The Americans' big maneuvers, called FTX (Field Training Exercise), or later ARTEP (Army Training &
Evaluation Program), regularly took place in spring and autumn, and usually lasted for three or four days.
British and French units, who you would otherwise only come across in their own occupied sectors, also
regularly took part in these larger exercises.
In the 1950s and 1960s, these big maneuvers always followed the same tactics. On the first day, the
starting positions would be occupied. These were not only in the Grunewald, but also often in the woods at
Wannsee (Dauerwald), Gatow, Spandau or Tegel.
All morning, countless long military convoys drove down the Potsdamer Chaussee, Fischerhuettenstrasse,
Huettenweg and Onkel-Toms-Strasse into the Grunewald. All that could be heard on the Zehlendorf streets
was the unmistakable, rustic engine noise of the heavy 2.5-ton U.S. trucks, known as "Deuce-and-a-halfs".
Attached to many of these trucks were two-wheel trailers. Everything that otherwise lay dormant behind the
barracks fences, invisible to the outside world, was brought into the woods on these occasions. Individual
soldiers stood, with their weapons at the ready, behind the driver's cab on the truck beds, some of which
lay open. Many trucks had mounted heavy .50 caliber machine guns, placed above the front seats. At the same
time, ground troops marched down the sidewalks at short intervals. The machine gun crews were equipped with
long linked ammo belts, the rifle men with cloth-bandoleers filled with clips. All weapons were loaded with
blank ammo!
Next to the Schlachtensee lake and behind of Havelchaussee, large army camps were set up. Several huge canvas
tents, parked trailers, running generators, and heavy armed GIs, hidden in battle positions, were given the
quiet nature terrain a totally new look. Also the fresh Grunewald air suddenly was filled with the smell of
gasoline, canvas, and kitchen aromas. Days beforehand, signal and support units had already laid black field
telephone wires all over the entire Grunewald. The wire strings got rolled down from big drums fixed onto the
backs of jeeps. Other jeeps, manned with officers who held open maps in their hands, cruised around. Such
activities were always the surest tip that a big maneuver was about to begin. Apart from this, large field
exercises were always heralded by the fact that there were announcements in the newspapers and news programs
urging parents to keep their kids away from the practice areas. In those years, the U.S. Army showed not much
consideration for German national holidays, unless they were the same as the Americans'. Whether it be Day of
Repentance, Pentecost Monday or Easter Monday, even on these days the wildest combat exercises took place.
The first day of a maneuver usually remained quiet, the first contact with the enemy began on the second day.
Often, everything started with water crossing exercises at the "Grosses Fenster" beach or "Kuhhorn" beach on
the Havel river. Arriving in small boats or amphibian vehicles, the "good guys" were received with deafening
blank cartridge fire by the "enemy", who had parts of their uniforms dyed a poison-green color and wore red
flaps on their shoulders. Giant clouds of smoke from colorful smoke grenades spread out along the beaches.
These grenades detonated there by the umpires, as were many simulators. When the umpires' jeeps appeared with a
white flag attached to the antenna, it usually meant that an attack was about to commence.
All "enemy" vehicles were marked with a green triangle on a white background to begin with, and then later with
a black star on a red background, so they could be clearly recognized from a distance.
In the course of the day, the "enemy" was chased back through the entire Grunewald as far as the "Postfenn" and
the "Teufelsberg". Small fights broke out at every large crossroads. There would be thousands of shells lying
around. Quite often, you simply didn't know where to start or where to stop. The attackers overran the positions
in no time at all, leaving behind blank ammunition of every kind, both full and empty. It was left to us brass
scavengers to start collecting unrelentingly, and to inconspicuously hide our yield, in order to remain agile.
But you couldn't allow yourself to be seen doing this, as the competition liked clearing out these secret stashes.
In all this chaos, there was a thin line between loss and gain.
