Ship Follower in 1964 - post 1

My next visit to Europe was in the summer of 1964, to meet my husband's ship at ports around the Med.
He was a pilot and flew S2Fs (antisubmarine planes) off the aircraft carrier Intrepid


The_planes_that_Bob_flew

The Intrepid was supposed to have the following itinerary
11 June – Leave Norfolk
21 June – Arrive Med
23 June to 26 June – Palma Majorca
3 to 8 July – Cannes (refuel)
10 July to 15 July – Naples

(do sea maneuvers)

23 July – one day in Rota Spain
25-30 July – Valencia Spain
1 August – anchor off Majorca – no liberty
3 to 8 August – Toulon France
15 – 22 August – Naples
24 August – leave Med

Between 3rd and 5th of September – arrive home in Norfolk.


Aircraft carriers

However this schedule was not kept – I think they skipped Cannes and were in Nice instead, and then they went to Cannes after the July visit to Naples. And they went to Marseilles instead of Toulon.

I was to meet him in Valencia at the end of July, and Toulon and Naples in August.

I stayed in six hotels on this trip. I found the ones in Madrid, Lisbon and Granada. I do not know the name of the hotel in Valencia. The hotel in Naples does not appear to exist anymore, and the site in Marseilles is no longer a hotel

I had a Eurail pass good for a month, and I was saving money by taking a charter flight to Europe. The charter was with the German Society of Maryland which my dad joined just so that I could fly on this charter.

Sketch of the original German Society building.

The charter was from New York to Cologne.

I left my two children with my mom. My oldest daughter was almost 3 and my baby was 10 months old when I left the US.

This picture was taken at Easter 1964

I wrote letters to my mom, and sent post cards to my three year old daughter. I had a 20" hard side suitcase (no wheels), and a Ventura bag and my pocketbook. Plus of course a camera.

Picking up the narrative when I arrived in Germany

Over Europe


Clouds_over_the_UK_

It is now 0530 — 1.5 hours from Cologne and we are south of Shannon. The sun has just come up. Breakfast is coming. We had no smoking over here because it bothers Scarlett, but Mrs. W. chain smoked all night. She doesn’t look well to me. I think flying makes her nervous. This has been a very smooth flight.

We are now over Lisbon. The clouds are so thick we can’t see much.



We landed very early in the morning, and after we got through customs, there was a city tour scheduled. The letter I wrote to my mom about the tour either never arrived, or did not get put in the folder with the rest of them, so I have only my slides (or at the moment I just have my slide list because I haven't yet found these particular slides yet) to remind me what we saw 42+ years ago.

I wrote my daughter from the airport.


Dom, Rheinufer im Sonnenuntergoing, Hohnentor-card I sent to my daughter from the airport

Dear D.

We are going to see this church this morning. So far we haven't left the airport. I was one of the first thru customs. I showed my passport, identified my bag and had nothing to declare. If the Poste opens before we leave, I'll mail this.

Love Mummy

The card had two 20 DM stamps.

City Tour of Cologne​

We crossed the new Severns bridge which was built in 1959 as a single suspensions bridge. The Cathedral dominates most of the landscape. There was a cardboard statue in 1964 taking the place of where a real statue would eventually be. We also saw St. Pantaleon, a church which my notes say was begun in 980.



View of the Cathedral and RR station from the bridge in 1964

They arranged for us to have "breakfast" (sandwiches on pumpernickel) at a cafe in front of the Cathedral. I was astonished to discover that the Germans eat their sandwiches with knives and forks - they apparently regarded those from North America as barbarians because we pick them up and eat them with our hands.

Opposite the Cathedral, I saw the Dom hotel where we stayed in 1950.

Dom Hotel in 1950

We saw St. Aposteln which was built about 1100, a Roman tower with a market underneath.

After that, we toured the cathedral. There was some scaffolding on the back tower.

We went into the Rathaus which on looking back on it seemed a strange place for a tour to go as municipal buildings are most often viewed from the outside unless one has some business there.

Stained glass in the Rathaus

Inside was a modern stained glass window - "The Life of the Town" by Professor Georg Meistermann. It was a kind of timeline of history. The major figures in the city of Cologne are lined up along its abstracted Rhine in a window. These included historical figures such as Agrippina in addition to more modern people. The 13 x 9-meter window is in the stairwell of the recently renovated Town Hall.

I took a picture of it with Scarlett (a young girl who was in the charter group) in front of it and it is one of the few photos of the first part of my 1964 trip that I have so far found. But when I looked on the internet I could find no mention of it whatever. The internet problem was solved when GrumpyDiver explained that I was misspelling his name - it isn't Meisterman as I had thought. Even with the correct spelling I can find only one photo on the internet (other than mine) and that is on Wikipedia, which says

George Champion Meistermann (b. June 16 1911 in Solingen, June 12th 1990 in Cologne) was a painter, illustrator and graphic designer, and created over a thousand glass window at about 250 locations throughout Europe.

It is certainly a contrast with the Cathedral. We also saw (according to my notes from 1964) the foundations of the Roman Praetorium (or palace) which was underneath the Rathaus. These ruins were discovered in 1953 when they were doing excavation for a new wing of the Town Hall. It turned out to be the Roman city headquarters. The remains still lie under the city hall and can be viewed. The picture that I took of this is still missing.

