The Berlin Candy Bomber
As earlier entries have stressed, what really captured the hearts of the Berliners were the people-to-people contacts and the unofficial generosity of the individual Americans and British participants. None of these were more famous -- nor nearly as influential -- as one American lieutenant, who has gone down in history as The Berlin Candy Bomber Lt. Gail Halvorsen joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during the Second World War and flew transport planes out of Natal, Brazil. A military professional, he was still flying transport planes in 1948 when the crisis in Berlin erupted. Although his squadron, which flew the new C-74 was not slated for transfer to Berlin, another squadron on the base equipped with the C-54 was given just a couple hours notice for deployment. When Halvorsen learned that a friend with with infant twins was due to deploy, he volunteered to take his place. Halvorsen and his new squadron arrived in Berlin in early July. The Airlift was only a couple weeks old...