We were the first to occupy the base when it was first built. I was in the 303rd Tac Recon Squadron .We left Shaw field near Sumter, S.C. in the summer of 53. The planes in our squadron were RF80 and T33s. The planes were flown from Shaw to Sembach by hopscotching across the North Atlantic. The personnel that didn't support the planes on the fly over, left from Charleston, S.C. on a ship called the Eltinge. When we docked at Bremerhaven , Germany there was a band on the dock playing for us . The first song they played was,"I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now". The crossing of the Atlantic from Charleston to Jersey City to Bremerhaven, took 14 days. I believe they said there were 2800 of us on the ship. The first Sergeant gave us grass seed to plant so the grass would start to grow. On the flight line, we did our landscaping using the tugs we had for towing aircraft. We chained the side of a large wooden shipping container to the back of the tug. Then we put rocks on it for weight and drug it around to smooth the landscape. Then we spread the grass seed.

My name is Ted Barber and I was at Sembach from the summer of 1953 till 1955.