December 19, 2023 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, this is the story of Gail Halvorsen, a young pilot in the US Army Air Corps who was assigned as a cargo pilot to the Berlin Airlift, in which US forces flew much-needed supplies into a war-torn, Soviet-blockaded Berlin following WWII. As he performed his duties, Lt. Halvorsen began to notice the German children gathered by the fences of Tempelhof Air Base. Knowing that they had very little, an idea sprang: He would bomb Berlin with candy. Here he is to share his story!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And by the way, to check out our American Stories podcast,
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Up next, the story of Gail Halverson, a young pilot
(00:31):
in the US Army Air Corps who was assigned as
a cargo pilot at the Berlin Airlift, in which US
forces flew much needed supplies into a war torn Soviet
blockaded Berlin following World War II. Gail grew up on
a farm in Utah and joined the Army Air Corps
in June of nineteen forty two. Here's Colonel Halverson with
(00:55):
the story, beginning with the three reasons why he and
his fellow serviceman saw the Berlin Airlift as necessary.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I stayed in the Air Force, the Army Air Corps
at the time after the war, and that we wanted
to keep flying. And we were briefed in our pilot
meetings all the time, every month about the world's situation
after the war, and we knew from these briefings the
(01:30):
new enemy was Stalin and Communism. He'd just taken Czechoslovakia
had the popular democratic leader assassinated taking Hungary. We knew
he was headed west. The second factor was we knew
that that most of the two million two point five
million people in Berlin, in West Berlin were women and children,
(01:56):
very few men. And the stars man take fresh milk
or food from babies, from and from women and children.
That's a mitigating factor on how we felt about what
we're doing. The third one was when I landed on
my first trip into Berlin of twenty thousand pounds of
(02:19):
flour and opened that have that back door. A crew
chief went back open the door. In came these Germans,
six of them downloaded, about six in the semi tripp.
I wondered how these superman are gonna look. And they
had mixed uniforms, part uniform Parsivani doctors or Weimart privates
(02:39):
all together for one purpose.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
They needed freedom, they needed flour. We had both. And
when I got out of cockpit and walked back.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And that lead man came right up, put his hand
in mine and gripped it and looked me in the eye,
and his eyes were moist and looked down at that
flour like range from heaven and we're on the same page.
So there are three factors. So I got to go
to Berlin and see on the ground. I had a
friend in Berlin who says, you get here. I got
(03:11):
a jeep for in the driver. You take you over
and you see everything. And so one day I came
back and it was about the seventeenth of July. Came
back and landed at ran Mine about noon. It was
a beautiful day, sunshine. I was supposed to go to
bed and fly that night. Had a movie camera in
my hand. And Bill Christian, a buddy from Mobile, Alabama,
(03:35):
was in the in an airplane in the next hardstand,
Lord of Dry Potatoes, ready to go to Berlin, just
getting ready to start the engines.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The Holy Cow.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
What an opportunity, beautiful day Bill's going. I'll just jump
on the airplane with him. I'm not going to bed.
I got a jeep waiting for me in Berlin. I
get off the fly line.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I'll go over the sea and get these great movies.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And so so John Pickering my copalut go to bed.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
John, you and Elkins get to bed.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm going to Berlin.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
He said, you're crazy, and I said, I know it,
but I'm going to Berlin. If this thing stops tomorrow,
they're gonna send us all home. They're not gonna let
everybody go aside seeing the Berlin and I want to
see Berlin. I want to see Hitler's bunker. I want
to see the richestar got close. I loved history, and
here I was right in the middle of it. I said,
I want it. It's gonna be or I'm going to Berlin.
(04:26):
I'll see it before I go back. All you need
is the uniform. Airplanes come back five, no reservations required.
So uh, I jumped on the airplane and went back.
We called in and Jeep was waiting. But uh, before
I went around town, I wanted to get on the
end of the runway and take pictures of the airplanes
coming over the buildings before we had it come between
(04:46):
the buillains. And that's that's uh, that's how dumb I was.
I thought it was gonna be over that quick thought.
I was there to get movies if I ever had
any kids, to show them the approach. And so I
went went around there and started shooting movies. The airplanes
coming over barbar fence in front of me bombed out
(05:06):
buildings a couple hundred yards over, and then.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Suddenly here are the kids. See the color of their eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
They're right up against me looking at this uniform was
bombing them three years before, maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Killed their dad and mom, who knows.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And I didn't know how they get I looked on
all of a sudden, there's thirty kids, about roughly thirty,
standing right on the other side the barbar from me,
looking at me, and they were friendly, And I thought,
why would they be friendly? You know, here's that uniform
right here, And it was the first time they've seen
(05:47):
a uniform. Of course, the military rushing the first witch
is terror and occupation guys. Later then I found out
later why they were so friendly because their aunts and
uncles or Arbortray cut off with the border.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Not cut off.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Because you've walked across the border then, but they could
walk across the border. Their aunts and uncles and whoever,
the close family type come over to West Berlin to
use the library to see what's going on.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They'd lost their freedom, they lost freedom of the press,
the freedom expression, freedom of travel, freedom of religion, freedom
of electing who they wanted to be their ruler.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
They'd lost that.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they were over there and they were telling their
aunts and uncles, then I can't travel, I can't do this,
can't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And they knew they knew then what con is like.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
They had missionaries from the Commists, not for this program,
but negative missionaries said, Hey, this is not very cool, buddy.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know how you knew these guys though.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
They were friendly, And you're listening to Colonel Gail Halverson
tell the story of why the Berlin Airlift was necessary.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The people of Germany knew who we were.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
We were on their side and on the side of freedom.
