived within a short walk of the commissary, and I would have to put on my dress blues just to buy a loaf of bread. They were quite firm about enforcing this policy too!
We used to find ways to get around this rule by playing tricks on the MP's. We would put on a peacoat and watch cap or flathat, and underneath might be a very gaudy sport shirt and pair of slacks. When you were driving down the street, you looked lie a very squared away sailor to the MP's.
There was one situation in which you were allowed to wear civilian clothes, and that was if you were involved in a sports program. Those fellows who were sports-minded were always very careful to keep their golf clubs or bowling bag in their car. If a fellow was apprehended for driving around in nonmilitary attire, he could use the excuse that he was on the way to a sport's program. In addition, there were two exits from the Marineschule, a Navy gate and an Army gate. If you couldn't get out through the Navy gate in civilian clothes, there was always the Army gate.
In the early fifties, Bremerhaven still showed scars form the bombing suffered during World War II.If you were standing by the old clock church down on Hafenstrasse and looked back through the field, it was very grim and isolated, with just a few tall buildings standing. Of course, a lot of the rubble had been cleared away in the five years or so since 1945.
The main street in Bremerhaven was Hafenstrasse. Oh, there was the beginning of Horten's department Store on Buergermeister-Smidt-Strasse and the Buergermeister-Smidt-Platz, but the main civilian economy then was located on Hafenstrasse.
For the average German on the local economy, there were many shortages. Coffee for example, a favorite of the Germans, was extremely expensive. As a result of its high desirability, coffee was an outstanding black market item for people who engaged in that sort of thing. It was quite easy to have what I'll call "good liberty" for a pound of coffee or a carton of cigarettes.
Most of the items purchased on the economy by Americans were cuckoo clocks, 400-day clocks, old silver and heirlooms. If a person had been over here in those days and wanted to start an antique business, he would have been inundated with the assortment of items s available. This was because many Germans were forced to sell priceless family heirlooms just so that they might survive.They were suffering tremendous economic pressures, and the German government was unable to supply jobs. Due to these circumstances and an exchange rate of four marks to the dollar, prices were extremely good for servicemen.
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| MARINESCHULE-Pictured here is a portion of the German Marineschule (Navy School) as it looks today. The buildings within the compound housed the U.S. Navy Advance Base from 1945 until 1957 when the base was returned to the German Navy. Some of the Naval Security Group's first operations in Germany were condected here in 1951. |
There were no shortages for the American serviceman. The commissary had much the same type of rationing situation as exists today, with only so many pounds of coffee per month for each adult. Cigarettes were also rationed then as now: liquor was readily available, and there was no shortages of food in the commissary. Perhaps we didn't always have reliable refridgeration or the good repetitive type of fresh vegetables that we have now; but as for shortages, there were none.
Automobile travel in those time was extremely good. Germans who owned cars were in one of two categories: mad-driving taxi drivers in Volkswagens, or the very rich in the few Mercedes that had been build since the war. The Americans had the majority of the cars on European roads, and particularly in Germany. In those days there were hundreds of thousands of bicyclese on the roads, and the main people who obstructed traffic were the Americans in their cars. You could drive to Hamburg on the autobahn and only see perhaps a dozen autos, most of which belonged to Americans.
There were few hardships incurred by American families here in the early fifties. I think the housing was a bit better then than we have now. Most of the people lived near the commissary or down near the Hauptbahnhof in apartments which were much larger than we have now. Some of the senior enlisted men and many of the officers lived over in the Buergerpark area in commandeered homes.
In fact, I think things were much more pleasant in those days: you received a better deal in the economy for your dollar, there were better living conditions because there weren't the masses of people you have now, and driving and sightseeing conditions were much better.
I think that the most memorable aspect of my tour at that time was that our oldest son was born here. This is always a milestone for the family man. Aside from that, it was my wife's first tour overseas, or outside the States for that matter. While we were here, we made use of every available opportunity to travel (even on the very low First Class pay of that time). This was our first, and we thought our only, chance to see Europe; to see what it was like and what the people were like. And I think that aside from beginning our family here, it was our first opportunity to discover what it is like to live in a military community as a family. We were able to have a look a the many military programs available for the serviceman and his family. Coming back here now we found even more of an emphasis on programs for the young and the single man.
Every tour has its memories, good and bad, but our son being born here was the most memorable instance for us. Secondly, of course, the traveling.
Another thing that I recall from my previous tour was the interservice rivalry that existed at that time. During the touch football season of 1951, a Navy team from the Advance Base won the European championship from the Army. This was most heart warming, because if you think the Army is large in number now, you should have seen Bremerhaven then. The Army outnumbered the Navy many times over.
And the Navy, even in those days maintained its "esprit de corps" and "Can Do" attitude. In all sports, the navy followed its team with the utmost of vigor, and when they won a lot of the Army's enthusiasm was dampened.
I have noticed some of the same people here now who were here during my previous tour. There is an old German gentleman working in the Army Family Housing office, and I feel very strongly that he is the same fellow that checked me out on my government quarters back in 1953.
Since our return to Bremerhaven, my wife and I have tired to look up a few Germans whose names we remember; we haven't been too successful. We've driven through the cities many times, and noted the many, many changes. And we've found many of the places that we used to visit.
As far as being able to go back and shake hands with a fellow I know 20 years ago, there has been on such instance. My wife and I returned to a shop down on Hafenstrasse where we used to purchase china, and both of us recognized the shopkeeper as being the same gentleman who sold us china previously.
He was totally amazed that we would remember him after all these years, and after we had described ourselves to him I believe he even remembered me - I used to be continually "poor" from buying china from him.
He is one of the few shopkeepers that we have returned to after 20 years and found in the same business, in the same shop. And we're still buying china from him.