Named after the Battle of Waterloo during the Napoleonic Wars.

Original Name – Kasernengelände Loddenheide

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1st Royal Horse Artillery 1 Apr 1952-1958 (1)
1st Battalion The Hampshire Regiment 1962-1965
2nd Battalion The Scots Guards 1968-1970
1st Battalion The Welsh Guards 1970-1973
1st Battalion The Scots Guards 1973-1976
2nd Battalion The Scots Guards 1976-1979
1st Bn The Gloucestershire Regiment 1979-1982
2nd Field Regiment RA 1982-1993 (2)
662nd Squadron AAC (3)

Closed 20 January 1994

(1) The camp was named Waterloo Barracks shortly after 1 RHA arrived. This stemmed from the fact that the Regiment had been based at Waterloo Camp, Fayid in the Suez Canal Zone beside the Great Bitter Lake between 1948 and 1950. In 1958 the Regiment moved on to Tofrek Barracks, Hildesheim.
(2) Disbanded in 1993.
(3) 662 Sqn, AAC were based at Waterloo Barracks, Münster until 2 Regt ACC disbanded and 662 sqn then moved to Soest under 3 Regt AAC.

Waterloo Barracks was on the site of Loddenheide Airfield. In January 1940 an aircraft took off from this airfield on an unauthorised mission that changed the course of the Second World War. The commandant of the airfield offered to fly a visiting staff officer back to Köln rather than to undertake a long ride on icy roads. It is also said that the visit had involved extensive alcoholic hospitality. The staff officer was supposed to drive rather than fly because he was carrying a copy of the current German plan to attack France and the Low Countries “Fall Gelb”, based on a reworking of the 1914 invasion plans. The aircraft got lost and crashed in Belgium and the plans were captured. Hitler changed the plan, adopting von Manstein’s “Scythe cut” through the Ardennes and the rest is history!

2nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery were based in Waterloo Barracks from 1982 until their disbandment in 1993. The barracks were single storey prefabricated huts dating from the late 1940s. There were plenty of open spaces and lots of rabbits. One mad officer used to hunt rabbits at night from his car with a gun dog on the back seat. Rabbit freezes in the headlights. The Officer, “Mike”, would lean out of the drivers window and shoot the rabbit. The dog, “Shane”, would jump out of the rear seat window, fetch the rabbit and jump in. The prerequisite for a rabbit hunt was a bottle of Bushmills.

Baldwin

662 Sqn AAC moved in mid 1969 following the reorganisation of the AAC and formation of the Squadron system replacing the previously independent Brigade Flights. I believe a Guards Battalion in the mechanised Infantry role first moved in in the mid 1960s. This was probably 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards who were replaced by 2nd Battalion Scots Guards in 1968, they similarly returned to the UK in 1971 being replaced by 1st Battalion Welsh Guards.

PW