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Tom Minehan 1957-1949
© 2012 by Author
I was among the first group of USAF troops to occupy “Mainsite” and was there from mid summer of '57 until June of '59. I went from tech school at Scott AFB (Radio Repair ) to Ankara Turkey, where a bunch of us marked time until the barracks and other buildings at KARAMURSEL were made ready. I remember the bus ride from Ankara to be long, hot,and dusty.
The buildings were mostly empty and we worked with a communications equipment installation team on TDY from Germany. We installed the receivers, transmitters and built the antenna farm. The interesting thing was the equipment we were installing and maintaining was not what we had gone to school for.
At that time we bunked 4 to a room which was cozy. I remember when a new radio operator arrived we maintenance guys sometimes had a bag or empty container with wires attached to each end connected between his receiver and headset. He was led to believe it was necessary for his equipment to work properly.
It is hard to remember stuff after all these years but as I type different things pop-up. There was only one woman on the site and she was the nurse. The Catholic Chaplin was Fr. Mossey. Two Sergeants were Cleasby, and Dolan. My roommates that I remember were Larry Kirk, Jim Norman, and Tom Darnall. I notice there is a Tom Darnall listed among the names on the MerhabaTurkey main page, so I will be looking him up on the KARAMURSEL60-61 website.
I plan to come back to this site and think about KARAMURSEL some more.. and will expand my story as memories return.
Allaha Ismarladik,
Tom Minehan
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