On the Last Train to Berlin

The new German currency—the D-mark—was distributed to West Germany on June 20, 1948. It caught the Russians flatfooted, and they were quite upset. Their goal was to get the West out of Berlin, and as payback, on June 24 they announced that access to Berlin by road, rail and water was terminated.

By June 26, General Lucius Clay directed that we resume rail traffic to Berlin. We had a train of 54 cars in Brunswick ready to go. As dusk fell, I—a 23-year-old MP lieutenant—and six GIs armed with Thompson submachine guns climbed aboard. I was to permit the Russians to examine the paperwork, but they were not to open any car and examine the contents. Finally, I was to use such force as necessary to ensure compliance.

Surprisingly, we got the necessary locomotive change and reached the outskirts of Berlin early the next morning. After a couple hours of sleep, we climbed into a 3/4-ton truck for a long trip back to Brunswick. The next two trains also got through without incident.

With train No. 4, they got tough. It got nowhere. Later the Russians sank a couple of railroad ties vertically into the ground between the rails. That really terminated rail traffic.

Colonel H.V. Freitag
U.S. Army (Ret.)
Schofield, Wis.

Shell-shocked

I like Military History very much, but sometimes you really miss the target! Why in the world did you use a 7.62X39 AK cartridge for the letter I in “Sniper” [by Geoffrey Norman, March/April]? That represents sniper rifle performance about like a garbage truck represents elegance. You could have at least pictured a 7.62mm NATO/.308 Winchester cartridge used in the Remington 700 in Vietnam.

George Reynolds
Altona, Ill.

Joan of Arc

I thoroughly enjoyed Kelly DeVries’ article “Joan of Arc” [January/February]. A stern code of ethics, a strong sense of personal morality, “obedience to the unenforceable” [to quote John Fletcher Moul-ton]—these are qualities a leader must have at the core of his or her being, as Joan of Arc had shown. This is why military schools and colleges stress duty and honor, love of God and country. They know that without a firm moral base a person is too unsure of him or herself to be an effective leader.

Evan Dale Santos
Adelanto, Calif.

Paths to Glory

David Zabecki’s interesting and informative article on U.S. Marines Smedley Butler and Dan Daly [“Paths to Glory,” January/February] could have also included the information that retired Maj. Gen. Butler was involved in the 1932 Bonus March. He harangued the
assembled World War I veterans, labeling them as great Americans who deserved immediate payment of the bonus.

It would have been more than interesting had Butler decided to lead the Bonus Army in resisting when General Douglas MacArthur, assisted by his aide, Dwight Eisenhower, with Major George S. Patton in command of some troops, broke up the rally.

John Dellinger
Lakewood, Colo.

Truth Hertz

I found your article on the Hertz horn naval mine [Power Tool, by Jon Guttman, January/February] to be interesting. Bushnell (1777), Fulton (1812) and Immanuel Nobel (1855) all made and used contact-fused naval mines before the U.S. Civil War. During the war, the Confederates had a number of contact-fused mines, the one designed by Brig. Gen. Gabriel James Rains one of the most common and effective. These did not require someone to sight the oncoming target and detonate the weapon.

The Hertz horn first appeared in 1867 and was invented by Albert Hertz. The famous engineer Heinrich Hertz was only 10 or 11 years old when this mine was introduced.

Colonel William Schneck
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Fort Belvoir, Va.

Editor responds: Thank you for the info! Even the naval researchers at Annapolis had a hard time unraveling the history of the Hertz horn.

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