Charlie Battery - 1959 - 1969
Scenes of Our Local Neighborhood
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Beautiful Entrance Into Haberschlacht
I always loved to take this beautiful tree lined lane down the ridge and into the village. This was the route taken to Brackenheim and Heilbronn, and taking a right turn at the crossroads, into Stockheim. In the early mornings old women would be out sweeping the streets and roadside making the village tidy. I had never seen that before, and it always made an impression to me.
Haberschlacht was, at that time, a very small village with a population of about 300 people.
Please Note: I found this lovely image on the web, and have since lost where I found it so I could get use permission and give credit to the author. If said author discovers our use of this image, please let me know and we can discuss it, or I will remove it. My intentions are honorable, but it's just to lovely I could not resist using it. just for the record it's original image name is 8969576.jpg.
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Lovely Haberschlacht Signpost
An absolutely charming and expertly fashioned hand carved signpost stands at the entrance to the village of Haberschlacht. Just up the hill, and less than 5 minutes away, was the kaserne. The Gasthof Ochsen (Oxen) is where we would go on schnitzel runs while on duty in the launching area, playing marathon games of double deck pinochle in between 2 hours on and 4 off tours of guard duty around our assigned sections.
The top of the sign denotes the year the village was founded, “750 Jahre”, or the year 750. Just below that is the heraldry of the village, which is included here as an image. I am not sure what the flora on the coat of arms is. And I am surprised it's not related more to the vineyards. If anyone knows please contact me. And finally, the expression “Weinort - Haberschlacht”, or wine village - Haberschlacht.
UPDATE...
"I am not sure what the flora on the coat of arms is. And I am surprised it's not related more to the vineyards."
I posed the previous thoughts back when I placed this image on the website. I am pleased to say that the request I made for more information has been answered.
Uwe Koch, of Kleingartach wrote to tell me that the flora on the Heraldry is actually the cereal grain "Oats". Haber is an old German word for the contemporary German word Hafer... "Oats".
And German word "Schlacht" means battle, or as a verb, "to battle". A word probably as old as humans have been fighting each other.
— Haberschlacht...
Literally meaning to battle with, or the never ending struggle of raising the cereal grain Oats. From planting, to raising, harvesting, threshing, and finally realizing their efforts, Oats must have been a very important part of their diet and economy.
So, with the village forming in the year 750, only 250 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the primary agriculture must have been Oat farming and was what the village identified with, as illustrated on their heraldry, much before grapes, vineyards, and wine came to their hillsides.
There is however, certainly no doubt about the importance of the vineyard to this village and the region today.
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The Gasthof Ochsen In Haberschlacht
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The Side Entrance To The Gasthof Ochsen
There is certainly no doubt about the importance of the vineyard to this village.
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Bob Ware And Hans Sommer
Prosit...!
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Good Friends Don Crowl and Ken Nendick At The Schloss Frankenstein
This trip was a project of our travel agent Spec 4 Don Crowl, on the left in this picture. In checking his journal of 1960, Don found that we visited the Schloss Frankenstein on “Dienstag, 27 Dezember”. The next day he began initial clearing in Heilbronn to leave ole Charlie Battery for good.
The Schloss Frankenstein is up around Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt. Not exactly in our neighborhood, but just something we did that was more interesting than of drinking beer. Actually, I originally thought this picture was over at the Schloss Stocksberg until Ken Nendick reminded me that it was our trip north Darmstadt.
If you want to read more about this castle I've included a PDF article that I found on the web. Don't let the cover fool you. The article is in English. So Click Here for more information. The PDF is about 1 mb, so if anyone has a dial-up connection it will take about 5 or 6 minutes to download.
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Don Crowl And Me At The Schloss Frankenstein
Again, this was the same adventure as the previous image. The trip was a project of our travel agent Spec 4 Don Crowl, on the left in this picture. In checking his journal of 1960, Don found that we visited the Schloss Frankenstein on “Dienstag, 27 Dezember”. The next day he began initial clearing in Heilbronn to leave ole Charlie Battery for good.
This image was originally quite out of focus. I have done the best I can to sharped it, but even Photoshop has its limits, but it's not bad.
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Enrique Ramirez, Rob Peterson, and Lionel Gonzales (Let’s Party)
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The Gang - 1966
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A Relaxing Sunny Sunday Afternoon - 1966
Weather at Charlie Battery
