Lecce Italy DF Detachment
On the road from Vicenza heading south to set up Det B, October 1961.
Photo by Mac McKusick
The route strip map John Rhuark prepared for the drivers in case any one got separated and lost on the way down. A copy of the convoy march order can be seen on the "History" page. Scan provided by Mac McKusick
The site was actually located on an old abandoned Italian air base near San Pancrazio which had also been used by one of our B-24 Bomb Groups of the US Army Air Forces during World War II, the 376th Heavy Bombardment Group
(Note: Map image is a scan from an official US Army Europe road map saved by Mel Erman.)
First Days: John Rhuark's Lancia and detachment vehicles at an Italian Air Base stop on the way to Lecce. Click the photo or here for a photo album from Mac McKusick and Mel Erman.
Last Days (From Brian Alpert via email March 2008): For some reason I have always thought that I had shipped my trustee Minox camera with most of my other goods to Italy as was required by Turkish law but the other day I noticed a Minox print of Rome in a bag of photos I had never seen before. I always thought my Minox did not catch up to me until I got to Ravenna since I never found any pictures from Brindisi. I unfortunately can not find any of the negatives but I do have pictures taken at the old TRD-4 site before we started working on the air base. I guess they were taken as the site was being taken down since one shot shows them getting ready with a crane to lift the hut onto a truck. I did not have the negatives unfortunately so these are scans from very small photos. They are mostly pix of getting ready to take the site down. In one picture you will notice a few beer cans. The locals were sad to see the site close and brought a lot of large jugs of wine which are not in the pictures. Click here or the photo for the album.
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