Harry E. Lance's Sinop Page
Picture - Tom Yanko, one of my best friends, lives in Ohio.
Picture - A collage of items I bought in Sinop.
a. bedroom slippers for my father
b. A knife for me
c. What's left of a Turkish water pipe.
d. A silver initial ring
e. A meerschaum cigarette holder.
f. a baby blanket.Picture - A close up of my fathers bedroom slippers. As far as I know neither my father nor I ever wore them.
Picture - Some of my buddies - From the right Tom(?) Lynch, his father was an executive at BOAC; 2nd from right , don't know; 3rd from right in red shirt, Don Elkins from Georgia; 4th from right, Crosby from Texas(?); 5th - ot sure.
Picture - The back (front?) door of our barracks. Note the Byzantine ruin in the background.
Picture - NCO club looking up??
Picture - A View of the mountains and some quonset huts.
Picture - The exercise yard in the prison on downtown Sinop.
Picture - Diogenes Station Christmas Card - 1959.
Picture - Priest and chapel at Christmas Eve.
Picture - Christmas Party at the club
Picture - The Main street in Sinop - 1960.
Picture - A downtown ruin.
Picture - On top of Roman ruin, don't know the GI or Turkish folks.
Picture - This may be the NCO club from above. Not sure.Picture - This is the Jennings fellow I mentioned in my first text I sent earlier this year. I believe his first name was Art. He is standing in front of an orphanage in Athens where Det 4 sponsored a little girl. I had pictures of her and her name but they are lost to antiquity. Bet not too many remember that.
Picture - That is me with another dog. I have no idea what her name was.
USASA TUSLOG DET 4
April 1959-April 1960
by Harry Lance SP4, MOS 058I couldn’t believe the amount of data pertaining to the ASA, in general, and Tuslog Det 4 in, particular on the Internet. For sometime now I have been thinking about my days on the "hill" but never really knew how to start looking for information. I would like to share my experiences with all of you, and perhaps in the process, find some old friends I knew in Sinop. I will also be adding different pictures which may be of interest, since I didn’t see them on the page yet.
I enlisted in the Army on August 8, 1958. I was 18. After basic training at Fort Dix, NJ., I was assigned to Ft Devens, Ma. for schooling. I originally wanted crypto school, but I guess I did not have enough smarts or they needed 058’s at the time. Nevertheless I ended up in Morse intercept school for six month at Devens. After school I was assigned Tuslog Det 4 Sinop Turkey. We left Devens via train and proceeded to Charleston Air Force Base, proceeding to Bermuda, the Azores,Tripoli, Athens, and finally Ankara. ( I noticed that almost everyone on this Web page traveled a different route to Ankara; interesting). My first encounter with Turkish culture happened ten minutes after we deplaned. Upon entering a beautifully tiled bathroom, I noticed only a slightly raised cone in the middle of the floor along with a spigot and brush. Quite a culture shock.
Like everyone else, we processed through Ankara and finally left by airplane to Sinop. I will never forget that flight. The pilot made us strap on a parachute and I damn near crapped in my pants. We made it though and landed on a cow path on the out skirts of Sinop and proceeded to Diogenes Station in a deuce and a half.
Like most arrivals, my first impression of the "Hill" was one of disbelief. I had never seen a more desolate and primitive place in my life. I was sick!!
Picture - OPs buildings and the antenna field - 1960.From this point, everything is an " I Remember" with no sense of being chronologically correct.
I remember my first night on base. I walked the interior perimeter of the base along with a Turkish soldier who walked the outer perimeter. Neither of us understood one another but we talked to each other all night. At about 5 or 6 am he raised his rifle east or west, I don’t know which, and was going to fire. It scared the hell out of me as I thought I might be next, since I didn’t know what I said to him all night. Someone told me later that it had something to do with the Koran but I never believed it. I still think he was trying to scare me. I only remember being on guard duty one night. Lucky I guess.
I remember when I first saw my home for the next year. A pot-bellied stove stood in the middle of a wood-constructed excuse for a barracks. No toilet, no running water; just a bed and an a small area you could call your own. I don’t remember the NCO room in the "barracks", but there is a hell of a lot I don’t remember from that year.
I remember the first time I had to use the facilities. You have to understand, I HATE BEE’S. I am afraid of them and they know it. When I opened the door for the first time, guess what greeted me. BEE’S- hundreds of them. I made many excuses to go the dispensary so I could use their flush toilet. Surprisingly, the medics and doctor never caught on. Anyway they never let on that they did.
I remember the EM club. It had the most breathtaking view of Sinop. I spent many a night in the club trying to forget where I was. I did some gambling at the crap table, but never won a dime. I learned to drink scotch, because that’s what all the college guys drank. I remember one night I (19 years old) was going to teach Leo Rice (about 26 or 27 years) old how to drink. We started at 6 PM. Guess who was falling of their chair at 7 PM? Later in the summer of 59, I remember Leo spending a Saturday morning on the patio with the fabulous view of Sinop with his old friend Mr. SCHLITZ.
Somewhere around 10 am Leo fell asleep. When they woke him up he was so red that he literally could not walk. He was diagnosed with sun poisoning. I remember there was talk of disciplinary action, but I don’t know if they ever did anything. Leo went to Berlin when his time at Sinop was up.
I remember my best buddy was Tom Yanko from Akron, OH. Tom and I were the same age and shared many common interests. Not least among them was our rabid love of rock n’ roll. I remember he had one of those tape players with the big reels and must have recorded every rock n’ roll song ever made up to that point. A lot of the college guys in the barracks didn’t appreciate it; they liked jazz or elevator music. We didn’t care. "Rock N’ Roll was here to stay. Tom later went to Ohio State. I spoke with him briefly in the 70’s, but we never got together.
