Sinop Birnu (Sinop point) is shaped like a giant footprint, if the giant were wearing 
shoes, with the toe pointing inland to Turkey, and the heel pointing toward The 
Caucausas. At that time, all of the base was located in the toe of the point and 
the heel of the point was under cultivation, or open fields. We scouted the open 
area, picked a likely site, and had our GI Turkish interpreter locate the owner. 
The owner was more than willing to lease the land to us, but he couldn't understand 
why we wanted undeveloped land when he had a fully mature cornfield that he was 
also willing to sell.

Mr. Taylor and I took a jeep and drove out to the point one night to our newly 
acquired site, taking with us a transit and the TM on DF operations. As I 
remember, we had to sight on Polaris (the North Star), wait until the Big Dipper 
swung around in the sky so that the handle stars of the Dipper were 
aligned with Polaris, and at that time the transit was aligned to true north. We 
knew the magnetic declination for our location, so we set that on the transit, 
drove in a stake with a nail on top, and that gave us our north-south line for the 
equipment. This procedure took approximately five hours. Now all you have to
do is use the Global Positioning System (GPS) that will give you a perfectly 
oriented position within ten meters of a spot anywhere on Earth. How things 
change. 

Setting up the equipment was uneventful. The hut was carried out there on a 
deuce-and-a-half, off-loaded and we operated out of the hut on the ground. The 
equipment proved very reliable, even though we were using diesel generators for 
power, and had to shut down whenever we were fueling or servicing a generator.

Driving out to The Point (our name for the DF site) was itself an experience. We 
had to pass a small farm where there was a water buffalo. This guy hated jeeps 
and charged after them every time we went past. He obviously had worked out 
the geometry of his approach, since he revised his angle of attack each time he 
charged us. When it looked like he had solved the vector problem sufficiently to 
cause us grave damage, we switched from a jeep to a 3/4-ton truck. The
difference in size both confused him and caused him to reevaluate his position, 
thus heading-off a potentially dangerous situation.

Before we switched vehicles, we had mentioned our nemesis to the guys at 
Operations. They, of course, thought we were exaggerating. But one time we 
took Mr. Taylor out. He was in the right-front seat, I was driving and a third man 
was in the back seat. The guy in back had a pistol, a personal weapon as I 
remember, and, when the buffalo commenced his attack, Mr. Taylor was 
convinced we were done for. He was shouting, "Shoot him!! Shoot him!!" 
Now that I think about it, that was when we started traveling in the 3/4-ton.

After the site was up and running and personnel were picked to man the 
equipment, I kind of eased out of the daily operation of the site. At that time, 
the target was changing rapidly, and Mr. Taylor picked me for a new task.