That time Checkpoint Charlie armored up

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. Note the MPs, likely of the 287th Military Police Company, observing from the building’s windows just above the apothecary shop. U.S. Army photo The “Turner Tankers” carry dozer blades and 18-inch spotlights, ideal for fighting in cities. U.S. Army photo U.S. Army photo 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…