When we come back. More of this remarkable story not
told enough in America's classrooms, the story.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Of the Cold War, the story of the Berlin Airlift.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Here on Our American Stories, Lee Hibibi here the host
of our American Stories.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our
big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do
the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to,
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to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give, and we continue
(08:10):
with our American stories and the story of Colonel Halverson
and in the end, the story of the Berlin Airlift
and why it was so necessary and in the end
so remarkable and emblematic of the people the country that
made it happen.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
American style, freedom was their dream, and Hitler's passed in
Stalin's future was their nightmare. They knew, those kids eight
to fourteen. They were giving me a lesson about freedom.
The look it said, it's pretty good here in July.
You know, the weather's not too bad to get some storms.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
But you wait.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
They had school English, they spoke. Someone spoke pretty good English.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
School. I couldn't speak any German.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They said, come the winter, in the fall, you can't
get in here is going to be bad. Kids, give
me a lecture, said, but when that happens, don't worry
about us. We don't have to have enough to eat.
Just don't give up on us. Someday we'll have enough
(09:17):
to eat. But if you loser freedom, we'll never get
it back. American style freedmans are dream and they knew
about the other systems.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They didn't want him. Those kids were incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I just said, holy count, and I got so interested
in listening to him. I looked at them last Summer Acts.
I've been there over an hour, and I said, boy,
she might not be waiting. I gotta get out of here.
So I started to run so see letter kids and
got about five steps and then the kids. I stopped
(09:51):
and I said, boy, these incredible kids. I said, well,
they've got a postgraduate degree in international relations. They know
what's important. They got their head screwed on. They really
know what's important. And it started to walking, and the
little voice just kept came back again. I don't know
how it overcame to get to the jeep. You're late,
but it did. It don't treat me.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And then I knew in a flash why. And it was.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Because during the war and after the war, walked down
the street in the foreign country where the kids had
some chocolate, not much, but had some, and those kids
would chase yet going down the street, interception and surround
you begging for chocolate, and government, of course the military,
since the Continental Army was Washington, going through a town
to give kids stuff from the ration. They had a
(10:41):
little piece of chocolate or hart dock or something. They'd
give it the kids, that's nothing new. And then I said,
though they haven't had any chocolate for months, they haven't
had gum.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
They hardly knew what gum was anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But no chocolate for months, and not one of those
kids would lower themselves to be a beggar or something
goes striving as chocolate when they had flour to be free,
and they wouldn't ask for more than freedom, lower themselves.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
To beg for something more. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
When somebody gives you a million dollars, you don't ask
for four bucks more. Yeah, you wouldn't ask for that. Well,
they didn't ask for that cream on the top, because
there was a thankful for what freedom meant to them.
When I realized that, I just said, holy cow, can't
believe it. Not one child put out their hand, but
(11:41):
not one. By voice inflection in the kid which he
got some chocolate or.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Something, not one.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So I reached my pocket and just had two sticks
a gum. Holy cow, two sticks are gum. You're gonna
have fight, You're gonna have blade noses.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Get out of here.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And I said, well I never see these kids again.
I'll be flying twenty four hours out of sleep. I'll
be sleeping on the autoplot's flying, coming to go in
the copalle probably, But I can't come to the fence anymore.
I'll never see these kids again. How could I possibly
get him something? And so everybody, well, I said, well
(12:18):
give it to them. It's all you got broken a
half four pieces through the bar bar. The kids they
were translating. I gave them half a stick. They did
most of it, and boy, they looked like they got
a one hundred dollar bill, and boy they got a
hold of that. And then here came the arrest the kids,
and no fight. They just wanted a piece of the wrapper.
(12:40):
And the kids with half a stick um tore off
the outer wrapper and the tinfoil and handed to the
kids that didn't.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Get any anything at all. And the kids they got
a piece of paper, put it up their nose and
smelled it and smelled it a piece of paper. I
stood there. It flattened them. I don't believe what I've seen.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Holy cow. For thirty cents, I could buy them thirty
sticks a gum and they could have the wrapper and everything.
But how do I deliver it? I can't come out here.
Could I get some German to deliver it? Who knows
what kids would get it, or if he'd even deliver it.
By that time, an aeroplane flew over my head, landed
right on a run away behind me, and I got
(13:24):
the idea, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Coming in tomorrow. I can deliver it to these kids.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I can put it in that open place and I
get enough for everybody, and boy, and then the red
light came on. So you got to have permission for that.
You can't drop stuff out airplanes unless you get the clearance.
And then I rationalized, and that's how you get in trouble.
That's the first step getting off the path. And so
(13:52):
I thought, well, you know, starving two million people, not
according to oil anyway, what's a few sticks of gum?
And so I found myself almost horrified, saying, kids, you
come back tomorrow. Stand in this open place. When I
come into land. I'll drop enough out of the airplane
(14:13):
two years before I land if you'll share it. Oh
you're vold, y'all. Vold will share it. They said, you bet,
and bouncing up and down, and I started leaving. They
called me back.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I said, what's the matter.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
You gotta know what airplane you're in? Every five minutes
there was an aeroplane coming by here. Well, I didn't
know what airplane because the airplanes from the Alaska had
red noses and red tails. They crashed in the snow
they could find them, and the airplanes from Hawaii had
coconut palms and stuff on. Everybody had a different singing.
(14:50):
And I flew whatever airplane was loaded. I don't know
what airplane though, for I'm just sure was a four engine.
There are a lot of two engines, see forty SI.
