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Community Corner

Hopkinton Veteran Recalls His Year at Berlin Wall

Frederick Darney spent a year in Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie with Allied troops as the Wall was built.

In 1960, Frederick Darney joined the Air National Guard in Massachusetts and stayed in for five years, but spent a part of that time outside of the state. 

After six months of Basic Training in Texas, he then went to a Tech School in Biloxi, Mississippi to learn about radio operations.

He was then sent to West Berlin to help with Ground Radio Operations at Checkpoint Charlie where he remained for nearly a year.

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In order to prevent the large amount of professionals in the East from moving into West Germany, the Soviets began to build a wall that divided Berlin into East and West. 

The Allied Forces had many checkpoints along the Autobahn and each was named a letter from the NATO phonetic alphabet which basically assigned a word for the English letter. 

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Therefore, Checkpoint C became Charlie and was the most visible crossing point along the Berlin Wall.

Darney recalls standing on one side of the wall while Russian and East German soldiers stood guard on the other side.

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