Berlin Airlift a Cold War turning point

Tag : Cold Press

On the busiest day — April 16, 1949 — some 1,400 planescarried in nearly 13,000 tons over 24 hours — an average ofone plane touching down every 62 seconds.
On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted tohelp maintain aircraft, and some 19,000 Berliners — almosthalf women — worked around the clock for three months tobuild Tegel Airport, providing a crucial relief for the BritishGatow and American Tempelhof airfields.
The Soviets offered better rations to any West Berliner willing toregister with the communist authorities — but only 20,000went to the other side.
Gail Halvorsen, now 87, is probably the best known of the airliftpilots, thanks to an inadvertent propaganda coup. Early in theairlift, the man from Utah shared two sticks of gum with Berlinkids and saw others sniffing the wrappers just for a hint of theflavor.
Touched, he told the children to come back the next day, when hewould drop them candy, using handkerchiefs as parachutes.
He started doing it regularly, using his own candy ration. Soonother pilots and crews joined in what would be dubbed "OperationLittle Vittles."
On Aug. 19, 1948, an Associated Press story appeared under theheadline "Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin." A wave of candy andhandkerchief donations followed.
Mercedes Wild was 7 in 1948, and at first was terrified of theroaring, low-flying planes. She remembers her exhilaration atseeing scores of tiny parachutes drifting down, carrying theirprecious cargo to children who hadn't seen such candy in years.
But despite her best efforts, Mercedes missed out on the bonanza,so she wrote to Halvorsen, her "chocolate uncle," asking him todrop something directly on her garden.
Halvorsen wrote back and enclosed a packet of candies and gum.
"For me the letter was most important," Wild said. "That thechocolate uncle, even though he might not fly over my house everyday, wrote that he would be thinking of me."