BERLIN WALL - GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.
There's been a lot of publicity recently about the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. When I was a soldier I served in West Berlin, which was then an island surrounded by the communists. Part of my work was to patrol the wall on the ground and in the air. We also went in to East Berlin through checkpoint Charlie so we could gauge Russian and East German troop movements. We attended their May Day parades to try and sneak photographs of their equipment and on one occasion we found a Scud missile carrier parked in a side street waiting to join the column of other ballistic missile carriers. The driver had jumped down to relieve himself so one of our team poked his camera into the cab and photographed all the instrumentation. Those pictures went back to the UK intelligence services – and probably ended up in a file somewhere at the bottom of a dusty cupboard. One day we discovered a secret prison where an English girl was being held. She had become involved with an East German boy who was a political activist. I have no idea what the outcome of that discovery was, but we were chased by the Stasi through the streets of East Berlin. The American forces drove round in big six cylinder car called a Ford Galaxy, which was absolute luxury. We had small Austin 1100s which was about the size of a toy car, and with four of us squeezed in for hours on end -- because you weren't allowed to get out of the car on these missions -- it did become a bit cramped. (And nothing’s changed by the way – British troops’ equipment was seldom up to scratch and wherever possible we always bought with our own money (or borrowed!) American equipment. The one thing we couldn't get our hands on was a six cylinder Ford Galaxy!) So, we were at a slight disadvantage to our American cousins and the Stasi were always giving chase whenever we were spotted – which, less face it, wasn’t difficult. The only thing on our side was that their equipment and radios were worse than ours, so it took them some time to catch up with us. The Stasi were identifiable by the white Trabants they drove and their intention was usually to crash into us, particularly to hit the driver's side of the car and injure the driver. That accident would give them good reason to hold us as long as it was politically viable. The prison was located down a narrow cobbled street. I was driving that day and the car was already acting up. Every time I selected reverse, the gear stick would jump out, so I had to keep a firm grip on it and reverse as best I could. I remember that we drove down the teeth-rattling cobbled street to be suddenly faced with armed East German guards. It was a dead end. The intelligence officer with us shouted an order to get out of there as quickly as possible. He didn't need to shout - the guards were already levelling their weapons as I was trying to get the car into reverse. I put my foot down, held the car in gear, and roared backwards up the street, only to see the Stasi fast approaching in their white cars. It was like something out of a Hollywood movie. I just managed to beat them to a side street, swung the car round and raced off through the suburbs of East Berlin. We had to get back to Checkpoint Charlie before they caught up with us. Happily, we got away with it. It was always a pleasure to get back to the West. And, although it was against all the rules, we sometimes sneaked out of the cars when on night missions and chatted to East Berliners in their bars. Those I spoke to seemed to like living in the East and had no desire to be brought into a democracy. But there was a common consensus – they hated the Soviets (as they were then known). Which is why, perhaps, Russian soldiers always had to go about in pairs during their off-duty hours. There was a fairly common trick that the Stasi would play. They’d try and get a refugee on board an Allied car. There were strict standing orders that you never opened the door for anybody, and on a few occasions we had people begging us to smuggle them out of the East and into the West. At times it was heartbreaking because it was easy to believe that they were desperate – and on ground patrol around the wall there was plenty of evidence of young people having been shot to death in their attempted escape. We just couldn't risk taking anybody into the car with us – even if there had been any space! I know the Americans once fell for this trap. The East German troops and Stasi surrounded the car, threw blankets over it making it pitch black inside. I think they were trapped like that for three or four days. It was a political coup for the East Germans, and a sharp lesson to remember. Who wanted to be cooped up in an Austin 1100 with three other sweaty Paras? But it was more serious than it sounds. The Russians and East Germans certainly played for keeps as, to the best of my knowledge, there was another incident when an American was shot. On one occasion we were nosing around close to the Polish border when we came upon a military artillery convoy. They had come out of his huge underground bunker, so once again we had stumbled on a secret military installation. In a desperate attempt to stop us one of the motorcycle outriders drove straight at the car, smashed into us and went over the roof. We didn't wait to see if he got up, but cranked that little 1100 cc engine to its full revs and got out of there as fast as we could. I think we also did our bit for the environment – even back then – although the amount of ammunition we used probably left enough lead in the ground to poison a whole generation. When it was my turn to be Air Observer on reconnaissance with the Army Air Corps 7 Flight, we would not only report troop movements, but also the shipping which was mostly in the form of huge barges plying their trade. If we saw them discharge their oil tanks into the river we could see the oil slick for miles so we could radio down and have the West Germans stop the ship. Not so much a military observation, more of an eco-patrol. Being the Cold War (and Berlin gets really cold) there would occasionally be a general alert to test the Allied response to a Russian attack. Our barracks backed onto the Berlin Wall and the death strip, a mined area to stop anybody trying to reach us from that side. The whole brigade would respond to these alerts and our job was to get to the main point where we thought the Russians would breakthrough. Of course the one thing we needed -- and I'm often reminded of this when I see war movies when a submarine captain has to open his secret sealed orders -- was to know where we were supposed to go at any given emergency. I was duty officer one night in battalion headquarters and the alarm went off at about 2 a.m. It was up to me to open the safe and take out the Top-Secret orders for the commanding officer. It was like sitting a test – you know the answer but you just can’t remember … It was one of those horrible moments when your mind goes blank and I hadn’t a clue what the combination was. I remember this surge of panic swirling through my brain as my hand spun the dial hoping there was an angel on my shoulder who would stop at the right click -- left and right -- but nothing happened. There I was, about to hand success to a Russian invasion of West Berlin. Thankfully, what felt like minutes were only seconds and I remembered the combination. Western democracy was saved. Sometimes you've just got to get your brain in gear.
