 |
Çorlu, Turkish Army artillery center in the late 1950's
Memories of Doug Wright, USA, 1957-1961
Doug Wright
© 2003-2007
Çorlu was a Turkish Army artillery center in the late 1950's My unit, FTT-1A1, was part of MAG, JUSMMAT, effort in training the Turkish Army. We were regular USA, about 22-in the training section and about 100-in the support and munitions security section. As indicated, the training section reported in July 5, 1958, and were mostly rotated out in April, 1959, after completing our mission. We trained two Rocket Artillery Battalions. I heard afterwards, in 1960, that FTT-1A1, then primarily a service and munitions security unit, was moved to a site between Çorlu and Istanbul, probably near another Turkish Army site.
There was also a very small Coast Guard outpost (A listening post?), with about 14-Coasties, about 10-klicks from us, towards the Sea of Marmara. Also, I heard that later on in the 1970's, Çorlu became a TUSLOG site, with real barracks and USA buildings.
Our camp was all Belgian Quonsets, peaked roofs and all, built especially to house my unit, in 1958. It had the appearance then of being a temporary camp just for purposes of training those two battalions. I've never seen any references to FTT-1A1 in the old AMIT web site but exchanged emails with people who were there in the 1970's. Also, AMIT didn't have any other references to other FTT units. FTT stands for Field Training Team. 1A1 stands for 1st Army, 1st team.
FYI, then Çorlu was a smallish town, almost like a village; population size unknown to me then. It's changed quite a bit since then from what I've heard.
|
 |
