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Guarding the "Atomic Cannon"

 

From Gen. Colin Powell (US Army, ret.) in 2004:
2nd Bn, 48th Infantry, 3AD (Lt., 1958-60)
Below: Excerpts from his My American Journey autobiography, published in 1995:

... And [in 1958] I was about to see the world. My first orders sent me to the 3d Armored Division in West Germany. In that Cold War era, when the globe seemed divided between white and red, I was excited to be going to the front line, with our godless communist adversary deployed just across the Iron Curtain.

... I was sent to Gelnhausen (which the G.I.'s had Americanized to "Glen-haven"), a picturesque town nestled in the valley of the Kinzig River, about twenty-five miles east of Frankfurt. The Soviet zone was forty-three miles to the east. My unit, Combat Command B of the 3d Armored Division, occupied Coleman Kaseme, a former German army post near the Vogelsberg mountains, where most of the troops lived in modem concrete barracks clinging to the hillsides. I was assigned as a platoon leader to Company B, 2d Armored Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, my first field command - forty men.

... In those days, the Air Force and the Navy had nuclear weapons, and so the Army had to have its nukes. Our prize was a 280mm atomic cannon carried on twin truck-tractors, looking like a World War I Big Bertha. The Russians obviously wanted to know where our 280's were so that they could knock them out if and when they attacked. Consequently, the guns were always guarded by an infantry platoon as the trucks hauled them around the German forests to keep the Soviets guessing. One day Captain Miller [company commander] summoned me. He was assigning my platoon to a secret mission. We had been selected to guard a 280. I eagerly alerted my men. I loaded my .45 caliber pistol, jumped into my jeep, and headed for battalion headquarters to be briefed. I was excited; I was going to guard a weapon that fired a nuclear warhead!

[Note: the book's editor unfortunately must have done some cutting here, as there is no further description of the 280 mission.]

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