The Agency widely believed Det A to be an assassination unit, which simply was not true.ĭet A members received formal school training but also on-the-job training in Berlin from their peers. Next door was a building belonging to the Army Security Agency. There was also an old firing range in the basement, where the SS had reputedly executed a few people during the war. The facilities included an Olympic-size swimming pool, which was great for morning physical training and scuba training. Det A members in 1962.Īrriving at Andrews Barracks, the men of Det A found fairly typical team rooms, but the building out of which they worked was actually a former base belonging to the Waffen SS. We used the call him the Schwarzer Adler: the Black Eagle.” Adler later went on to run some selection courses for special mission units and was retained by the U.S. He was a Waffen SS officer… he fought his way out of Russia through the snow. “He had been in the SS during World War Two. There, he wound up assigned to Team Three within Det A in 1971. Until receiving his in-brief, Lee knew absolutely nothing about Det A.įarr took a Defense Language Institute (DLI) assignment to learn German with a follow-on rotation to Berlin. “Not today you’re not,” they said before bundling him up in an overcoat and rushing him off to their base where he was to take charge of Team Two. “Because I am an American soldier!” Lee replied. When 2 nd Lieutenant John Lee arrived at the airport in Berlin in 1968 wearing his class A uniform, two Det A soldiers in civilian clothes met him and asked why in the world he was in a uniform. “It just scared the crap out of me,” Wild said, as he’d gotten the impression that their job was a one-way trip. He was only read on to the mission several years later when he became Special Forces qualified and was promoted to sergeant. Trucked over to Munich, and then taking the train to Berlin, he was picked up by several Det A members.

Assigned to 10 th Special Forces Group in 1958, radio repairman Private James Wild was selected to go to Berlin despite his objections, as he wanted to stay with an A-Team.

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