Howley and his men arrived in the wrecked German capital at the beginning of July 1945. ‘I’d like to stay on the main line east.’ This brief exchange was all it took for him to land one of the biggest jobs in the post-war world. ‘Frank,’ asked Holmes, ‘how would you like to go to Berlin?’ He was busy running food supplies into Paris when visited by the American commander, Brigadier-General Julius Holmes. The task of this unit was to sweep into newly liberated territories and impose order on chaos, repairing shattered infrastructure and feeding starving civilians. During the war he had commanded an outfit named A1A1, splendid shorthand for a unit led by such a high-spirited adventurer. Howley was to spend the next four years fighting a deeply personal battle against his Soviet opposite number, General Alexander Kotikov.Ĭolonel Howley was a living legend to the men serving under him, a blunt-spoken Yankee with a dangerous smile and a disarmingly sharp brain. The Soviet Union had gone from friend to foe, and Col. Implacably opposed to his Soviet counterpart, he was the first to realize that America’s wartime alliance with Stalin had run its course. Frank ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Howley, who rose to become commandant of the American sector of the divided German capital. The most colourful of these forgotten heroes is Col. This image is in the public domain via Wikicommons.
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