The status of the 4 occupying powers was strongly enforced and sometimes as visiting aircrew (especially at a weekend) we were encouraged to visit East Berlin in uniform to show the locals that we Brits were still there. Part of our brief was that we were to studiously ignore any East German police or military and in the event of any incident we were to insist on dealing only with Russian officers. If the level of tension was raised, we sometimes would send additional aircraft to Berlin to again 'show the flag' and our freedom over the city. Checking my logbooks, I see that on Feb 3rd 1975 we took 2 X Hercules to Gatow at very short notice and for 4 days each crew flew 4-hour long sorties remaining within the Belin CTZ ! We stayed below 2000ft and filled our boots (and some!) with approaches to Gatow, Tegel and Templehof. The residents of the East would be in no doubt as to who we were and our intentions. We returned to Lyneham on the 7th.
Last edited by friendlypelican 2; 10th Sep 2020 at 09:02.
Reason: spelling