It was still fun. So four engine. They said, no, no, off,
we're gonna know. Then I told them wiggle the wings
when I come over the beacon of first Uh, before
we go eest Berlin to come around the land, I'll
(15:12):
wiggle the wings.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Boy said, let's let's get out of here. Let's start
this thing.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I went all over town and got the movies
you've seen in every documentary every major producer has put
out has got my film in it. I took around
the city and off of the airlift as it went on,
and I took those pictures, went back to several hours
wady to start flying. That night, I went to Basic
Change open twenty four hours a day bottle I could
(15:39):
on a weekly ration, and I didn't have enough, so
I went to my crew and I said, I gotta
have your ration. They gave me. Theirs had a big
double handful of chocolate chocolate bars, Hershey Bars, Babe Ruth
Bounce and the double mint gum and broke out in
three p put three parachutes on it, and anxious parachutes
(16:03):
and and uh m. Next day flew that night, of course,
and the next day after noon the weather was good
and looked down there and those kids were right in
the open place between the bomb dout buildings and the
barbarar fences. They hadn't told anybody else in this small group,
and wiggled the wings and he went crazy. Still see
(16:23):
their arms as they came over the bombell billing. Right
behind the pil seats a flair chute where emergency flares
pushed out in case you have emergency in flight, and
it's easy for the cuchie stamp between the pouse just
access that. So as he came over, the head just
told push it out, and he pushed it out, unloaded
twenty thousand pounds of flour. The Germans did, and worried
(16:47):
that somebody had seen the airplane. These parachutes get me
in trouble and wind up to take off and uh
or they pulled the parachutes over barbeer where they couldn't
get him in the under the field.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
But he tax it out.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
There's three anxious waving through it, all airplanes, and their
mouths are going up and down. And we waved, and
I said, wish they wouldn't do that, waving all airplanes.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I love. That's how it started.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you're listening to Colonel Gail Halverson tell the story
of how the Berlin Airlift came to be. Two million
people trapped without any means of really supporting themselves. We'd
bombed many parts of Germany to bits and leave it
to American gis to come up with the idea or one.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
As he said, a light bulb went off in my head.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
But then he realized, quote, you can't drop stuff off
out of airplanes without permission.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And then he.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Added, Then I rationalized, and that's when you get in trouble.
More this remarkable story, the story of the Berlin Airlift,
the story of American compassion and ingenuity. Here on our
American Stories and we continue with our American stories and
(18:11):
the story of the Berlin Airlift, how it came to be,
how it happened, and the man on the ground then,
who's now telling us this story is Colonel Gail Halverson.
Let's continue where Gayle last left off after the first drop.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let's say it was about three weeks later when I
got called in and chewed out because I didn't have
permission like Colonel Horn. And it was about that long ago.
And then they said it's okay, but you got to
report down to Frankfort, to the press center at Frankfort.
(18:48):
They want to know all about it, this news release
that came out. So it was then I knew that boy,
something read somebody rethought this was a crazy idea. So
I went in and all the news, all the news agencies,
of course, recovering the bruin hurlet. So they were all
there in this big press center in Frankfort, and I
(19:11):
was pretty humble. The first lieutenant guy and had a
chauffeur and a driver and took me into Frankfort in
a hurry, and and all these guys waiting for me. Wow,
what if I call what happened? Then I knew and
uh then I was crazy. Everybody was talking about it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
When the word got out.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
We came back from Berlin to the beds and there'd
be boxes of chocolate bars, uh gum. The guys given
the ration, and we figured that overall we must have
dropped about two hundred and fifty thousand parachutes during the
(19:55):
during the course of the blockade, we were able to drop.
My buddies dropped after I left. They kept dropping and
dropped until the end of September nineteen forty nine, so
it went.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
On that long.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
What happened is that the American Confectioneers Association that represents
all the candymakers in America got a hold of me
when I was in New York in September nineteen forty
eight to pick up an airplane. General Tenner had me
stay for a week in New York and appear on
the early television program We the People and a number
(20:36):
of radio talk shows and to inform people about what
the airlift was like and in my operation, and the
representing the American Confectioneers Association said how much of this
stuff can you use? And I gave him some ridiculous number,
(20:56):
and later they sent six thousand pounds of chocolate bars
by boat and by rail from through Bremerhaven down to
rhyin Mine. I came back to Berlin one day and
and uh an officer met me there with cheap and said, uh,
come with me, And at four he said, I'll show you.
(21:20):
Went over to the railway spur on bryand Mine and
there was a box car with a armed guard. And
then I said, uh, what's in the box car? He says,
chocolate bars? And there was two shipments of one three
thousand pounds one thirty five hundred pounds.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
A chocolate bar.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And we couldn't drop that much cause we didn't can
tie up the parachute. We too busy, and so we
decided to have a Christmas party in Berlin with that.
And we we got that about the middle of December
nineteen forty eight, those shipments and and.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
We uh had my We put it unloaded and put
it in.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The you know, supply building where somebody there all the
time regarded because the boy that there was enough chocolate
Tobai King were doing his castle on the black market.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
There's an incredible value.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And so we accumulated all of it before Christmas and
on the twenty fourth of December nineteen forty eight, the
German Youth Association in Berlin was the use of West
Berlin and the military teamed up and had Christmas party
for the kids all over West.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Berlin for that amount.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But from then on they said, I said, we can't,
we can't handle it this way. If we had it
ready to drop, then we could drop it over the
city as we came in. And so they said, okay.
I don't know how they found it. But Elms Junior
(22:57):
College in chick Bee, Massachusetts, and Miss O'Connor said, well,
we'll handle that project for him. Just send all the
candy dust and we'll tie up the parachutes, put in
boxes ready to drop and ship it. In Chickpen, mass
they had a fire station, an old fire station that
(23:18):
they get a new and so the city gave it
to him. They had a big sign up from Operation
a Little Vittles and twenty two schools with alternate tying
up parachutes and sal boat companies donated old sail cloth.
