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Honor Page - 10 Guest Authors Excellent history stories from proud veterans |
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In divided Berlin
written by
SP4 Fred Sanford
2nd Battle Group, 12th Inf., 1st Division
M-60 Weapons Squad, Company D, 4thPlatoon
Yule worth remembering
- 1962 -
It was bitter cold that Christmas Eve night forty-three years ago. It was quiet on the other side of the barbwire. The snow glistened under the spotlights in the booby trapped area known as the "kill zone" between the walls of barbed wire. I could see the guard in the tower looking at me through his binoculars. Tensions were high on both sides, we had been pulling "alerts" several times a week during the past few weeks since Russian Missile launching sites were photographed in Cuba. It was Midnight, and as I walked my post, I heard the sound of a choir singing coming from somewhere in the western sector. I thought of my family back in Reno and how they would be celebrating Christmas morning. I said a silent prayer as I walked a simple wish for this Christmas "no gunfire". I finished my guard duty tour on Christmas morning and my Christmas wish had been granted. This meant no one had died in an escape to the west that night, and War between the United States and Russia had not started.
On this Christmas Day, I am surrounded by friends and family and presents under the Christmas tree. I pause to reflect back on that Christmas in the then "Island" city of Berlin. It was on that night so many years ago I received a present that money never could replace.
That collage picture page of the 12th Infantry in Berlin came from the 12th Infantry 63' yearbook.. The picture is a copy sent to me by Charlie Moy, Co. A. I only have the 62' yearbook, but that contains pictures of the unit training at Ft. Riley and cold weather combat training in the mountains of Colorado. This was in preparation for possible deployment to Germany and Berlin, which occurred in July 62'.
As all that happened, I was on guard mount on Christmas Eve in 1962. It has been a long time ago, and we were posted from the back end of a three quarter ton truck, but I think that the post I was walking was in the McNair Motor Pool area. Like I said in the article I could see the guard tower on the other side of the barb wire.
My post was guarding the 12th Infantry trucks and trailers. At that time we had ammo in those trailers. As you remember during the Cuban Missile Crisis there were several alerts that we broke out live ammo. I remember the guards were given the password that was to be used by the officer or Sergeant of the guard when they approached our posts. I didn't carry my M-60 machine gun on guard duty that night, just my sidearm, a .45 cal. automatic pistol. It was against the rules, but I remember the officer and sergeant of the guard had a bottle of -Schnaps- and we all had a Christmas drink before we went out to our posts.
That article I had sent to the Reno Gazette-Journal (our local newspaper)
back in1997. I got a silver pen award for it as the best editorial of the week.
Fred
My Berlin visit August 2006
Remark:
On Veterans Day 2007, an 'Honor Brick' was placed for Fred Sanford at the Veterans Memorial
walkway of A.L. Post 100 (Ocilla, GA). Many thanks to Marion 'Buddy' Green, who have made this possible.
OIC at Checkpoint Charlie
written by
First Lt. James B. Osbon
U.S. Army Infantry
8th Inf. Div., 16th and 13th Inf.
Jan. 1963 - April 1963
The first thing I feel compelled to do is to thank Reinhard von Bronewski for creating and maintaining this special web site for American and German Berlin veterans. The stories contained here have special meaning for the people who have experienced both Germany in general and Berlin in particular. I am extremely grateful to him because I was in the U. S. Army for a mere two years and in Berlin for only three months. I do understand that many, maybe even most, of Reinhard's American friends are men and women who served much longer terms. I have no such credentials. I have only a few stories that I was lucky enough to witness and which I am hopeful will interest other Berlin veterans.
I graduated from college in January of 1961. As a new ROTC U.S. Army officer, I was assigned to spend two years on active duty. The period selected by the Army was May 1961 to May 1963. The branch they selected for me was Infantry. This meant that Fort Benning, Georgia, was my starting point and was a main focus in my life. I was 23 years old. To place that time in perspective, five days into my active duty, Alan Shepard went up as our first astronaut in space. Ninety-nine days after that, Berlin leapt onto the front pages and into the spotlight.
Back in Baumholder, I quickly acquired a working knowledge of the German language and began to appreciate the hard-working, fun-loving, intelligent people of Germany; and I believe that some of them learned to appreciate me.
