Bahrdorf DF Detachment Germany
Title: Bahrdorf
We set out from Frankfurt in late 1959 to perform site maintenance at the Lübeck and Bahrdorf DF sites. Site maintenance consisted of aligning the R-390 radios and the DF equipment itself.
I looked forward to this trip into the "British Zone." The Bahrdorf DF site was near Helmstedt which was on one of the three major Allied corridors into Berlin.
It was a bit different and more remote from larger towns but we managed to visit Wolfsburg and toured the enormous Volkswagen factory. The tour group at the factory walked on a large catwalk high above the factory floor.
We spent a lot of our time waving to the girls below working on the assembly line.
I remember the site as being quite small and undeveloped as far as facilities were concerned (no mess hall, no army quarters etc.). Like many of the DF sites the men lived "on the economy." I always envied them, for this.
There was a small bar in down town Helmstedt where we drank every night and I enjoyed chatting up a British pilot who hung out there. He worked for the fledgling German Air Force and flew an old British Typhoon that towed aerial targets for the German tanks to shoot at! His major complaint was that they wouldn't stop shooting after he went past and as he went into the distance some of the shells were exploding under his plane! Perhaps it was force of habit from some years prior!