Fall 1958

Family farm home in New Hampshire

Finished the 905.1 school at Fort Monmouth, NJ.

Gassed up and ready to head for Dugway

Made it to Dugway Proving Ground

Proceeding to met observation quadrants on a biological downwind test.

Setting up theodolite at our position.

Wind direction getting shaky

Getting apprehensive about the wind direction.

Getting really apprehensive about the wind direction.

Fast Pickup

That’s me checking the chart roll recorders at a trapline station.

My roommate doing the same.

Flying the Trapline

Salt Flats

Dog Area Operations

Richies Bar and Gas Station

Looking North from East Ware Barracks

Sig C Met Team Members in East Ware Barracks.

Gunplay in the barracks

Planes (C-47) I flew on

After being assigned temporary duty to HQ at Fort Dix orders were cut for me to proceed to Met School at Fort Monmouth. While at Monmouth, I worked on the officers and wives production of Oklahoma. We had a great cast and crew party that wound up in Greenwich Village.

Tracking a wind speed and direction change from test criteria we set off a smoke pot to check wind direction on the ground.

Visible on left shoulder is the security badge we needed to get out on the test grids. Underneath our shirts we had to have the nerve gas and biological badge that appears at the top of the web site.

With the smoke coming around 180 degrees, we finally get the word to abandon the site.

The Sig C Met Team C.O. would fly a L-19 around the outside trapline for one of us to pick up the data and maintain equipment.

The Bonneville race track lies between mountains (35 miles away) and the telephone poles.

The quonset hut on the right is the Sig C Met ready room and on the left is the met warehouse. In the center are two met vans with a motor pool weapons carrier.

Thanks to Amos “Lacy” Hancock for refreshing my memory on the name. I do remember getting really plowed here one night dropping shots into beer. Tom savage and myself were having a couple of beers at the Beer-X when Sargent Pollen came by and wanted us to ride up to Richies with him. Come to think about it someone else was with him or us, because tom and I were in the back seat and someone was ridding shotgun, could have been Bob Mautino. Anyway, we got one hell of a ride back with the speedometer buried past 120. Tom was on the floor praying as we flew off the dips that used to be in the road while old sarge was looking back and laughing while asking us how we were doing. I was always a lead foot but I was sure glad to see the Main Gate come up.

Center is the Post Office, left is the Theater, and to the right is the Thrift Store. In the background over the Post Office is the Chapel. Just out of the picture to the left is the NCO club. MASSG Dennis Baxter

I got a hop on an Air Force staff plane headed to Washington, D.C. The officers on the flight were a bird colonel and his entourage who had been on an inspection tour. They treated me decently and were really interested in what I could tell them about Dugway as we flew across the country playing pinochle.