Terrorist Bomb Kills 2 at U.S. Base in Germany

A terrorist car bomb exploded today at the U.S. Air Force’s Rhein-Main Air Base as servicemen arrived for work, killing an American airman and an American woman civilian and injuring 17 other people, officials said.

The bomb exploded at about 7:15 a.m., scattering parked cars and blasting a four-foot crater between the base headquarters building and an adjacent dormitory.

“It was terrible,” said base spokesman George Sillia. “I saw a brilliant, yellow tongue of flame and our office was suddenly full of debris. Furniture was blown all over.”

West German police said the car bomb was the work of terrorists. Pieces of a green Audi that apparently entered the base with forged military license plates were being examined.

Security Questions

Questions were immediately raised about security at the Air Force installation.

A West German man whose meat delivery van was held up in a line of vehicles amid stepped-up security measures after the blast was surprised when asked by guards to produce identification.

“An ID card?” he asked. “This is the first time in years that somebody has demanded identification.”

The Rhein-Main Air Base is a city in itself, with living quarters and offices for 4,000 U.S. Air Force personnel and 4,000 dependents. It is across the runways from busy Frankfurt Airport.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast, but West German Atty. Gen. Kurt Rebmann said the bombing resembled the work of the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the nation’s most notorious terrorist group.

In Washington, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes called the bombing a “shameful act” and said the injured included 13 U.S. service personnel, two American civilians and two foreign nationals. The dead airman was identified as Airman 1st Class Frank H. Scarton, 20, of Woodhaven, Mich. The dead woman was not named pending notification of kin.

Speakes said President Reagan was awakened at 6:02 a.m. and told of the bombing by the National Security Council staff.

“When I turned to see what happened,” said George Wegmann, 58, a civilian base employee, “I saw overturned, burning cars and three blood-drenched people on the pavement.”

A badly injured Air Force serviceman was treated at the Wiesbaden Air Force hospital about 30 miles to the west, and a civilian German woman was treated at U.S. Army and civilian facilities in Frankfurt.

The giant base, the main transit hub for movement of U.S. forces to and from the European Command, was immediately sealed off. Rhein-Main base is located on the outskirts of Frankfurt. The adjacent Frankfurt Airport is the busiest in continental Europe.

The attack came about seven weeks after an unsolved bombing at the international departure hall at Frankfurt Airport left three people dead and scores injured on June 19.