The Fort Dix Ammo Story

1962

A True Story

Written 4/13/2011, and was rewritten 12/2019* 1,242 Words

By Howard Yasgar

It was in 1960 and I was on active duty with the Army Reserves.

I had been assigned to work in the motor pool at Fort Dix New Jersey, as a heavy truck driver.

The motor pool at Fort Dix was run by a Staff Sergeant named Brian Kimbrough, Brian was a career soldier and was just about ready for retirement.

Brian Kimbrough was a very smart guy, and over the years he had made friends with the people at the Fort Dix junk yard, and for a beer now and then, they allowed him to remove any parts he wanted for free.

The base junk yard had everything that the army was getting ready to auction off, they even had complete vehicles that had been damaged in accidents.

If one of Kimbrough’s motorpool trucks broke down he could always requisition repair parts to fix it.

He could do it through normal Army channels but then weeks or months could go by waiting for the parts to show up.

However, Kimbrough knew that he could just run over to the junk yard, take what used parts he needed and

have his truck running the same day.

Of course, as far as the Army was concerned that was all illegal for Kimbrough to do, and if he ever got caught

he would probably be charged with theft of the parts, and for having unauthorized parts on the motor pool

premises.

One day Kimbrough heard through the grapevine that his motorpool was going to be inspected, and he knew that he needed to clean up the place quickly.

Brian told me to get five trustworthy drivers and he gave me five 2-1/2-ton trucks to use. Four of the trucks were to be filled full of all the unauthorized parts he had accumulated. The fifth truck was for me to bring the drivers to the mess hall for food.

Kimbrough said that I was to drive the trucks to one of the abandoned firing ranges on Fort Dix, and we should hide the trucks there for a week, or until the inspection was over.

I could have gotten in a lot of trouble myself for doing it, but I did it anyway, and that is what led to this story.

Fort Dix is a big place, and a lot of it is wooded, and there are plenty of areas that are no longer being used.

I had a map showing some abandoned firing ranges, places that were probably used during the Korean war era and that’s where I took the trucks to hide.

After two days of hiding, we were going stir crazy as we really had nothing to do but play cards and smoke cigarettes.

That’s when some of the guys started wandering around in the woods.

The area we were in was creepy and dangerous, there were fox holes everywhere, and trees had colored little metal triangles and squares nailed on them, it was obviously an old Infantry training area.

You had to wonder how many of the guys that dug all those foxholes ever survived the war.

On the very last day that we were there, I could hear one of the guys hollering, and by the time he reached me he was out of breath.

He said, “You are never going to believe what I found”.

He then said, “It’s an entire old ammo dump, do you want to see it”?

I never saw the other guys move so fast, as we all followed right behind him.

It had to be over half a mile and very deep into the woods, there was an overgrown clearing with a giant pile of wooden crates.

They all looked like wooden ammo crates, the kind that had rope handles on each end.

The entire pile of crates must have been over a hundred feet long and twenty feet high and twenty feet wide.

All the wooden crates were now gray and weathered, some of the crates were already rotten and falling apart.

We found that it was easy to just drop the crates on the ground, and they fell apart.

Inside the first crates we opened were watertight metal ammo cans, they were full of cloth bandoleers with clips of 30.08 blank ammo used in the M1 rifle.

As the guys broke open more crates, we found flare gun shells, smoke bombs, trip flares, tear gas canisters

and all kinds of other stuff.

One of my guys started dumping the blank ammunition on the ground, he said he just wanted all the metal ammo cans to use for toolboxes.

I had to remind the guys that the stuff was old but still government property and we could be court marshalled for taking any of it, but no one was listening to me.

I must admit, it was an incredible find, so we all made several trips back and forth, putting stuff in the empty truck.

In the excitement, I carried back an entire wooden crate of blank M1 ammo for myself.

Then, when I had time to think about it, I started having second thoughts, and I began sweating.

What the hell was I risking going to jail for some M1 rifle blank bullets, I didn’t even own an M1 rifle.

As we were leaving the woods, and we were almost on the main road, I stopped the truck.

I could see there was a tree with a yellow metal triangle nailed on it, and I walked ten paces in, and there was an old foxhole.

I carried the wooden ammo crate there and covered it with dirt, kicking the dirt in with my boots.

Fast forward:

It was nearly three years later, in December of 1962, and my enlistment was just finishing up.

My last hurrah was going to be with my Army Reserve unit from New Haven Connecticut, they were organizing a convoy going to Fort Eustis in Virginia, and I was driving one of the trucks.

I couldn’t believe it when they told me we were spending a night at Fort Dix.in New Jersey, Fort Dix had been my home for six months.

It was late at night, and we were all settled in the barracks at Fort Dix when I told all the guys the story of our finding the Korean era ammunition dump.

I could see no one believed me, one guy even said I was making it all up.

I said the story was true and I had buried a crate of ammo right near the main road.

I knew they didn’t believe a word I said.

It was nearly 2 in the morning when several of the guys woke me up, they said that they wanted the blank ammo.

I must admit I was nervous, I was tired, it was late, and it was real dark, and what if I couldn’t find It, what if some one else had already found and taken it.

Well, we almost missed the road into the woods, but we eventually found it. The tree with the yellow metal triangle was still there.

I told the guys to walk in ten paces in, just like it was a pirate treasure.

They were all excited, but I admit I had my fingers crossed.

Thank God the wooden crate with the blank ammo was still there.

Over the years, I have often wondered if that huge pile of Korean war blank ammo and stuff is still sitting there in the woods at Fort Dix, it probably is.