There is an information desk in the lobby of the Town Hall where one can inquire about viewing the excavations.

After the tour, I left the rest of the group and traveled on my own for the rest of the trip.


cathedral through the RR station roof in 1950

Train down the Rhine​

I went to the railroad station and had "lunch" at a snackbar there. I remember having something like a bratwurst. At the station I got a train going down the Rhine to Frankfort. In 1950, we took a boat down the Rhine and my dad had taken many pictures of the castles on the way.


View from the river in 1950

While I was traveling down the Rhine in the train, I got about an hour's nap. If you have followed this from the beginning, you know that, I left Norfolk on July 14th, drove to Baltimore, took the train to Philadelphia, got a bus to NYC, and took a plane to Cologne (with about a hour's sleep) arriving July 15th, had a tour of Cologne, had lunch in the train station before I got on the Frankfurt train.

Most of what follows is what I wrote to my mom.

I sent a card to my daughter in Cologne. In the rush and confusion I forgot to ask whether the stamps that the lady gave me were airmail or not. Also I gave that letter to a soldier in Frankfurt to mail APO, so I hope you get it. [My mom's note was that it had not arrived yet and it is not in the folder with the rest of the letters]

When we got to Frankfurt, it was 1808. I stood around looking for my cousin [whose husband was stationed there and I was supposed to get some things to take to my sister], and then checked my bag. She was looking for my blue suit (and I wasn't wearing that for travel),

My_blue_suit_from_1964

and I apparently didn't recognize her. I stood and walked around the station for about a half an hour, and tried to phone, but got a busy signal as it was not a local call.

I finally left the station to look for somewhere it was cool. I guess I should have sat and looked lost, but I was beat and hungry and thirsty. So I looked at the posted menus in the restaurants on Kaiserstrasse and found one and ordered Hamburg steak, F.F. and a coke. The whole thing including tip was slightly under $1.00

Than I went back to the station to try to call her house again, and entered a different way and found the RTO (Railway Transportation Office) lounge. My cousin had made that her base of operations . She left about 10 minutes after I did and also left me a note. The [US] soldier there told me where I could make a long distance call, so I called my sister and let her know what happened. The call cost more than dinner - 5.76 DM.

I went to get my suitcase and to go back to the RTO lounge because it was cool there and the coke machine produced a reasonably cold Coke for 5 cents American money, but I saw that my train was being made up. I calculated that if it took her an hour to drive in, she might just barely make it back and call. She didn't, and I don't know if she tried.

I walked all the way back anyway to "check in" so to speak and a most helpful soldier carried my bag back for me to put me on the train. He was really very helpful and friendly. He said he had been here two years and they all knew him so well, he said that he could go through the gates in civilian clothes, without a pass.

My sister said that my cousin (whom I haven't seen in over 10 years) was dark, thin and short, and the soldier said she was dirty blonde and my height [5'7"]. (She is shorter than I am)


her photo


The soldier got the train opened up (a bit early - it was still hot from where it had been sitting in the sun), and put my bag up in the rack for me. Both times after that I managed myself. It is a little like weight-lifting.

This part I did not write to my mom. The train was a French train with a French porter. After the soldier left, the porter came to my compartment and tried some conversation in broken English with a heavy French accent.

He asked me a question and I thought the question was "Do you want allez?" I knew enough French to know that "allez" in French was "To go", and that question made no sense whatsoever to me. So I was confused, plus hot, tired and a bit jet lagged too I guess.

It did not dawn on me until about three times through him asking me this question, that he was speaking all English, and that he was asking me if I wanted "a lay". I didn't of course and I didn't know how to answer him that wouldn't offend him or get me into more trouble, so I kept on acting like I didn't understand him. Eventually he left in disgust.

Back to my letter

I have a compartment [this was a couchette, as it was way cheaper to get a couchette for the night than to sleep in a hotel, and I would have also accomplished transportation] with two other single girls and a German family. I think one of the girls was Italian.

The German family was put on the train by Papa. It was Mama, daughter and a son about 10. Mama and I had the bottom racks. The daughter spoke English and we conversed a little. She had a transistor with an earplug which she listened to. She got into nightclothes, but kept her underwear on.

There's lots of hay and wheat in this country and some things that I guess are silos, made of cement and top heavy. Also there are cornfields and sunflower fields and I supposed those busy things are asparagus fields - bushy and about a foot high. When I said sunflower fields, I mean cultivated ones -- all in rows with their heads all dutifully turned to the sun.

We are now going along a flat broad river between high banks and I see a chateau.

During the night, about midnight, while it was still hot. I went to the WC (which is practically the only place you don't have to pay to go) and washed up and took off my dress and washed it out. I put it back on and stood in the corridor and a half hour later it was dry. [I was traveling in a nylon knit dress - my mom's note said that this really floored her]

About halfway through the night, I had to put a blanket on because it was so cold.

In a subsequent letter in answer to her exclaimations about this dress washing, I wrote "I didn't really have the whole dress wringing wet -- just washed out some spots on the front and under the arms, but it got wetter than I intended"

When we got to Paris, I asked the little German girl if we should tip the porter, and she didn't know, but she gave him one franc and so I gave him one quarter as I didn't have any French change - only 5 and 10 franc notes.

In the morning I was in Paris.