They have cut it up parachutes about the size of
man's handkerchief a little bigger, and the twine companies gave
(23:41):
them all the twine. The cardboard companies gave them all
the cardboard. They had processed eighteen tons through that facility
by January nineteen forty nine. And Westover Air Force Base
is right next to Chickipee mass and there's one of
the big transport bases.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That supported ran mine, and.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
There's airplanes going back and forth all the times. And
so I had all my squadron were there organized so
that we had a a map of Berlin with pins
and a map on the best places to drop through
the cloud when it was a cloudy. We knew where
the the homing beacons were around the city for navigation,
(24:26):
and and so we knew where the biggest playgrounds are
where the children most likely congrerating. So we'd bring that
those boxes in and they'd partot would take 'em out,
and we quit dropping on the end by the end
of the runway because uh, the crowd was got get
too big and the concentrated area and the astray, the
kids get hurt and bigger guys running over 'em for
(24:49):
the stuff, and so uh, we started dropping randomly all
over the city. So when we come over different parts
of the city where we wanted to drop, why the
Creachie should go back and just check this kept the
top of the cardboard Washington. Just check it up against
the escape patch and the stuff had come out like
(25:09):
popcorn and just blow all over the place and scatter
all over the countryside. We drop it from the thousand
feet to two thousand feet and they just go over.
And I've got letters from kids that would see it.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
One man.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
In nineteen ninety eight we flew the I'm still flying
the Berlin Airlift Flying Museum, the Spirit of Freedom, the
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation airplane, and we make parachhoe drops
out of it a lot. We go to the air
shows all over the country. In nineteen ninety eight we
flew across the North Atlantic back Europe, sixty nine days
(25:49):
in Europe, air shows and air drops in Great Britain, France, Luxembourg,
and Berlin twice. And in Berlin the people had come
through the aeroplane. You could tell immediately those who were
there during the blockade. They're very emotional about telling you
thanks for our freedom and wished I they'd tell you
(26:12):
how much it meant to them.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And you've been listening to Colonel Gail Halverson tell the
story of the Berlin Airlift. After that first drop of his,
the one where he didn't ask for permission, well, just
a few weeks later he was hauled in, as he
put it, and shoot out. But soon thereafter he found
himself into Frankfort in a big press conference. He'd stumbled
(26:33):
onto something byther Way, this old adage that my dad
taught me, a military adage, better to ask for forgiveness
than permission. And boy is it no better evidence of
that than right here, and my goodness, starting to drop
in one place created problems. Everybody started to gather. Then
the next thing you know, Halverson was worried that the
(26:54):
young kids would get trampled by the starving big kids.
So then the drops started to get scattered all over
Germany and from one to two thousand feet. Can you
imagine being starving and waiting for stuff to come out
of the sky from American planes that it bombed you
only well, just years before.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's remarkable. Actually, when we come back.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
More of the story of the Berlin Airlift here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(27:40):
and with Colonel Gail Halverson, who was there and who
in essence sort of got the thing rolling the idea
of the Berlin Airlift.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Let's return where Gail last left off.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
The one of the men that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Came through is sixty years old and said to me
from his boy attend going to school, and the clouds
were very low, and it was raining, and I knew
you were using radar to land, cause I couldn't see
the aeroplanes. And suddenly, out of this cloud came a
parachute with a fresh airshy candy bar and landed right
(28:15):
at my feet. And it took me a week to
eat it, he said. I says, sounded I hit it
day and night. And he said, uh, it's not the
chocolates important. What was important? Was it somebody in America
knew I was in trouble. Somebody cared. He said, Uh,
I can live on thin rations, but not without hope.
(28:37):
Without hope, the soul die, he said. And one little
boy was going to school and suddenly he'd hear coming
much parachutes, said, wasn't that batter weather before? And they'd
they're picking him up. But he was out of the
group of ways, and he saw that one land in
the duck pond, and he went in the duck pond
after it he got all muncky with duck stuff and
(28:59):
everything else. They got the parachute in the in the
chocolate bar and they went on to the school wasn't
very far from the where they caught it, and the
head master so i'ment, what are you doing? Kind of
school and all money and all messed.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Up, and he showing the thing. The guy said, oh,
that's alright, that's alright, that's.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Okay, and uh so he yeah, I think he had
the same moment changed his clothes, but uh so that
was it was exciting for him that they never knew
where it was gonna the east.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
The East Bolin kids wrote to me and.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Said, look, uh we we can't help it where they
put the border.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
We were over here with these Russians, we like the Americans.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And and when we're getting some of that stuff, we'd
come over to West Berlin and we're catching it, and
and uh, we'd like to have you drop it over
East Berline. There's not so many people over here. It'd
be a lot better for us. And so I said
why not, And so I did, And it'd be fun.
There are some soccer fields as in our pattern. As
we'd go around East berlind And and when they'd be
(29:58):
playing soccer. W that's when I liked it best, cause
we'd saved the candy and we got over the kids
playing soccer in East Berlin and kick it out and
then the soccer ball would go one direction, the kids
would chase the ball, the parachutes going somewhere else break
up the soccer game. But that was fun to watch it.
That we'd bank the airplane and get a look at
(30:19):
what's going on. And so I had to quit because
uh in East Berlin, because the Soviets complained to the
State Department, there's a dirty capitalist trick. We're trying to
influence the minds of the young people against that's the Soviets.
I gave him chocolate and they said it was a
CIA operation. This government operation gotta stop. Was never a
(30:41):
government operation. And so uh I came back from Berlin
one day and this Austin met the airplane and says,
what are you doing over East Berlin?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And and then I knew I was in trouble. He said, well,
he got to stop. He told me why, I've had
lots of.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
L people in East Berlin that I've met that caught purachutes.