During the night, the "enemy" had retreated and entrenched themselves into several ambush positions. All of
sudden, thick bushes had "grown over night" at trail intersections that were previously bare. The positions
always seemed to be situated at the same locations. They began at the "Saubucht", which the Americans also called
the "Pig Farm", and continued over the Huettenweg to "Block 68" on Fischerhuettenweg, and then to the Havel hills
that stood nearby. It was at these last two places that the large final battles normally took place. Various
tanks also took part in all big maneuvers. They too fired wildly at the enemy with their main guns (using brass
cartridges in size of a big can) and their coaxial Browning machine guns. (Typ M37)
The third day began with reconnaissance rides by both participating teams. For this, the Americans used jeeps that
were equipped with 106mm anti-tank- recoilless rifles ("One-o-Six") or with mounted machine guns. Until the
beginning of the 1960s, the latter were a desirable object for the brass collectors. These jeeps still carried
the old caliber .30 Browning machine guns (M1919-A4), which meant that everything that was fired fell directly
down onto the jeep bottom. If you ever caught one of these jeeps standing still after a blank combat, then the
crew would often prove to be happy to be relieved of all the bothersome empty links and cartridges. It wasn't
unusual to find gunners standing ankle-deep in that stuff. As there was frequently brass valued at over 50 marks
lying in some vehicles, the grown-ups actually attempted to bribe the American gunners, which more often than not
got out of hand and led to fights between competitors. Many people tried to get their hand on the desirable shells
by means of beer and other things, for its market value was well above the pay for a good day's work.
On one occasion, the Americans were so angry about all the quarrelling that they chased away all the troublemakers.
Later on, when they had calmed down again, they gave everything to me. Luckily, I managed to get this huge catch
back home safely, for the competition proved to be quite unpredictable after such incidents. One careless move,
and straightaway you'd lost your winnings through threats of violence.
On the day in 1962, the new M60 machine guns, known to the Americans as "Sixties", were introduced, everything
changed. These new weapons ejected the empty shells right out over the side of the jeep and when the vehicle was
moving the empty rounds would be scattered along the edges of the trail. Collecting them was now much more
difficult, but also fairer, because nobody could claim everything for themselves anymore.
Also the new M60-A1 tanks, which replaced the M48s in 1963, no longer fired their coaxial 7.62mm machine guns.
(fixed inside of the turret, right next to the main gun) This resulted in no more huge canvas bags filled with
empty rounds, which M48 tank crews had put underneath their guns to catch the mass of expended ammo and links.
When we were lucky, the M48 crews had handed out that stuff to us kids, though that did not happen very often.
Clever adults who exchanged a few beer bottles for brass had better luck. Wasting 2-3 marks for beer and got in
return sometimes a value of 50 marks or more. What a good profit for them! In those years, the heavy .50 cal.
machine guns, mounted on the top of the tank turrets, had no blank adapters and could not fire blank ammo. Now
the tankers just played (to simulate firing), with the gigantic high beam spot-lights which were attached on the
turrets.
Reconnaissance vehicles of both sides had quite a few little mock battles with each other before the following
units had reached the actual well-prepared enemy positions. With the aid of the numerous armored personnel
carriers, called "APCs", the ground troops started the final attack. Again, countless simulators and smoke
grenades exploded, were given the maneuver action site its typical touch.
On the last day, small units also often moved for "combat in city" actions to a fenced practice site in
Lichterfelde that was inaccessible to us. That's was Parks Range, with its "ghost town" - "Doughboy City". This
ghost town consisted of a large number of buildings with either one or several floors, that had been built for
the most part out of colorful stage wood. However, the emphasis of the field exercises during the 1950s and the
1960s was always the Grunewald.
Whenever there was still blank ammunition left over after the large final battle, then it would be used up before
the units left the maneuver area. This was generally the case with all U.S. exercises. Howling loudly in the
middle of the wood trail, the soldiers emptied all of their magazines and ammo belts that were still full. It
was like a "hellfire", because everybody was firing at the same time. The large glowing piles of shells looked
like golden carpets in the sunlight. Presumably, ammunition that had already been issued was not allowed to be
taken back. Picking up shells slowly turned into hard work, because with their new weapons, particularly with
their M14 automatic rifles, the Americans usually only fired off blanks in full automatic bursts. They called it
"burning up" the ammo, one loaded 20-round clip after another. In this manner, a twenty kilo capacity sandbag
could be filled with brass in no time at all. One hundred kilos (200 pounds) of brass, per collector of course,
was normal on the last day of an exercise. The man at the bike shop always looked with disbelief when I kept
going back to him after only a few weeks with yet another broken bike carrier. Those were simply my overhead
expenses, and were only to be expected with the constant heavy load and my wild rides up hill and down dale.
Winter training