We were set up in the woods southeast of Wurzburg. Beautiful spot, rolling hills, farm fields, autobahn cutting through the middle of the area. A perfect place to take the young soldiers out to the top of the tall hill across the autobahn and do a map reading class. The 1:50000 maps the Army uses for manuever are fairly detailed and you could sit on the hill and look out over the countryside and orient the map easily, then point out the terrain features and landmarks. It was a great place. We had been there a couple of days when I was summoned to the command area to see the Sergeant Major. CSM Prince knew I was familiar with the area and spoke passable German...he needed someone to go to a village a few kilometers away and meet with the Portapotty contractor. They needed someone to guide him to the various field sites and show him where to drop off the potties.
I found the village and the contractor's yard easily, the propriator was also all of the work force...a one man operation. He had a trailer about 15 feet long loaded with potties and hooked up to a fairly new Toyota 4-Runner. He noticed me looking at his Toy and started bragging about it...most impressive (to him) was the "...hundert pferdstarke !!". Hundred horse power...wow. So I led him around, I in my little M-151 (jeep) and him in his hundert pferdstarke Toy. We had a good time charging around the hills and woods, mostly on narrow dirt tracks and logging roads, stopping periodically to drop off a little green house or two.
At one point we came out of the woods onto a logging road that had a berm and ditch and although I got across it with a little squirreling around, the trailer high centered and the Toy couldn't pull it off the berm. I got out a piece of chain, hooked it to his bumper and my tow pintle and easily pulled the Toy and it's trailer out onto the road. As I was disconnecting the chain, my Bavarian friend marvelled at the ease with which the jeep pulled him out of his mess. He asked me how much power the jeep had. I knew it was about 90 horsepower but I told him it was 60. He huffed and puffed as if to blow my house down and went into a mini-rant about how this could not be. I pulled him out when he couldn't pull himself out....and he had EIN HUNDERT PFERDSTARKE !! I shrugged and told him " yeah, but those are Japanese horses, they're little fellas, only about so big"...making a gesture about mid-thigh.
We still had a few toilets to deliver, but I never heard anything else about his Toy...in fact, the only thing he said to me at all was as we secured his empty trailer for the trip home, I offered my hand in farewell, he shook it then shook his head and said with a huff, "Japanische pferde....phewww".