During my 4-year "Air Force Career" I had the good fortune to be assigned to a year at "OL/N" Italy.

OL/N was a Microwave Relay Site atop 10,000 foot Monte Cima Gallina (literally "Chicken Peak" - "Huhnerspiel" in German) in the Alps next to the Brenner Pass on the border between Italy and Austria.

I was there from spring 1972 to spring 1973 serving as an Electrical Power Production Specialist charged with operating and maintaining the emergency standby diesel generator systems installed on the site.

The patch at the top of the page was designed by Ron Blitstein during '72 - it is undoubtedly one of the rarest military patches in the world! I think we had a total of 25 or so made. I have 2, one on my old deisel-stained 1970-issue field jacket and the one I scanned for this website. Thanks, Ron, for giving us a unique piece of memorabilia commemorating our service on "Chicken Mountain"! (My apologies for the poor-quality scan! I work on Kodak document scanners here in Rochester, NY and this one was scanned with one of our competitor's machines! I'll re-scan this on a Kodak scanner sometime so you can see a real quality image!)

Airmen assigned to OL/N were billeted in civilian housing in the little village of Colle Isarco (Gossensass in German) at the foot of the mountain. The six to nine enlisted personnel assigned to "Cima" were paid for "remote and hazardous duty" even though we were only 40 miles or so by autobahn from the resort city of Innsbruck, Austria. We received a "Civilian Clothing Allowance" because we were forbidden from wearing uniforms - the area had a history of violence against the Italian military whose uniforms closely resembled Olive Drab U.S.A.F. fatigue uniforms.

I will link a few pictures of the village and the area to this webpage for anyone who would like to see what it was like. I also have a 1971 issue of "Airman" Magazine with a very nice article about Cima somewhere that I will eventually scan and link to this webpage.

I have a bunch of wild "war stories" about my experiences during my tour of duty there - eventually I'll also link some of those to this webpage! Meanwhile, I'd especially like to hear from anyone else who served at Cima Gallina - and the guys who were there with me in particular: Site Commanders Ed Terris & Ray Rogers , Bob Delgado, Bob Albon, Bob Stokes, Bob "Bunky" McGuiness, Jack Belangee, Ron Blitstein, Paul Clarke, Cleveland Phillips, and John White (who came to climb the mountain with us when the ski-lift was broken-down)!

Here are a few pictures of the village and surrounding mountains taken from the ski-lift which was the only way to get men and supplies to the top of the mountain:

colle_isarco1

colle_isarco2

colle_isarco3

Hanging 300 feet above the Autostrada!

A little further along.

What we were there for!

And here is one of the surrounding mountains taken from somewhere near the top of the mountain:

alps_cima

In the fall of 1972 the cable on the upper ski-lift failed to pass an X-ray inspection by the Italian government and we were forced to climb the mountain from the top of the lower lift to make our shift changes!

Bob Albon and I were stuck up there for something like 11 days before the weather cleared enough for a crew to climb-up and relieve us! Here is a picture of the guys who made the first climb,left-to-right: Paul Clarke, Ed Terris, and Ron Blitstein .

Clarke, Terris, and Blitstein

A week or two later, the lift problem still unresolved, I got my turn to climb the mountain:

Jack Belangee (r) and me.

Is this Bob Delgado adjusting Jack's pack?

Taking a break at Tower 12

I promised Bob Delgado I would put a better picture of him on this website but so far all I've found is this one:

Bob Delgado and Frieda

Here Bob is wearing a fur coat we found in the lift-house trying to scare Frieda, the famous "guard dog" of the site! Frieda was imposing enough to scare strangers but she was a very gentle and friendly dog. She lived on top of the mountain for so long that, according to Ed Terris, the Vet at Aviano found she had an astronomical red blood-cell count when she broke her leg and he had to take her in for a check-up. (Kind of like the village men who operated the ski-lifts. These middle-aged fellows could work a 21-year old into the ground at 10,000 feet without even breathing hard!).

Someday I'll write-up some of Frieda's antics and post them here - she was a little strange but she was great company for us on the site and provided a degree of security as well...

My thanks to Pierce Evans and John Thomas for their interest in Colle Isarco and OL/N and to my old friends Ron Blitstein and Bob Delgado for keeping the memories alive!