The Fort Dix Ammunition Story

                                               The Fort Dix Ammunition Story

                                                                  1960

                          A true story about finding an abandoned cache of military

                           Ammo and tear gas in the woods at Fort Dix New Jersey.    

                                 Written 4/13/2011 Re-written 04/20/2016

                                                          Howard Yasgar

    

By 1960, I had finally decided to join the Army Reserves.

The reason I had joined the reserves was because I felt it would be better than getting drafted.     I was also hoping that by joining the reserves I might get to go military mechanics school.

But that was just wishful thinking on my part as it didn’t turn out that way at all.

By joining up with the army reserves, it first required me to go for eight weeks of basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

Then after that everyone in my training unit was assigned to another military installation for six months of active duty.

I was surprised to learn that I was assigned right back to the motor pool at Fort Dix New Jersey, as a truck driver.

At first I was disappointed to be a truck driver, but as time passed I found being a truck driver was just about the best job you could ever have when in the service.   

I found that everyone wanted a truck driver as a friend, as riding in the back of a 2-1/2 ton truck was a lot better than marching in the rain.   

I found that working in the motor pool at Fort Dix was really a pretty cushy job.

In the morning after breakfast, I reported for duty at the motor pool, which meant sitting in the drivers ready room, reading magazines, and waiting until someone needed a truck and driver.

A motor pool was run by a non commissioned officer, usually it was a staff Sergeant.  

At Fort Dix, my motor pool was run by Staff Sergeant Kimbrough.

Kimbrough was a short timer, that meant he was due to retire soon.

The Army has a system, when a non commissioned officer gets close to retirement they usually put him in charge of running some facility like a warehouse or a motor pool.

Kimbrough and I became good friends, he was a tall no nonsense, black guy that had fought in Korea.

By the time I met him, it was important to Kimbrough was that he had an unblemished record, running the motor pool.

Getting court marshalled for some minor infraction before you retired was not a good thing.     While Sergeant Kimbrough ran a good motor pool operation, he did have a fault. He was a hoarder.

Whenever a truck was non operational, or “Dead Lined” it went against your record, so Sergeant Kimbrough did everything in his power to keep all his trucks operational, and how he did it was quite unique.

Whenever he needed spare parts, instead of waiting weeks or months for the normal supply channels, Kimbrough would take a case of beer to the base junk yard, and the Sergeant there would let him take whatever parts he wanted.

Of course, Kimbrough would take way more parts than he actually needed.

Little by little our motor pool became overloaded with unauthorized extra tools and spare parts.

One day, Kimbrough called me into his office. He said that he had received a tip that there was going to be an IG inspection. (IG meant Inspector General).       

If the inspector found extra tools or parts at the motor pool, and Kimbrough could not account for them, it meant they were probably stolen, and Kimbrough could be court marshalled.

Kimbrough said, I need you to hand pick five drivers, guys you can trust, then I need you to bring me these five trucks, he gave me a list of serial numbers.

I want you to load up four of the five trucks with all the extra parts we have in the motor pool, and I want you to go hide somewhere for a week until the inspection was over.

I had to ask, won’t the inspector see five trucks missing? No he said, they were part of his excess hoard.

I did exactly as Kimbrough asked and we filled four of the trucks up with excess parts, keeping one truck empty.

He gave me a map of Fort Dix and I found there were several deactivated infantry training areas where we could hide the trucks. One truck we would use to ferry everyone to the mess hall for meals. The Infantry training area I chose was a really strange place, there were fox holes dug everywhere and all kinds of different colorful metal markings nailed to the trees.

The entire area was set up like it was a simulated combat zone.  

On the second day, I heard one of my drivers running back to the trucks, he was hollering, “You are not going to believe what I found”.

I followed behind him as we went deeper into the woods, it was dangerous, as there were infantry foxholes dug all over the place.

About a half mile into the woods, we came onto a large clearing, and there was a mountain of wooden crates.

The pile was so big, I couldn’t see over it, it was about forty feet long and twenty five feet high.

The wood crates had been there so long they were already turning gray, and some were starting to rot and fall apart.

It was pretty obvious that no one had touched this stuff for many years.

I lifted one wood crate, and purposely dropped it on its edge, it broke open and waterproof sealed boxes fell out of it.

We opened the cardboard boxes and they were full of aluminum flare gun cartridges and they all looked like brand new.

So then we started breaking open the other crates and we found 30.06 blank ammunition, red and green smoke bombs, tear gas, and hundreds of packages of M80 exploding trip wire kits.

The bigger wooden crates, all had five sealed metal canisters in them, each canister filled with bandoliers of blank ammunition.

My driver, the soldier that had found the stash, went absolutely crazy, he started breaking open all the watertight ammo containers and dumping the blank ammunition on the ground.

He said he was going to return with his car the next day, and fill it up with the waterproof metal bullet containers.

He said they would make beautiful tool boxes that could easily be sold for five dollars each.

I reminded him that we could all go to Leavenworth prison if they ever caught us with any of this stuff, but he didn’t seem to care.

Once we went back to the trucks and told the other guys, about what we had found, every one of them made several trips back and forth, carrying back as many of the items as they could.

It was all very exciting, we were all so fascinated by the stuff we soon forgot all about the serious trouble we could get into by taking it.

By the end of the day, I had made two trips to the pile and I had brought back two big wooden crates of the blank ammunition.

After we all rested for a while, I wondered what in the world would I do with two huge crates of blank ammunition.

The next day we heard at the mess hall that the IG inspection was over and we could return to the motor pool.

But I was still concerned about my getting caught with all the blank ammunition

So as we were driving out of the woods, I saw there were several small, colorful metal triangles nailed to the trees.

I stopped my truck by a tree that had a small green triangle sign on it.

I walked about ten paces into the woods, and there I found an old foxhole. so I put the two wooden ammo crates into the hole and I covered it up with whatever dirt I was able to kick over it.

That was in 1960, and it was several years later, in 1963, when I was back with my army reserve unit in New Haven, it was summer and we were getting ready to do our two weeks of summer training.

That year our Company was to do a convoy to Fort Eustis Virginia, and we would be spending one night at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

We arrived at Fort Dix around 9:30 PM, and were assigned to an empty barrack to get some sleep.

As we all sat on our bunks talking, I mentioned the story about finding all the ammunition several years before.

I knew that no one believed me, so that’s when I told them where I had buried two crates of blank ammunition.

Several of my fellow reservists were gun collectors, and they were really interested as to where the blank ammunition was buried.

I told them it was too dangerous to go so far into the woods, where the big pile was, but we could possibly get to where I buried the two wooden ammunition crates.

Thirty minutes later, our sergeant and two other fellows, shook me awake. “Let’s go”, they said, “We got a Jeep”.

I quickly dressed and, we all piled into the Jeep.

It was pretty late and it was very dark, and I was starting to worry about ever finding the place in the woods.

But luck was with me, there was enough moonlight, and I found the abandoned road.

We drove in very slowly I hoped that the Jeeps headlights would reflect on the green sign that  was still on the tree.

We found the tree, it was the same one with the green triangle nailed to it.

I told the guys to go in ten paces and dig in the foxhole, it was just like we were looking for pirate treasure.

They were thrilled when they dug up the crates, and threw them into the jeep.