An Unexpected -- and now Forgotten -- Victory
Seventy seven years ago today the Soviet Union tried to force the West to retreat by cutting 2.2 million civilians off from the necessities of life. The West, led by the Democratic American President, Harry Truman, defied Soviet aggression. Instead of war, he launched a dramatic humanitarian operation: the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift remains to this day the largest and most successful airlift in history. There have been many airlifts in the 80 years since the Berlin Airlift ended, but none has come near to the scale of joint USAF/RAF effort in 1948-1949. On the contrary, not all of them together carried as much as the Berlin Airlift alone. On this anniversary of the event that triggered this remarkable achievement, I'd like to remind readers of what it accomplished in sheer material terms. Below is a short summery of the numbers. Tonnage : The most common way of measuring the accomplishments of the Airlift is the one Tunner favored: tonnage. During the first fiv...