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I was stationed @ Hahn AFB in the late '70s-early 80's. We flew F-4's and later transitioned to F-16's. During that time period the German military was flying F-104's Very easy to tell the difference, 104's also had a very distinct howl. We did not fly below 500', the Germans came down to 200-250' ; hell, they were flying training missions up the Mosel River valley. Each time a jet flew over in a low pass, the locals would shake a fist and bitch about the idiot Americans in their F-104's. I will also add that nearly every German WW II vet I spoke with, fought the Russians on the Eastern front. I lived off base and spent much of my off duty time with the Germans. I never had any problems with them, and felt very comfortable there.
It was interesting that NATO took great care in the color of buildings on base, "camo" they said. They did a lot of considering so as to make it more difficult to spot the bases from the air. Somehow they failed to consider baseball diamonds on base property, they were pretty easy to pick out. NATO run exercises had a history of not playing as hard at tea time and after dark. It was predictable, and we did everything we could to snag some night duty on NATO games.
Germany, Europe and NATO had a rather different approach to war-time footing from what I saw back then. The stance taken against the chopper flights leads me to believe that little has changed. I have returned to Germany several times since I have retired. Many bases are closed now. A large number of facilities in Bavaria have been returned to the Germans. Are we more amazed as to how things have changed, or how they have remained the same?
My $.02.
RF 1
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