Recollections of a Commissary Officer at Downs Barracks, Fulda, Germany
My name is James (Jim) Crawford and I served, along with a wife, at Fulda Post, Germany from September of 1960 until September of 1963. During my tour I met Jim Pocock who served in the 14th Armored Calvary. I was part of the U.S. Army’s Northern Area Command that supported the 14th at the Post. My job initially was as the Commissary Officer. The Commissary is equivalent to a grocery store.
Sometime in 1961 I went into our bathroom at the commissary to do the constitutional thing and after washing my hands, I inadvertently touched a sign which had been stapled to the inside of the door asking people to wash their hands. Out dropped a piece of paper and I looked at it as I exited the bathroom. After a few moments I realized that it had symbols that appeared to give locations of tanks, etc. After going into shock I realized that my bathroom was being used as a drop location for someone. I looked around suddenly realizing that someone could easily see that I had the paper. My reaction then became fear.
I located the Criminal Investigations Command (CIC) headquarters and gave them a call. I was instructed to start wearing my 45 all the time and that someone would contact me in person. I was also instructed not to tell anyone, not even my superiors.
Within a few days a person in civilian clothes stopped me as I walked home in the dark and introduced himself as the person I had talked to earlier. He took me a short distance to a basement room in the Bachelor Officers Quarters. The room was obviously set up to accommodate electronics and other interesting items.
To keep this as short as possible I will not bore you with the day-to-day happenings. For over a year I had periodic contracts with CIC and came to learn that a German employee and an outside German food delivery person were the culprits. CIC made it clear that they were getting good information by surveillance and that they wanted nothing done until they learned all they could about these two and who they had contact with.
Eventually I was told that they had learned all that was important and that due to German labor laws they would somehow have to bar the men from coming on to the Post. They accomplished this by staging an auto accident and making it my employee’s fault. The delivery person was taken care of by the German police. I never found out what happened to him or to my employee.
James W. Crawford, First Lieutenant
Fulda Post Commissary Officer a Downs Barracks September 1960 – September 1963