Frank Spencer <lapspencer@msn.com>

I was on the Hill from April 72 to April 73 as the assistant S-4.
I was a Quartermaster Corps 2LT; the Hill was my first duty station. I worked for Major Al Mezaros, then Major Robert Register (from Tennessee), then a LTC whose name escapes me. Others I worked with in the S-4 shop: Sgt Juttie Jones, replaced by Sgt (Billy?) Mitchell. Clerk-typists were Forrest and Dane. LTs Bill Becker and Mark Kern were my good friends; I was LT Jack Fortini's replacement. CPT Larry Crawford was head of Engineering. LT Jesse Hair (finance) made CPT on the Hill.

Among the many diversions offered by life on the Hill, we ...
.... played volleyball, flag football, developed photos, etc.
.... watched 'em "demilitarize" the slot machines by melting them down with document destroyer charges.
.... flew a control-wire Stuka out on the ball field. Crashed and repaired it so many times it ended up being a ball of strapping tape with wings.
.... watched the guy who built the ultralight/paraglider never get it off the ground.
.... helped ship home somebody's body who took his own type of early-out.
.... made health raids on the Mess Hall with Doc Heffernan, taking fingernail scrapings to culture for E-coli.
.... went to Ankara on the salvage run a couple of times.

Becker and I left in April 73 on the White Boat to Istanbul, then by boat to Italy, up the boot by train to visit friends in Germany. I've been in education since that time, teaching high school English and courses for teachers-in-training at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

I've enjoyed reading the stories and comments about "Life on the Hill." They bring back a bunch of memories. I have the same set of pictures everyone else does: the town from the hill, the Hill from the town, sunsets, Otter and U-8 overflights (the original "You've Got Mail!"), ball games. Everybody looks so young!

I took many of these in April 1973 at the end of my tour in Sinop.

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1. Me, the grizzled veteran of a tour in Sinop: Frank Spencer, 2LT, QMC, assistant S-4. My main jobs were monitoring the base maintenance operations (contracted to Tumpane Co.) and watching the CW4 run the Property Book Office. PICTURE

2. LT Mark Kern of Perry, Oklahoma. A real MI operations type, commissioned through OCS. PICTURE

3. The putt-putt course, with the chapel in the background. PICTURE

4. The MP shack at the Main Gate. PICTURE

5. HQ building. PICTURE

6. The theater. Some midnight movies were so long it would be daylight when you emerged. PICTURE

7. Barracks building. If you look closely you can see the graffiti that changes "Can Do" to "Candy," and adds a couple of S’s under the big A. PICTURE

8. Ahmet the O Club manager. Rumor was he was the second or third highest paid person in the province of Sinop. PICTURE

9. The Short Timer’s clock in the O Club. The next one to leave had the place of honor, nearest the door. If you didn’t change the countdown each day, you had to buy drinks for the house. The names across the top are LT Howard, CPT Howard, LT Spencer and LT Becker. The mug to the left of the clock is LTC Crowell’s. PICTURE

10. The view of Sinop from the Hill was my most frequent photo subject. I chose this one for the fog creeping in, which would sometimes not lift for two weeks or more. PICTURE

11. MAJ Robert Register of Shelbyville, Tennessee, the S-4 (my boss) for a good portion of my tour. PICTURE

12. CPT John Savage, my replacement (Was I glad to see him!). PICTURE

13. The PX. LT Bill Becker is considering a purchase. PICTURE

14. Mike Mahoney, a civilian employee of Tumpane Co. (the base maintenance outfit: laundry, engineering, fire protection, mess hall, etc.), and his wife Aydan, in front of HQ building. PICTURE

15. LT Rob Cunningham, April 73. PICTURE

16. LT Zigler; I think he was transportation officer, April 73. PICTURE

17. That’s the mail plane (U-8) buzzing the Hill over the ball field. We’ve got mail! PICTURE

18. Nyazi, one of the bartenders at the O Club (Fevzi is the other one I remember). Also behind the bar occasionally was Ahmet, the Club manager. PICTURE

19. The Bombsight. This one’s pretty upscale, with tile and a hose and the "splashguard" depth of the center section. PICTURE

20. A dockside scene of farewell. Bill Becker and I left the Hill on the White Boat to Istanbul, then through Italy and Germany. It was too stormy to dock, so we were taken out by small craft (see next picture). Among those saying goodbye here are Rob Cunningham (3rd from left), Mark Kern (4th from left), unidentified maybe a pilot (5th from left), and maybe Jim Forrest (S-4 clerk typist) at the extreme right. PICTURE

21.The boat that took us out to the White Boat. The guy in the red jacket is Major Peetz. PICTURE

22. I have no idea who these guys are, or when this photo was taken. I think the picture was one of a bunch of slides that were being discarded from the S-4 office, which I kept (Hey, I was also the salvage officer!). The slides seemed to be for a briefing about the S-4 organization and functions. PICTURE

23. The Yeni Hotel, with the Hill in the background. View from the dock or the White Boat. PICTURE

24. I’m pretty sure this was the Command Sergeant Major in Spring of ’73, but I don’t recall his name. (It may have been from earlier in my tour, as it’s in black and white so I developed it myself.) PICTURE

25. Action shot of the O Club flag football team. The names from left to right are Doc Heffernan ("Smokin’ Joe"), MAJ Newton, Paul Farrington, Bob Bennet (CPT in S-2, I think), Frank Spencer, Mark Kern, Bob Koss (a pilot, I believe). PICTURE

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