Emery Barracks


Emery Barracks was a former military garrison located near Veitshöchheim, a municipality in the district of Würzburg, in Bavaria, Germany. It was situated on the :wikt:right bank|right bank of the Main, northwest of Würzburg. It was active as a military base from the 1930s through 1992, and was later used to house refugees and asylum seekers. It was bounded on the northwest by Albert-Einstein-Straße, to the southwest by B27, to the southeast by Pfaffenbergstraße, and to the northeast by Alfred-Nobel-Straße.

History

The kaserne was constructed in the 1930s on the Nord-Kaserne, on the northern edge of the city of Würzburg. It was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Kaserne in 1938 and served as the home of the Panzernachrichtenabteilung Nr. 38. At the end of World War II, the facility was occupied by the US Army.

1LT Robert M. Emery

Robert MacNab Emery was born 5 September, 1911, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Brigadier General Ambrose Robert Emery and Elizabeth Christie MacNab. His father, a life-long soldier, was Commander of the Infantry Replacement Training Center at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, during World War II. Robert studied Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1931 to 1934, enrolling in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. He was later commissioned into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Emery was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division during Operation Torch in North Africa. He was killed in action on 8 November, 1942. Lieutenant Emery was presented the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart posthumously for his actions on that date.. The Distinguished Service Cross citation reads:
Emery was buried in Plot H, Row 12, Grave 10, in the North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia.

Naming

Nord-Kaserne, also known as Adolf-Hitler-Kaserne, was renamed Emery Barracks on 18 May, 1953, in honor of 1LT Robert M. Emery of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who served with the 1st Infantry Division and was killed in action on 8 November, 1942, near Djebel Mrdajajdo in Algeria. The N-type coastal cargo ship Mira was also renamed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Port Repair Ship Robert M. Emery in his honor.

Closure

Emery Barracks was closed in 1990. Since 1992 it has served as the Asylbewerberheim des Freistaats Bayern, housing up to 450 people from as many as 35 different nations.