Ask me why I quit. It's politics, not people, and
politics a problem. It's uh, I guess the addictives. It's
the only drug. I was very addicted to smile on
the kid's face when I got something unexpected. I I
I didn't think I did anything special. I just gave
(31:19):
kids two sticks a gun. I just keep thinking, it's
just two sticks a gun, and that's all.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
It is, and whatever's made of it somebody.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Else, not not not my doing.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Whenever you think that you d you you're causing all
the good things to happen.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Boy, you're in new trouble. I mean, from then on
you you are. You're off the path of life.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
If if you don't give credit for a good lord
of what what he's made available to us and what
other people do for you, then you just as well say, hey,
but yeah, I'm I'm not a contributor to society anymore.
I'm a millstone on the system.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I think the airlift was to me.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
It was the reinforcement of the things my church taught
me all my life, and my family taught me. Basically,
money is not the answer to happiness. The more you get,
the more you want and there's just no answer and
open ended the chase.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
For the for the family, youth.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
That the only way the real fulfillment is serving others,
service before self. That's one of the air Force UH
core values service before self. And that's what the Savior
taught this his life. If you want happiness, serve others.
(32:41):
The dead sea is dead because it takes in all
the good ideas of fresh water and gives out nothing.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So it's dead. And people are that way.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
They say give me, give me all the time, and
give naught of itself. The dead sea souls and that
was demonstrated in the space thirty one of us well
Jesus Christ a greater love and that no man he
laid down his life for a friend, and thirty one
or the buddies gave their lives for an enemy Germans
that became a friend. Why because uh, service, the re
(33:11):
the reward you get you can't buy by helping somebody,
especially having somebody need and the enemy. It is the epitome.
You're able to do that, Why, that's the that's the element.
If you're able to forgive and and to serve an enemy,
So service before so are airly is the perfect demonstration,
absolute perfect demonstration, and that indicates what my parents and
(33:34):
my church tell me.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
The other thing is that the little decision you make
in life are important, extremely important, more important than big decisions,
because they put your footsteps and your mindset on the
path that leads.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
You to your final destination, your final position.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you're down that path where you're not going to
return when the big decision comes. That little decision for
two sticks again, and the whole world change for me
for two six a gun.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
That's about as small as you can get.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Where does the little decision come from? Well, we get
an impression. Everybody's got a conscience, the spirit we believe
every certain person has, and the conscious and you got
a trigger and it tells you very subtly what you
ought to do.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Then you argue with it and do something different.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And then you miss out on the good things of life.
The gratitude break down the wall between people when you
you're grateful for something and don't think that you've invented
the world by yourself and everything that happens to you
(34:44):
was because how smart you are, and give credit to
nobody else. Boy, you're in the dead seat, getting the
dead sea again. But the gratitude by stopping and telling
the lady mop and the floor and an office building
on the way out that boy, you're doing a good job.
We're sure to make this place look better if you
(35:05):
can see that, then be grateful back and that that
job is getting better next time, and and the other.
The other thing I guess too is attitude. Ninety percent
of the things that happened to us, including the airlift,
we can do something about. We can hate the enemy
(35:26):
and be mad all the time, or we can get
on with it and and enough to get the reinforcement
to find out that we're doing something worthwhile. But the
attitude determined success or failure. Determine in the family, in
the home, or in the nation of the community. The
attitude how you approach things. Ninety percent of the things
(35:46):
I think that happened to us, we can determine how
we feel we have control of that one string on
their violin that how we react. That's attitude, and.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Ten percent we can't.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Let's be sent Does drod drant me the serenity to
accept the things I can't change about ten percent that
you can't change, and the courage to change the things
I can and the wisdom to tell the difference. So attitude,
attitude is boys about everything. Then the airlift had all
(36:20):
of them. Attitude, gratitude, serves the foreself, and integrity, all
those things were factored.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
In this airlift.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
To me and a great job on the storytelling and
production by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Colonel
Gail Halverson, who celebrated his one hundred and first birthday recently,
And thanks to the National Archives for the interview and
the Truman Presidential Library is also a wonderful children's book,
Christmas from Heaven, The True Story of the Berlin Candy Bomber,
(36:51):
with Tom Brokaw narrating a story.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
In the books accompanying DVD.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
My goodness, how rich to bump into a beneficiary of
the Berlin Airlift decades later and have a grown man say,
it wasn't the chocolate that was important. It was the
sense that someone out there cared. A person can survive
thin rations. One can't survive without hope. And my goodness,
(37:16):
two point three million tons of supplies were dropped in
the Berlin Airlift, two point three million tons. It was
called Operation Victuals and took place over an eighteen month period,
and I simply love what Halverson said at the end.
The Berlin Airlift reinforced many of the things my church
(37:36):
taught me and my family. Money is not the answer.
Real fulfillment comes from serving others, service before self. It's
what our Savior taught us. Colonel Gail Halverson's story, the
Berlin Airlift story, and a story of so much more,
including the American spirit and American generosity. By the way,
(37:58):
we did this with the British as well, our compatriots
across the sea. Here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And by the way, to check out our American Stories podcast,
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Up next, the story of Gail Halverson, a young pilot
(00:31):
in the US Army Air Corps who was assigned as
a cargo pilot at the Berlin Airlift, in which US
forces flew much needed supplies into a war torn Soviet
blockaded Berlin following World War II. Gail grew up on
a farm in Utah and joined the Army Air Corps
in June of nineteen forty two. Here's Colonel Halverson with
(00:55):
the story, beginning with the three reasons why he and
his fellow serviceman saw the Berlin Airlift as necessary.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I stayed in the Air Force, the Army Air Corps
at the time after the war, and that we wanted
to keep flying. And we were briefed in our pilot
meetings all the time, every month about the world's situation
after the war, and we knew from these briefings the
(01:30):
new enemy was Stalin and Communism. He'd just taken Czechoslovakia
had the popular democratic leader assassinated taking Hungary. We knew
he was headed west. The second factor was we knew
that that most of the two million two point five
million people in Berlin, in West Berlin were women and children,
(01:56):
very few men. And the stars man take fresh milk
or food from babies, from and from women and children.
