BRITISH FORCE ON BORDER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29599, 23 August 1961, Page 15

BRITISH FORCE ON BORDER

Tank Guns Aimed At East Berlin (A.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) BERLIN, August 22. British troops with tanks in support stood by today to resume their watch on East German military activities beyond West Berlin’s border with East Germany. They had camped last night in fields near the border. Major P. L. Cutler, of the Welsh Regiment, said last night his troops would go into positions again in the morning but he did not yet know where. Many West Berliners last night strolled past the British positions, chatted with the men and gave them cigarettes, thermos flasks of hot coffee and bread and jam.

Soldiers laid coils of barbed wire around their positions in fields and meadows and arranged their tents.

Steel-helmeted men of the Welsh Regiment, in full battle order, supported by 50-ton Centurion tanks, moved into position about 550 yards from the border yesterday. They turned their tank turrets and anti-tank and machine-guns towards the border, just across which four armoured scout cars were protecting uniformed East Germans setting up a second border fence. A West German border guard said last night the East Germans had ceased work but had left coils of barbed wire lying behind the finished part of the second fence. They apparently intended to come back in the morning and carry on their work, he said. General Watches

The British Commandant in Berlin (Major-General Sir Rohan Delacombe) watched his troops move into place, only 12ft from a Communist armoured vehicle. He commented that while the Eastern forces had a

right to be where they were, the allies also had the right to be close enough to watch what they were up to, reported the Associated Press. This is what the British forces will do every time there is similar activity along the 25-mile border between the British sector and the Russian zone, the general asserted. A spokesman for the French forces indicated that the French were equally on the alert, and an American Army authority said the United States forces are "just as much on the ready.” The British said plainly that the idea had a manifold purpose, the Associated Press reported.

To remind their own Germans living in such desperate areas where the frontier separates two worlds. To remind their own troops with such exercises that they are on front line duty. To show the East Germans they are facing a positive, demonstrable military force.

The West German news agency D.P.A. reported that British troops armed with

sub-machine guns were patrolling alongside West German border guards in the Lubeck area at the northern end of the West German border. Police Action East Berlin police last night used tear gas and smoke bombs to break up a crowd of about 100 people who gathered near the EastWest border to hear news read from a loud-®peeker van on the West Berlin side. West Berlin police said the crowd dispersed without further incident. The news broadcast was organised by the West Berlin City Government. East Berlin police have started moving families out of houses on the border whose doors and windows look on to West Berlin streets. Some of the houses are believed to have been used by East Germans to escape to the West.

The West German Chancellor (Dr. Adenauer) is due in Berlin this morning. Empty Trains Trains on the overhead railway the S-bahn —ran almost empty in West Berlin yesterday as trade unionists picketed stations with slogans such as “Not a Penny for the Communists.” The East Germans, who operate the S-bahn under four-Power agreement, have cut all but one overhead link between East and West Berlin and between East Germany and West Berlin. The only exception is Friedrichstrasse Station in East Berlin, where all passengers from West Berlin are checked thoroughly. Reuter reported that tihe East Berlin City Council has ordered all people who formerly worked in West Berlin to register by next Saturday. Proceedings would be taken against them if they failed to do so “after this - prolonged period.” The Mayor of Falkensee, an East German district just over the border, fled to West Berlin yesterday by climbing through barbed wire, a West Berlin police spokesman said. Soviet Troops

A message in ‘‘The Times,” London, today said that eye witnesses have reported Soviet troop movements by road and rail, both around West Berlin and' along the zonal boundary in the past few days, but it seemed certain that these movements did not involve additional reinforcement of Soviet garrisons in East Germany. “The Times” Bonn correspondent believed that the movements seemed rather to involve “the redeployment of forces against the possibility of internal unrest, and not to repel any military attack from outside.”