The Airlift Faulters: A Shortage of Assets

 By October 1948, despite the Allies best efforts and the Berliner's determination and willingness to live under extraordinary hardships, it was becoming evident to the experts that the Airlift was slowly failing. Three factors contributed to this: inadequate assets, poor morale among Allied forces, and a major flaw in the command structure. This entry looks at the issue with assets.

Although significant increases in tonnage delivered could be recorded compared to the early months, by September the Airlift was still supplying barely 40% of what had once been brought into Berlin by land and water. The West Berliners were being asked to live on official rations of just 1,600 calories per day, less than Germans in the Western Zones or in the East. Furthermore, these rations were only bearable because they could be supplemented by kitchen gardens and “hamster” trips to the surrounding countryside. More ominous still: the stocks in the city, particularly of coal, were being drawn down week for week. In short, the Airlift was not keeping up with the meager summer needs of inhabitants -- and the weather was about to turn bad.

By the end of October, the deliveries of coal were running at roughly three quarters of requirements, while Clay – on the basis of the more accurate and comprehensive information now available to him – actually increased the estimated daily requirement of airlifted tons from the initial 4,000 short tons per day to 5,620 tons. The statisticians kept adding the requirements and comparing them to capacity and coming to the same conclusion: the Airlift would not be able to sustain West Berlin through the winter - unless something changed dramatically.

The key factors leading to this conclusion were: 1) that short days and poor weather would reduce the number of flights into the city, and 2) that the absence of dietary supplements from fresh grown vegetables from the surrounding countryside would reduce actual (as opposed to official) rations, and 3) the cold temperatures would increase demand for both airlifted food and coal. Official British projections of maximum delivery rates based on historical records of weather conditions and the available Airlift fleet concluded that poor weather would reduce the average daily tonnage delivered to the City by roughly 33%. This in turn would result in all remaining stocks being entirely depleted by the third week in January. At that point, people would start to starve and freeze and the Airlift would be seen to be failure. The Allies would have no choice but capitulation.

Furthermore, in one area the shortfalls were already acute. This was with regard to liquid fuels. Initial estimates had called for the delivery of 220 tons of liquid fuel daily, calling for a tanker fleet of 31 aircraft. But delays in converting aircraft into tankers and delays in fitting what tankers there were with the necessary navigational equipment to enable flying in poor visibility meant that in fact only 11 tankers were operating on the Airlift by the end of 1948. They were delivering an average of just 148 tons of liquid fuel per day – a shortfall of over 70 tons daily. The Western Allies would already have run out of liquid fuel in November if they had not “simply purloined Soviet stocks which happened to be stored in the Western Zone.”[i] By the end of the year those stocks too were gone. Berlin had to live on what the British civilian air fleet could fly in each day – and this fleet was patently inadequate.

In fact, the entire Airlift fleet was inadequate. This was not because something unexpected had come up, but simply because the Western Allies had failed to do what they knew they must. For example, as early as August 13, the British government had been warned that the civilian aircraft used on the Airlift had to be fitted with the Rebecca-Eureka navigational equipment if they were to fly in bad – read winter – weather. But that cost money, and so, although nobody actually objected or even questioned the logic or necessity of refits, “somehow” nothing actually happened. Then the fog closed in, the civil aircraft were stuck on the ground, and Berlin’s liquid fuel reserves drained away.

Things were not better on the American side of the Sector border. Clay had been convinced very early on that the Airlift could succeed if only they had enough aircraft. His staff had worked out the exact numbers for him. He needed no more and no less than 224 of the large C-54s with their ten-ton cargo capacity. This meant he needed 116 more C-54s than were then flying. He requested this increase on September 10 and again on the September 23. But the planes did not materialise, or rather, only about fifty of them did. Clay complained about the shortfall on Oct. 4 and again on Oct. 14. When he received no adequate response, he flew to Washington to present his case in person.

This seemed to work. The National Security Council approved the assignment of a further 64 C-54s to the Airlift on Oct. 18, 1948, and President Truman himself signed off on it on Oct. 22 – despite the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which felt their ability to conduct other missions was being seriously impaired. The ordered redeployment of aircraft brought the entire fleet of C-54s assigned to the Airlift up to 224. The problem was that the Air Force and General Clay had different notions of what “224” meant.

When Clay said he needed 224 C-54s for the Airlift he meant 224 aircraft carrying freight to Berlin every day. But the USAF viewed “224” as the number of aircraft assigned to “Operation Vittles.” This included not only all the aircraft that were hauling freight but also those undergoing repairs and servicing. It included the aircraft being flown to the U.S. for 1000-hour checks, and the aircraft being flown back to Germany after those checks. Last but not least, it included the C-54s used for training pilots in Great Falls, Montana for future Airlift duties. In short, when the U.S. Air Force gave Clay his 224 aircraft for the Airlift what he actually got were 169 C-54s hauling freight on any one day.

The Airlift was not failing only because of insufficient aircraft. It was also failing because the aircraft on the Airlift were not being used optimally. For example, the block system, the idea of flying “blocks” of aircraft from different bases within specific four-hour time-slots, had been a great improvement over the initial chaos of everyone just taking off when they felt like it and improvising from there. Safety and efficiency had increased significantly as a result. 

But the Block system had its drawbacks as well. The four hour cycle was ideal for the C-54s because of their large cargo capacity which entailed longer loading and unloading times, but was highly inefficient for smaller aircraft such as the Dakota, Lancastrian or Tudor. These took less time to on- and off-load so they often ended up sitting around, fully loaded and fueled, just waiting for their “slot” in the flow of traffic. 

Nor did the four hour cycle suit tankers or aircraft with return cargoes that had to load at both ends of the flight. They often took just marginally longer than four hours to load, but if they missed their slot they had to wait nearly four hours for the next block. The result was that the British aircraft, both the RAF’s Dakotas and the civilian Lancastrians, Tudors, Haltons and Hastings, were being kept on the ground longer than necessary and not making the contribution they could have made.  Aircraft capacity was being wasted.

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[i] Sebastian Cox, Britain and the Berlin Airlift,  Royal Air Force Air Power Review, Spring 2004, p. 33.

NOTE: The content of this blog post is based on Helena P. Schrader. The Blockade Breakers. Pen & Sword, 2008.

The Berlin Airlift is the subject of Bridge to Tomorrow, a trilogy of novels starting with Cold Peace.

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