That's a mitigating factor on how we felt about what
we're doing. The third one was when I landed on
my first trip into Berlin of twenty thousand pounds of
(02:19):
flour and opened that have that back door. A crew
chief went back open the door. In came these Germans,
six of them downloaded, about six in the semi tripp.
I wondered how these superman are gonna look. And they
had mixed uniforms, part uniform Parsivani doctors or Weimart privates
(02:39):
all together for one purpose.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
They needed freedom, they needed flour. We had both. And
when I got out of cockpit and walked back.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And that lead man came right up, put his hand
in mine and gripped it and looked me in the eye,
and his eyes were moist and looked down at that
flour like range from heaven and we're on the same page.
So there are three factors. So I got to go
to Berlin and see on the ground. I had a
friend in Berlin who says, you get here. I got
(03:11):
a jeep for in the driver. You take you over
and you see everything. And so one day I came
back and it was about the seventeenth of July. Came
back and landed at ran Mine about noon. It was
a beautiful day, sunshine. I was supposed to go to
bed and fly that night. Had a movie camera in
my hand. And Bill Christian, a buddy from Mobile, Alabama,
(03:35):
was in the in an airplane in the next hardstand,
Lord of Dry Potatoes, ready to go to Berlin, just
getting ready to start the engines.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The Holy Cow.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
What an opportunity, beautiful day Bill's going. I'll just jump
on the airplane with him. I'm not going to bed.
I got a jeep waiting for me in Berlin. I
get off the fly line.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I'll go over the sea and get these great movies.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And so so John Pickering my copalut go to bed.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
John, you and Elkins get to bed.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm going to Berlin.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
He said, you're crazy, and I said, I know it,
but I'm going to Berlin. If this thing stops tomorrow,
they're gonna send us all home. They're not gonna let
everybody go aside seeing the Berlin and I want to
see Berlin. I want to see Hitler's bunker. I want
to see the richestar got close. I loved history, and
here I was right in the middle of it. I said,
I want it. It's gonna be or I'm going to Berlin.
(04:26):
I'll see it before I go back. All you need
is the uniform. Airplanes come back five, no reservations required.
So uh, I jumped on the airplane and went back.
We called in and Jeep was waiting. But uh, before
I went around town, I wanted to get on the
end of the runway and take pictures of the airplanes
coming over the buildings before we had it come between
(04:46):
the buillains. And that's that's uh, that's how dumb I was.
I thought it was gonna be over that quick thought.
I was there to get movies if I ever had
any kids, to show them the approach. And so I
went went around there and started shooting movies. The airplanes
coming over barbar fence in front of me bombed out
(05:06):
buildings a couple hundred yards over, and then.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Suddenly here are the kids. See the color of their eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
They're right up against me looking at this uniform was
bombing them three years before, maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Killed their dad and mom, who knows.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And I didn't know how they get I looked on
all of a sudden, there's thirty kids, about roughly thirty,
standing right on the other side the barbar from me,
looking at me, and they were friendly, And I thought,
why would they be friendly? You know, here's that uniform
right here, And it was the first time they've seen
(05:47):
a uniform. Of course, the military rushing the first witch
is terror and occupation guys. Later then I found out
later why they were so friendly because their aunts and
uncles or Arbortray cut off with the border.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Not cut off.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Because you've walked across the border then, but they could
walk across the border. Their aunts and uncles and whoever,
the close family type come over to West Berlin to
use the library to see what's going on.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They'd lost their freedom, they lost freedom of the press,
the freedom expression, freedom of travel, freedom of religion, freedom
of electing who they wanted to be their ruler.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
They'd lost that.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they were over there and they were telling their
aunts and uncles, then I can't travel, I can't do this,
can't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And they knew they knew then what con is like.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
They had missionaries from the Commists, not for this program,
but negative missionaries said, Hey, this is not very cool, buddy.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know how you knew these guys though.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
They were friendly, And you're listening to Colonel Gail Halverson
tell the story of why the Berlin Airlift was necessary.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The people of Germany knew who we were.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
We were on their side and on the side of freedom.
When we come back. More of this remarkable story not
told enough in America's classrooms, the story.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Of the Cold War, the story of the Berlin Airlift.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Here on Our American Stories, Lee Hibibi here the host
of our American Stories.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our
big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do
the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to,
but they're not free to make. If you love what
you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click
the donate button. Give a little, Give a lot, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give, and we continue
(08:10):
with our American stories and the story of Colonel Halverson
and in the end, the story of the Berlin Airlift
and why it was so necessary and in the end
so remarkable and emblematic of the people the country that
made it happen.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
American style, freedom was their dream, and Hitler's passed in
Stalin's future was their nightmare. They knew, those kids eight
to fourteen. They were giving me a lesson about freedom.
The look it said, it's pretty good here in July.
You know, the weather's not too bad to get some storms.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
But you wait.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
They had school English, they spoke. Someone spoke pretty good English.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
School. I couldn't speak any German.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They said, come the winter, in the fall, you can't
get in here is going to be bad. Kids, give
me a lecture, said, but when that happens, don't worry
about us. We don't have to have enough to eat.
Just don't give up on us. Someday we'll have enough
(09:17):
to eat. But if you loser freedom, we'll never get
it back. American style freedmans are dream and they knew
about the other systems.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They didn't want him. Those kids were incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I just said, holy count, and I got so interested
in listening to him. I looked at them last Summer Acts.
