With the end of World War II, one
of the most elegant, sophisticated cities of Europe lay in ruins. The victors
divided Berlin, deep in the Soviet occupation zone, but in June, 1948, the
Russians attempted to grab control of the whole city and force out the
Americans, British, and French. They refused to allow trains, trucks, or barges
into the western part of the city. Without food, coal, and all other supplies,
two million Berliners would starve if they didn’t capitulate to the Russians.
If the Soviet army had tried to
invade the western sectors, the Western democracies would have been able to do
little about it. Their military forces were outnumbered 62 to 1. But America,
with her allies, determined to make a stand. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. stood
face to face, and America refused to blink.
The Berlin Airlift began, a
monstrous effort that required flying in 10.6 million pounds of cargo for the
survival of the west Berliners. It became known as Operation Vittles.
In the three years since the war’s
end, distrust and hostility remained high between victors and vanquished.
Hunger and cold were constant companions of the Berliners. They resented
America for bombing their cities and homes far beyond the necessity of war as
they saw it.
The American pilots were conflicted
in their attitudes toward the Germans. Said one, “First you bomb them, then you
feed them. I wonder what my navigator’s widow out in Kansas thinks of it.”
One pilot was Gail Halvorsen. He’d
spent the war flying transport planes out of Brazil, carrying cargo to Miami
and across the Atlantic. He was a stickler for following orders. That made a
good transport pilot, whereas combat pilots took risks. He hadn’t been selected
to go to Germany to fly in the Airlift. A friend with a young family was, however,
and Halvorsen volunteered to go in his place.
The pilots had no opportunity to
see anything of Berlin besides the airport. They landed, their planes were
unloaded, and within a half hour, they flew back to base in the American zone
in western Germany. Halvorsen broke the rules by stowing away on a friend’s
flight, sacrificing some sleep to see the sights of Berlin. With an hour to
kill while he waited for a driver and jeep, he hurried the two miles across the
airport to film the planes coming in to land.
A group of thirty children had
gathered at the fence to watch the planes. Now they watched the American pilot.
A few knew English and they asked questions about the planes and their cargoes.
When he left to meet his driver, Halvorsen remembered the two sticks of gum in
his pocket. He made the life-changing decision to go back and give the gum to
the children. Only four children got the gum torn in half. The others passed
around the wrappers, sniffing the scent. Halvorsen impulsively told them he
would drop candy to them the next day. They would recognize his plane when he
wiggled his wings.
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| Lt. Gail Halvorsen talked to German children watching the airplanes. The biggest victims of war are the smallest, the children. Safety and security disappear for reasons they cannot understand. In their place are uncertainly and privation. |
His copilot and navigator weren’t
happy with him when he told them his plan. Halvorsen was upset with himself for
his rash promise. He hated to think what trouble he might get them into. But a
promise was a promise. He drew his ration of candy along with his crewmates’
reluctantly given allotments, and made three parachutes out of handkerchiefs.
He wiggled his Skymaster’s wings,
and the waiting children started jumping and cheering. The crew nervously watched
the crowd of children grow in the coming days. Other pilots spoke of the
children’s sudden rambunctiousness.
They made a second drop a week
later. And a third the following week. A few days later, Halvorsen went into
the operations building to get a weather report. He spotted a table laden with
mail, many addressed in crayon to Onkel
Wackelflugel (Uncle Wiggly Wings) or Schokoladen
Flieger (Chocolate Flyer). He beat a hasty retreat, fearing a court
martial.
Berliners remained uncertain about
Americans. Grateful as they were for the food, they felt like pawns in a power
play. Something began changing, though, beginning with their children. Children
in the hundreds came to the airport fence. Adults began joining them. On warm
summer days, ten thousand could be watching.
Determined not to tempt a court
martial, Halvorsen had decided against any more drops. Then he was summoned to
his commander’s office.
“You almost hit a reporter on the
head with a candy bar yesterday,” he told Halvorsen. The reporter had gotten
his plane’s tail number. Halvorsen was sent to Wiesbaden to see General William
Tunner, in charge of the airlift.
Expecting the worst, Halvorsen
received congratulations. Tunner recognized the psychological boost in morale
the candy drops brought to Berliners. He sent Halvorsen to speak to the
reporters in Wiesbaden. With his identity revealed, Halvorsen was inundated
with candy from the other airmen. He called his candy drops “Operation Little Vittles.”
A quick publicity trip to the States resulted in candy factories and
schoolchildren donating candy and others supplying him with parachutes. Other
pilots joined in to drop candy.
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| Halvorsen attaches candy to the small parachutes. |
They
dropped over 23 tons of candy over the course of the airlift. During the
15-month airlift, the candy bombers won the hearts and minds of Berliners.
Gail
Halvorsen became a celebrity in Germany. In 1974, he received one of Germany's
highest medals, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic
of Germany, for reaching out to the children of wartorn Berlin in an effort to
make their lives a little sweeter.
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| Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Gail S. Halvorsen poses in front of a C-54 — the same type of plane he flew during the Berlin airlift — during an air show at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport in 1984. |
Recommended for further
reading: The Candy Bombers: The Untold
Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour by Andrei Cherny