So, my final three months on active duty were spent as a member of the 13th Infantry, but in truth, I remember only one person from that organization. The reason? When I reported for duty to the 13th in Berlin, I discovered that I was assigned to the S-3 and that he had no specific duties in mind for me. I also quickly learned that he was the American officer whose job it was to select the junior officers to manage Checkpoint Charlie on site, at Friedrichstrasse. I quickly decided I wanted to have that job.
The usual work cycle was from 8am to 8pm (0800-2000 hours), then to go off-shift for 24 hours, only to show up again at 8pm to work through the night to 8am (2000-0800 hours). On for 12 hours, off for 24, on for 12, off for 24, etc. During the "off" hours, I learned to appreciate Currywurst, the American Officer's Club, a little bar, called REX CASINO, near the corner of Unter den Eichen and Fabeckstrasse, and the great city of Berlin.
The checkpoint was staffed by a team of MPs, usually six or eight per shift, plus a West Berlin policeman who provided translation services when needed. The physical facilities involved three sites: The two attached guardhouses located in the middle of Friedrichstrasse; a street-level two-room office (or break room) a few steps away for the staff. A restroom was there, and a cellar room that contained some cots, a safe vault for weapons storage, and procedure manuals. And an OP (observation point) was located about 30 meters from the guardhouse, and was entered from a street-level doorway on Zimmerstrasse. The OP itself was a climb to a 4th floor corner room that faced north and east toward the enemy, and provided good views of both the East German and the American checkpoints. Binoculars were the primary equipment of this room. It was common to be viewing East Berlin from this OP and spot the enemy looking back with his binoculars.
There were still occasional escapes across/under the Wall in 1963, but none occurred on my watch. The Russians and the East Germans made life interesting at times. If their side delayed our hourly and daily patrols into East Berlin by, say, 23 minutes, we would receive orders from Berlin Brigade to delay a certain Russian general by 23 minutes as he passed through Checkpoint Charlie on his way to work at Tempelhof. Of course, we complied with these orders. And, we never explained to the general why he was being delayed, though he always asked.
One of my most significant discoveries at the checkpoint was Manfred Stein. His photographs can be seen here. Manfred was a 4-year old boy who usually delighted us with his visits. He was almost never a pain in the butt. Unfortunately, we were young and foolish and taught him to swear GI-style, in both English and German. But we also introduced him to American peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and brought them to him almost daily. Manfred loved them. He lived on Friedrichstrasse, less than 100 meters from the guardhouse. His parents ran a small bar nearby.
My question now is: Whatever happened to Manfred Stein? He should be 47 years old in 2006, but does he remember all of this childhood attention? Manfred, please send an e-mail to me at ozbn@aol.com so that I will know how you are and that you survived all of this. Or contact Reinhard in English or German. If anyone else knows what became of Manfred, please e-mail me. He should remain a part of the story of the Berlin Wall. He is as much a part of the early history of the Wall as any of us.
When the Berlin Wall suddenly appeared overnight on August 13, 1961 - escalating the Cold War temporarily to a fever pitch - I had already completed the Officer's Basic Course and was at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida with my training platoon. We were playing "aggressor" to a class of aspiring Army Rangers. It was only a few days later, back at Fort Benning that I got rush orders to report to the 16th Infantry Regiment in Baumholder, West Germany. I thus became a 16th Infantry Ranger, joining this very historic unit. At the time, it was part of the 8th Infantry Division, headquartered in Bad Kreuznach. The appropriate unit crests appear above.
Thousands of US soldiers received similar orders to go to Europe during the summer and fall of 1961. The world was getting nervous about Berlin and I had a premonition it was eventually going to involve me.
The ensuing 15 months in Baumholder were enjoyable, as it was my first European experience. My exposure to so many new things broadened me quickly. I had never tasted Becks Beer (10˘ per bottle during Happy Hour. For half a dollar, or two marks, you could just about enter another world), I had never eaten "Wiener Schnitzel", nor had I sipped "Mosel" wine; and then there was Idar-Oberstein, Ruedesheim, Bingen, and the great -Rhein- River. Nestled near the Hunsrueck Mountains, I experienced Fasching, Bratwurst, Spiesbraten, winefests, river cruises, a new language, and the Rhineland's version of Oktoberfest.