I've been there over an hour, and I said, boy,
she might not be waiting. I gotta get out of here.
So I started to run so see letter kids and
got about five steps and then the kids. I stopped
(09:51):
and I said, boy, these incredible kids. I said, well,
they've got a postgraduate degree in international relations. They know
what's important. They got their head screwed on. They really
know what's important. And it started to walking, and the
little voice just kept came back again. I don't know
how it overcame to get to the jeep. You're late,
but it did. It don't treat me.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And then I knew in a flash why. And it was.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Because during the war and after the war, walked down
the street in the foreign country where the kids had
some chocolate, not much, but had some, and those kids
would chase yet going down the street, interception and surround
you begging for chocolate, and government, of course the military,
since the Continental Army was Washington, going through a town
to give kids stuff from the ration. They had a
(10:41):
little piece of chocolate or hart dock or something. They'd
give it the kids, that's nothing new. And then I said,
though they haven't had any chocolate for months, they haven't
had gum.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
They hardly knew what gum was anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But no chocolate for months, and not one of those
kids would lower themselves to be a beggar or something
goes striving as chocolate when they had flour to be free,
and they wouldn't ask for more than freedom, lower themselves.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
To beg for something more. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
When somebody gives you a million dollars, you don't ask
for four bucks more. Yeah, you wouldn't ask for that. Well,
they didn't ask for that cream on the top, because
there was a thankful for what freedom meant to them.
When I realized that, I just said, holy cow, can't
believe it. Not one child put out their hand, but
(11:41):
not one. By voice inflection in the kid which he
got some chocolate or.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Something, not one.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So I reached my pocket and just had two sticks
a gum. Holy cow, two sticks are gum. You're gonna
have fight, You're gonna have blade noses.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Get out of here.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And I said, well I never see these kids again.
I'll be flying twenty four hours out of sleep. I'll
be sleeping on the autoplot's flying, coming to go in
the copalle probably, But I can't come to the fence anymore.
I'll never see these kids again. How could I possibly
get him something? And so everybody, well, I said, well
(12:18):
give it to them. It's all you got broken a
half four pieces through the bar bar. The kids they
were translating. I gave them half a stick. They did
most of it, and boy, they looked like they got
a one hundred dollar bill, and boy they got a
hold of that. And then here came the arrest the kids,
and no fight. They just wanted a piece of the wrapper.
(12:40):
And the kids with half a stick um tore off
the outer wrapper and the tinfoil and handed to the
kids that didn't.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Get any anything at all. And the kids they got
a piece of paper, put it up their nose and
smelled it and smelled it a piece of paper. I
stood there. It flattened them. I don't believe what I've seen.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Holy cow. For thirty cents, I could buy them thirty
sticks a gum and they could have the wrapper and everything.
But how do I deliver it? I can't come out here.
Could I get some German to deliver it? Who knows
what kids would get it, or if he'd even deliver it.
By that time, an aeroplane flew over my head, landed
right on a run away behind me, and I got
(13:24):
the idea, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Coming in tomorrow. I can deliver it to these kids.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I can put it in that open place and I
get enough for everybody, and boy, and then the red
light came on. So you got to have permission for that.
You can't drop stuff out airplanes unless you get the clearance.
And then I rationalized, and that's how you get in trouble.
That's the first step getting off the path. And so
(13:52):
I thought, well, you know, starving two million people, not
according to oil anyway, what's a few sticks of gum?
And so I found myself almost horrified, saying, kids, you
come back tomorrow. Stand in this open place. When I
come into land. I'll drop enough out of the airplane
(14:13):
two years before I land if you'll share it. Oh
you're vold, y'all. Vold will share it. They said, you bet,
and bouncing up and down, and I started leaving. They
called me back.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I said, what's the matter.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
You gotta know what airplane you're in? Every five minutes
there was an aeroplane coming by here. Well, I didn't
know what airplane because the airplanes from the Alaska had
red noses and red tails. They crashed in the snow
they could find them, and the airplanes from Hawaii had
coconut palms and stuff on. Everybody had a different singing.
(14:50):
And I flew whatever airplane was loaded. I don't know
what airplane though, for I'm just sure was a four engine.
There are a lot of two engines, see forty SI.
It was still fun. So four engine. They said, no, no, off,
we're gonna know. Then I told them wiggle the wings
when I come over the beacon of first Uh, before
we go eest Berlin to come around the land, I'll
(15:12):
wiggle the wings.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Boy said, let's let's get out of here. Let's start
this thing.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I went all over town and got the movies
you've seen in every documentary every major producer has put
out has got my film in it. I took around
the city and off of the airlift as it went on,
and I took those pictures, went back to several hours
wady to start flying. That night, I went to Basic
Change open twenty four hours a day bottle I could
(15:39):
on a weekly ration, and I didn't have enough, so
I went to my crew and I said, I gotta
have your ration. They gave me. Theirs had a big
double handful of chocolate chocolate bars, Hershey Bars, Babe Ruth
Bounce and the double mint gum and broke out in
three p put three parachutes on it, and anxious parachutes
(16:03):
and and uh m. Next day flew that night, of course,
and the next day after noon the weather was good
and looked down there and those kids were right in
the open place between the bomb dout buildings and the
barbarar fences. They hadn't told anybody else in this small group,
and wiggled the wings and he went crazy. Still see
(16:23):
their arms as they came over the bombell billing. Right
behind the pil seats a flair chute where emergency flares
pushed out in case you have emergency in flight, and
it's easy for the cuchie stamp between the pouse just
access that. So as he came over, the head just
told push it out, and he pushed it out, unloaded
twenty thousand pounds of flour. The Germans did, and worried
(16:47):
that somebody had seen the airplane. These parachutes get me
in trouble and wind up to take off and uh
or they pulled the parachutes over barbeer where they couldn't
get him in the under the field.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
But he tax it out.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
There's three anxious waving through it, all airplanes, and their
mouths are going up and down. And we waved, and
I said, wish they wouldn't do that, waving all airplanes.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I love. That's how it started.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you're listening to Colonel Gail Halverson tell the story
of how the Berlin Airlift came to be. Two million
people trapped without any means of really supporting themselves. We'd
bombed many parts of Germany to bits and leave it
to American gis to come up with the idea or one.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
As he said, a light bulb went off in my head.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
But then he realized, quote, you can't drop stuff off
out of airplanes without permission.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And then he.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Added, Then I rationalized, and that's when you get in trouble.
