laststandonzombieisland

Some 65 years ago this week.

The intersection of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße at the sector boundary between Communist East and NATO-allied West Berlin.

The Cold War armor, face-to-face: three M48A1s from F Coy, 40th Armored Regiment, U.S. Army’s Berlin Brigade, stand tall against East German border forces backed by Soviet troops.

Following the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, a dispute arose when East German Grenztruppen border guards tried to check the identity papers of U.S. diplomatic personnel crossing into East Berlin. U.S. authorities refused to submit to East German control, maintaining that the city was under Four-Power Allied jurisdiction.

Maj. Gen. Lucius D. Clay (USMA 1918), never one to muck about, deployed the above platoon of M48s to the border, while the Russkis moved 10 T-54/T-55 tanks into opposing positions just 100 meters away, with the Americans sending up enough matching Pattons to balance.

The armored standoff lasted only 16 hours, then both sides withdrew in a negotiated, synchronized withdrawal.

Company F, 40th Armor, was the regiment’s old 6th Medium Tank Battalion when, on 2 May 1958, it was redesignated and assigned to the Berlin Brigade, its home for 34 years.

Later, swapping out its M48s for M60s, it expanded to the 6th Battalion, 40th Armor from September 1990 until May 1992, when it was withdrawn, at which time it was using the M1 Abrams.