During the 15 months with the 16th, I was a rifle platoon leader (A Company, 1st Platoon), then I commanded the Assault Weapons Platoon, and finally was the XO of the Combat Support Company. Initially, I even had time to participate for three weeks in the on-site filming of part of "The Longest Day" at Ile de Ré, France during October 1961. I was the "commander" of the landing craft that Eddie Albert rode onto the beach during the re-enactment of the D-Day invasion. The 16th Infantry had been selected for filming because it had been an authentic D-Day invader, having landed at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Besides Eddie Albert, I also met Robert Mitchum, Ray Danton, Jeffrey Hunter, and film mogul Darrell Zanuck. Pretty heady stuff for a country boy from South Carolina.
A noticeable degree of international tension existed the entire time of my military service in Germany. First, there was the head-to-head tank confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. That crisis lasted for several weeks before it receded somewhat into the background. But the troops still went on field "alerts" every month.
Then, the Cuban missile crisis occurred in October 1962, revving up world anxiety again. All U.S. fighting troops around the globe were sent to the field for a prolonged alert. Newspaper headlines on the east coast of the USA appeared in the color red, I was told later. In the John Kennedy - Nikita Khrushchev public head-butting, Mr. Khrushchev finally blinked and the intense 14-day standoff in the Caribbean ended. Russian missiles were removed from Cuba. The world breathed a big sigh of relief.
Less than 60 days later, I received orders to transfer to Berlin to join the 13th Infantry. I was never a student of how the military decided things, but apparently there were existing plans for the 13th to rotate back to the States at about the same time I was due to finish my two-year assignment. I believe I was transferred to the 13th so that the Army could save a few bucks on getting me home. I'm sure I spent more money than they saved just in removing the many "8" snowmen patches from my shoulder and replacing them with Big Red 1s.
I immediately got to know him, discussed my previous leadership experiences in Baumholder, and asked him to consider me for the position of OIC of Checkpoint Charlie. He answered the next day by granting my request. Thus, my only duties in the 13th involved being detached from it and attached to the Berlin Brigade for duties at Checkpoint Charlie.
So, during February, March, and some of April 1963, I shared the OIC duties with two other first lieutenants. The assignment was easy and time-consuming, but had noticeable tension at most times. Being on duty at the Checkpoint was not a time to kick back and relax. As astronaut Shepard stated when he made that first space flight, "I did not want to screw up in front of the world, in front of all those people." I felt the same way, although my visibility was incredibly small compared to his.
My biggest surprise, by far, was the snowball fights we had with the East Berlin border guards, or VOPOs. Remember, my three months were February, March and April. It was cold and it snowed often. The fights happened three or four times, but they always occurred when activity at the Checkpoint was minimal. No one from either side seemed to worry that a sudden snowball in the enemy's face would result in an international incident; and it never did.
Others discovered Manfred as well. The Stars and Stripes wrote an article about him in their April 12, 1963 issue. (They had his name incorrectly as Manfred Slein.) And, Look Magazine, in a June 18, 1963, issue, ran a 6-page spread on Manfred. (You can 'Google' Manfred Stein under the 'images' heading and get hits on him, but "Manfred Slein" also retrieves the Stars and Stripes pictures.)
The last night I worked the Checkpoint - approximately 31 March 1963 - I brought a pair of cutting pliers to work. After midnight, I sneaked down Zimmerstrasse about 50 meters from the corner of Friedrichstrasse where it was (pitch-black-dark, as we say in the South) in the deepest shadows. I was nervous, of course, but I am respectfully claiming here and now to be one of the first Americans to get a piece of the Wall. I clipped about six feet of barbed wire that night to take home as a souvenir of my wonderful experience of working at this hotspot.
When I got married six weeks after returning to the States, my wife asked me why I "liberated" the wire and what I was going to do with it. I told her that I had been privileged to serve my country at a truly unusual place, and that I wanted to have my own personal remembrance of it. That barbed wire sat in our attic in a loose coil until 1997. That year, I finally attached it to a picture frame. The picture within the frame is a copy of the photograph of me at Checkpoint Charlie that accompanies this story.
I left the Army in 1963 and began a computer career with IBM in Richmond, Virginia. By 1990, after a number of data processing jobs, I became president of a medical company in Augusta, Georgia, and finally retired in 1997 at age 59. I live now at Amelia Island, Florida.
I have been fortunate to revisit Berlin on two occasions, 1966 and 1994. But, I am still not the Berlin expert that many veterans are. I would appreciate any feedback, either positive or negative or about any inaccuracies, concerning the account of my brief experiences there.
