'The Candy Bomber' Honored in Germany 70 Years After Historic Berlin Airlift
Food and supplies came from the heavens, dropping like rain from a cloud, to the delight of hundreds of children. What is today a commemoration event in the German city of Wiesbaden was a matter of life or death for the people of Berlin 70 years ago.It was a good feeling to give people something they had to stay alive.
Retired US Air Force colonel Gail Halvorsen was a young officer during the 1948 to 1949 Berlin Airlift, also known as Operation Vittles,the massive US-led humanitarian operation to feed Berliners trapped behind the Soviet blockade.The first big operation supporting the city, by air flying airplanes in there and you that was a major accomplishment.
One of the first flash points of the Cold War is immortalized at Halvorsen’s personal films of the operation where children are the stars in his movies and memories.and they were watching airplanes and waving us as we took off and there’s always a crowd of kids watching for their breakfast with coming from whether dried eggs or dried potato. As the mission dragged on, Halverson decided to add something to the menu, in a move that came to define the historic event.
We walk in the school and gained a parachute, a candy bar almost hit him on a head.What the Berlin Airlift did is it symbolized the essence of what the Cold War was going to be about, a clash of values and a clash of commitment.Former NATO ambassador Evo Daalder says the Berlin Airlift set the stage for America’s leading role in the newly formed NATO alliance and transformed the image of the US from enemy to ally.
It showed the people who were being protected that the United States would be there,that it was always going to be there to help them to defend them to make sure that that would be secured.A message Daalder says needs reinforcement as the durability of the NATO alliancetoday is tested.Reminding people that the United States was there as liberator, not occupier, as friend and Ally rather than as adversary or bully.It’s the kind of thing that is really important to maintain the Alliance and its strength in the next seventy years. I think it is even more important to us today there. Today at ninety eight Halverson is still honored in Germany as the candy bomber.
But as time passes Halverson is concerned the hard lessons his generation learned in the infancy of the Cold War and the friendships formed in the face of crisis are fading from memory. We would be in isolation,we’ve got to be involved in what’s going on with others.A message he continues to deliver in a mission that is still taking flight more than 70 years later.