Biography of Dick Bergman

Sr. Airman, Det#3, 136th CSS, Camp Pieri, Germany & 6912th RSM, Manhattan AFB, USA, USAF, Cold War

   I was in the United States Air Force. My training in the United States was at Keesler AFB, Beloxi, Mississippi. At the end of that training I was assigned to the Air Force Security Service with a Crypto clearance.

Graduation from Radio Intercept School after assignment to the AF Security Service. I am the one with a bandaid on the right cheek bone.

   I shipped out on the USNS General Maurice Rose bound for Bremerhaven Germany. I sailed on the Rose in late October of 1953. The storms in the North Atlantic were bad that year. I recall having mess in the AM (Green Eggs) and watching the port hole go under the sea and back up to the sky over and over again. I was a young airman being deployed to Germany. We were to dock at Bremerhaven but were held off so mine sweepers could clear the area of WW2 mines that had been torn loose by the storms we had experienced on our trip. Many of the men aboard had experienced sea sickness on the crossing but I was used to the water after fishing for years with my father on a large lake in Michigan`s UP. Still have photos and film of that crossing.

Shipboard, USS Gen. Maurice Rose, October 1953

   My final destination was Camp Pieri (Freudenburg Kasserne) near Wiesbaden.

Camp Pieri, Germany

   I was what was then called “an intercept operator specializing in coded messages but also voice intercept and various other forms of communications intercept”. I began work on coded messages but was soon transferred to voice with some TDY to various air bases to listen and record phone traffic for possible security breaches. I and others were often sent to Kaiserslauten to collect teletype tapes for security review.

Operations Room, Det#3, 136th CSS

   In July of 1955 I was given a particularly unusual mission to listen to and record voice traffic from an unknown aircraft. I did so as several high ranking officers observed. Much later, after my discharge I was informed that my mission that day was to record the first flight of the U2 in the European Theater of Operations.

Operations Room, Det#3, 136th CSS, 1954

   While assigned to voice transmissions I would frequently intercept transmissions from B47 aircraft which were armed with nuclear weapons flying between Ramey AFB, refueling over the Azores and landing at Wheeles in North Africa near Tripoli.

   I returned to the ZI after assignment to the 6912th RSM and was discharged at Manhattan AFB in late August of 1956.

Dick Berman, Roman Gate, Wiesbaden, Germany

     Dick Bergman

     bergie136css@wi.rr.com

LINKS

History of USNS General Maurice Rose, (1950-2000), USAT General Maurice Rose (1947-1950), USS Admiral Hugh Rodman (1945-1947), T-AP-126, AP-126, Troop Transport, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam

Back To Justin Oral History, Air Force Biographies

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