COMBAT TRAINING NEAR THE BERLIN WALL
written bySGT. Clark West
Tank Commander
Co. F (Patton) 40th Armor
1968-1971
We began Pre-Grafenwoehr training in January 1970, so we went to Parks Range (Doughboy) every day.
It's right along the Berlin Wall in Lichterfelde and the communist machine gun towers would point
their binoculars, machine guns and searchlights at us. The first day, I had a new student driver
and we were the last tank in a line of twenty-five. We choked on all the black diesel smoke and it
didn't take long for all of us to have cold, black faces. My driver had never been out the
Turner Barracks gate before in Berlin traffic and he could not keep up. The experienced drivers
in the tanks ahead of us were excellent drivers and they always went full speed down narrow streets
and around corners. So we began to fall way behind the others.
We came to an intersection near the PX (Argentinische Allee); it was a simple left turn on to a
four lane. We had lots of room and an MP had a car stopped for us in the center median.
My driver went from high into low, locked the left track, swung left and hit high again as we made
the turn. Well, he swung too far and the left track went right over the top of the car's trunk
smashing it down to about two inches high. The crew never felt anything and when I announced over
the intercom, "We just ran over a car!" they all laughed and they thought I was joking.
To this day, I still clearly remember those unique, individual laughs in my ears.
The other crews would make jokes about us and laugh at us until we were trained, but months later, after seeing
our performance at Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels and Wildflecken and after being knocked off by us in war games
in the Grunewald - no one was laughing anymore. Each of us were expert crewmembers by then.
We did not think we were anything special, but after the Army made me an Armour Instructor; I saw how other
crews respected us and treated us like celebrities. They wanted to know all the specific secrets, short cuts and
tricks of the trade of each individual crew position. Sometimes we would act like four men operating a lethal tank
was mysterious, but it was not. It came down to the amount of very difficult physical and mental combat-type
training each crewmember was willing to endure. High performance, common sense, and that feel (or sixth sense)
always followed the hard work.
We always had a brotherly pride in the skills and personality of each member of the crew. We always encouraged
one another and respected the great abilities each individual contributed to the performance of the vehicle.
The four-man crew created a specific personality that corresponded to the letter and numbers painted on the sides
of the tank. You thought of that tank's personality when you heard their call number over the radio in your helmet.
We stopped and the car's driver was a big infantry Sergeant Major from McNair Barracks. It was a
brand new bright red Ford Torino and the Sergeant was still sitting in the car seat that was now
at the same level as the pavement. We all felt sad for the guy. The Sergeant Major climbed out of
his car seat, smiled and said, "It's -OK- boys, the Army will just buy me another one!" We couldn't
believe how calm he was. I think he was just glad to be alive and it must have really scared him,
because it sure scared us.
We got to Parks Range late and all the tankers were on top of their tanks laughing at us.
We had to go down a narrow side street (Osdorfer Strasse) to get into the range and it was solid ice.
Over one hundred tankers were standing there watching us. I told my driver, "Just tip-toe through here,
go slow and don't lock the tracks." Well, my driver had no feel and no clue. The road was crowned
severely and we began to slide. We went into the ditch, through a Berliner's garden and just before
we hit the power pole; I smacked my loader's helmet with my hand and said, "Get down!" We kicked our
feet out from under us and jumped down to the turret floor. The power pole fell right across the top
of the tank where we were standing. I jerked my driver out of his seat and told him, "From now on you're a loader!" My loader began driving and he
was a pure natural. He later became the best driver in the company.
After qualifying our tank at Grafenwoehr, my driver would give driving demonstrations at Parks Range and we
would watch in amazement at how clever and skillful he was with a 52-ton tank. The other tank commanders were
always trying to steal my crew away from me. There was never any chance of that, because excellent crews always
became religiously loyal to one another. You become so bonded from all the learning, growing and suffering you
share together, that you believe and accept you will always be together.
It was very important to keep the family of each individual tank together to assure that the fighting strength of that
vehicle would remain at a high level. As Berlin Tankers, we knew we would instantly be thrown into the deadliest
combat possible - Combat In Cities. Any crew adjustments or deficiencies at that point would prove to be fatal
for both the tank crew and the Berliners we swore an oath to defend.
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