Picture -Tony Vitale on the right, Ed Harrison sitting and Tom Yanko left.
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Editorial Note: Harry Lance later wrote to say that he has located Tom Yanko who is alive and well living in Poland Ohio.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------While I am on the subject of friends, I would like to share my list of buddies and bunk mates.
Joe Musula (I think), Mt Vernon NY, I went to Athens on leave with him.
Bob Malone( I think its Bob), I forget his home town, my crypto guy-went to Athens with him.
Art(?) Jennings, No idea where he hailed from, went to Athens with him
Ed Harrison, Philadelphia PA, a college guy but a good egg.
Tony Vitale, Detroit MI, Sports guy-organized football games.
Don Elkins ,Georgia, Drinking buddy.
Leo Rice, Rhode Island, Drinking buddy
Tom Yanko, Akron OH, Best friend.
Tom(?) Allen, Not sure, Traveled from US to Turkey with me. Father was a big shot for BOAC airlines.
Tom(?) Staffin, Toledo OH, Traveled home with him. Had a wild night in Rome on the way home. He was a champion swimmer.
And a lot of other guys whose names I can’t remember but who shared in all the good and bad times we had.Picture - Bill Monsma on the right, Ed Harrison sitting, me on the left.
I remember Gimp. Gimp was the post mascot. I am surprised that no one else has written about him. He virtually ruled on the "Hill" I was told my first day that you don’t screw around with Gimp. I have a picture of him along with these stories.
Picture - Gimp the mascot.I also had a black dog named Spike. Unfortunately, I was told that about a month after I left all the animals (including Gimp) were put to sleep. The post commander had some problem with them ( I guess he hated to see his troops happy).
I remember trying to find out, from one of the Turkish orderlies in the cafeteria, how a person could get a date in Sinop. I tried to be diplomatic, I tried not to offend. But I sure must have said something wrong because someone later told me that I had asked something about his daughter. He came after me with a paring knife. I never was much of a linguist.
I loved visiting the old ruins both on the hill and in the town of Sinop. I always loved history and I spent a lot of time looking and taking photos. I still have some, but many have disappeared in the last 40 years. One of our barracks mates ( Jack Mckenna) wrote a book while at Det 4 of Ancient Sinop. He was always crawling around the ruins and researching the book. I believe he published it. I never saw a copy of it. I was very surprised to see that a Leslie Delaney wrote a similar book. I would love to get a copy if any are available or if anyone wants to sell theirs.
Picture - Church ruin on the Hill.
I remember these giant bugs with hard shells. I forget what we called them but I do remember that those folks who worked out on the DF shed at the end of the base told us that when they hit the hut they were in, it sounded like bullets.
Sometime during my tour I visited Athens, Greece. I do remember that the 7th fleet was filming the Guns of Navarrone while we where there. I spent seven days there and had the time of my life-The night life, the girls, the history, everything!!
I can still remember most of what I did, where I did it and who I did it with.
I left on my seventh day, with one dollar to my name. A girl paid for my cab ride to our Military base in Athens or Piraeus where I got a hop to Istanbul. There, at Tuslog Headquarters, I got a bed to sleep in, an advance on my pay, and a hop to Ankara. After one night there, I accompanied some British chaps back up to the "Hill" in one of their Land Rovers ( They were the SUV’s of the 50’s).Finally I remember the beginning construction of the new base. I think I have a picture of the first building that was under construction. I thought at the time, what a difference it will be here in a couple of years-No muddy roads, actual sidewalks, running water and toilets in the barracks, semi private rooms, movies, gyms, bowling alleys, swimming pools, and maybe even a golf course. I have never seen a picture of the base after construction was finished. The closest I have seen is the aerial view sent in by Mr. Gardner. I would really appreciate if someone would paste pictures on the Web site or better yet, if I could impose on someone to copy them for me.
Picture - New barracks under construction -1960.As I have been writing this, many more memories are starting to come back. I know I can’t record them all. To bad. Looking back, the "Hill" wasn’t really that bad.
On a personal level, it changed a very naive 19 year old into an adult. I always harbored the secret desire to return to Sinop and see how it changed. I guess now that Turkey has taken over the base, that is all but impossible.
I left Det 4 in March or April of 1960. Originally I was supposed to go to Vent Hill Farms, Va. I was "promised" that station. Two weeks before I was to leave they changed y orders to Camp Wolters, Mineral Wells, Texas. I was stationed there for a year. Six months into the assignment the word came down that the ASA Battalion was breaking up. We were to take all our excess equipment to Fort Huachuca, AZ, and Two Rock Ranch, Peteluma CA. Before going to Two Rock Ranch we participated in an exercise at Camp Irwin, CA. Believe it or not, it was fun running all over the Mojave Desert in a jeep playing spy. We returned to Camp Wolters after the maneuver and I was reassigned to an Engineering company for the balance of my enlistment.
I made many friends while a part of the ASA. I met Richard Stinson at Fort Devens in 1959. He and his wife went to Shitose Japan after school at Devens. I could have went with them but I chose Sinop. ( told you I was naive). We did stay close though, he was my best man at my wedding; he and his wife were god parents for my daughter; they also agreed to be guardian for my children if fate deemed it necessary. I stayed in touch with Dick for many years. Unfortunately in 1990 his wife passed away and I have not seen or talked to him since. That’s my fault. I never kept in contact with all the good friends I made during my three-year hitch. That’s unfortunate. They were probably the best bunch of guys I ever met.
If you’re out there, call, write or Email me.Email me at HIPOCKETS40@email.msn.com
Harry E. Lance
50 South Fairview Street
Nazareth, Pa 18064Telephone Home 610-746-9141
Telephone Work 610-395-7540
| Copyright © Harry E. Lance, 1999. All Rights Reserved |
