TUSLOG Detachment 3, Ankara, Turkey and
TUSLOG Detachment 3-1, Trabzon, Turkey

Michael (John) Nagle

© 2011 by Author

Ankara

I moved from the 6913th at Bremerhaven to TUSLOG Detachment 3 - then in Ankara - in January, 1956. Det 3 was located in the JAMMAT/TUSLOG building in Ankara. It was still in Ankara when I left Turkey in March 1957. They may have sent some advance troops over to Karamursel but they were still operating in Ankara. They were supposed to move into Karamursel earlier but some hangup delayed that realignment.

Samsun & Trabzon

I was trucked off to Det 3-1 at Trabzon in May of 1956, so I know that both Samsun and Trabzon were up and running at that time. In fact, when I got off the truck at Trabzon there were a bunch of eager people ready to hop on after putting in their tour (hmm, don't understand that at all :) Trabzon was definitely not a resort location but making up for that was the fact that I was stationed with a bunch of really dedicated, hardworking and superb guys. We all lived down the mountain in town.

I really learned a lot from that tour about people (both ours and the Turkish people) and I would not trade that experience for anything. Uniforms at Trab were mixed military and civvies. There were no clothing stores in Turkey. We ordered uniforms from Germany, but by the time we got them we had all lost so much weight that none of them fit :)

We had a maid for each house in town. They did the washing in the shower. Just scrubbed the khakis on the shower floor. Clothes got clean, but did not last long. Rudy Gambrell was a radio operator. Dan Daniels was the communications chief and first Sargeant.

Det 3-1 at Trabzon only had one officer assigned: First Lieutenant, James K. Milam, was the Detachment commander. Great guy. A pilot who ended up with us for a six months or so. The motor pool was run by Sargeant Benny Harmon and he was replaced by a Tech Sargeant whose name will come to me.

Samsun and Sinop notes

The Army opened up a site at Sinop, down the coast from Samsun, sometime in late '56 or sometime in '57. Samsun was also operating when Trabzon was open.