The West Berlin Garrison

1st Battalion The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 'Troop the Colour' and provide 1 and 2 Guards on the Queens Birthday Parade in Berlin held on the Maifeld at the Olympic Stadium. The salute was taken by the General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Sir John Nelson. The Mounted Parade Commander was the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel W J C G Copinger-Symes.

The defence of Western Europe against the forces of the Warsaw Pact dominated NATO and British military policy from 1947 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

West Germany was divided into British, American, French and Russian Zones at the end of the Second World War and Berlin was similarly divided into four sectors. The 1st Battalion The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers served in Berlin on two occasions; first from 1957-58 and again from 1965-67, being stationed in Brooke Barracks on both occasions and in West Germany in 1959.

The Inniskillings also provided the Spandau Prison Guard, guarding the Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal after the Second World War. The duty came round every three months and an Inniskilling guard was actually on duty the night that Doenitz, Speer and von Shirach were released having served their 20-year sentences.

Life in Berlin was dominated by liaison and training exercises with the Americans and French and by limited contact with the Russians. In 1966, there was great excitement when a top-secret Russian MIG fighter crashed into the Havel Lake. The pilot was killed and his body returned to the Russians with great ceremony by an Inniskilling Guard of Honour.

Train Guards to West Germany and Flag Tours into the Russian Sector were a feature of daily life in the divided city.

The sporting facilities in Berlin were unique, based as they were on the 1936 Olympic stadium. Minor training took place in the Grunewald forest while major training was carried out at Sennelager and Soltau training areas in West Germany.