More this remarkable story, the story of the Berlin Airlift,
the story of American compassion and ingenuity. Here on our
American Stories and we continue with our American stories and
(18:11):
the story of the Berlin Airlift, how it came to be,
how it happened, and the man on the ground then,
who's now telling us this story is Colonel Gail Halverson.
Let's continue where Gayle last left off after the first drop.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let's say it was about three weeks later when I
got called in and chewed out because I didn't have
permission like Colonel Horn. And it was about that long ago.
And then they said it's okay, but you got to
report down to Frankfort, to the press center at Frankfort.
(18:48):
They want to know all about it, this news release
that came out. So it was then I knew that boy,
something read somebody rethought this was a crazy idea. So
I went in and all the news, all the news agencies,
of course, recovering the bruin hurlet. So they were all
there in this big press center in Frankfort, and I
(19:11):
was pretty humble. The first lieutenant guy and had a
chauffeur and a driver and took me into Frankfort in
a hurry, and and all these guys waiting for me. Wow,
what if I call what happened? Then I knew and
uh then I was crazy. Everybody was talking about it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
When the word got out.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
We came back from Berlin to the beds and there'd
be boxes of chocolate bars, uh gum. The guys given
the ration, and we figured that overall we must have
dropped about two hundred and fifty thousand parachutes during the
(19:55):
during the course of the blockade, we were able to drop.
My buddies dropped after I left. They kept dropping and
dropped until the end of September nineteen forty nine, so
it went.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
On that long.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
What happened is that the American Confectioneers Association that represents
all the candymakers in America got a hold of me
when I was in New York in September nineteen forty
eight to pick up an airplane. General Tenner had me
stay for a week in New York and appear on
the early television program We the People and a number
(20:36):
of radio talk shows and to inform people about what
the airlift was like and in my operation, and the
representing the American Confectioneers Association said how much of this
stuff can you use? And I gave him some ridiculous number,
(20:56):
and later they sent six thousand pounds of chocolate bars
by boat and by rail from through Bremerhaven down to
rhyin Mine. I came back to Berlin one day and
and uh an officer met me there with cheap and said, uh,
come with me, And at four he said, I'll show you.
(21:20):
Went over to the railway spur on bryand Mine and
there was a box car with a armed guard. And
then I said, uh, what's in the box car? He says,
chocolate bars? And there was two shipments of one three
thousand pounds one thirty five hundred pounds.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
A chocolate bar.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And we couldn't drop that much cause we didn't can
tie up the parachute. We too busy, and so we
decided to have a Christmas party in Berlin with that.
And we we got that about the middle of December
nineteen forty eight, those shipments and and.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
We uh had my We put it unloaded and put
it in.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The you know, supply building where somebody there all the
time regarded because the boy that there was enough chocolate
Tobai King were doing his castle on the black market.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
There's an incredible value.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And so we accumulated all of it before Christmas and
on the twenty fourth of December nineteen forty eight, the
German Youth Association in Berlin was the use of West
Berlin and the military teamed up and had Christmas party
for the kids all over West.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Berlin for that amount.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But from then on they said, I said, we can't,
we can't handle it this way. If we had it
ready to drop, then we could drop it over the
city as we came in. And so they said, okay.
I don't know how they found it. But Elms Junior
(22:57):
College in chick Bee, Massachusetts, and Miss O'Connor said, well,
we'll handle that project for him. Just send all the
candy dust and we'll tie up the parachutes, put in
boxes ready to drop and ship it. In Chickpen, mass
they had a fire station, an old fire station that
(23:18):
they get a new and so the city gave it
to him. They had a big sign up from Operation
a Little Vittles and twenty two schools with alternate tying
up parachutes and sal boat companies donated old sail cloth.
They have cut it up parachutes about the size of
man's handkerchief a little bigger, and the twine companies gave
(23:41):
them all the twine. The cardboard companies gave them all
the cardboard. They had processed eighteen tons through that facility
by January nineteen forty nine. And Westover Air Force Base
is right next to Chickipee mass and there's one of
the big transport bases.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That supported ran mine, and.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
There's airplanes going back and forth all the times. And
so I had all my squadron were there organized so
that we had a a map of Berlin with pins
and a map on the best places to drop through
the cloud when it was a cloudy. We knew where
the the homing beacons were around the city for navigation,
(24:26):
and and so we knew where the biggest playgrounds are
where the children most likely congrerating. So we'd bring that
those boxes in and they'd partot would take 'em out,
and we quit dropping on the end by the end
of the runway because uh, the crowd was got get
too big and the concentrated area and the astray, the
kids get hurt and bigger guys running over 'em for
(24:49):
the stuff, and so uh, we started dropping randomly all
over the city. So when we come over different parts
of the city where we wanted to drop, why the
Creachie should go back and just check this kept the
top of the cardboard Washington. Just check it up against
the escape patch and the stuff had come out like
(25:09):
popcorn and just blow all over the place and scatter
all over the countryside. We drop it from the thousand
feet to two thousand feet and they just go over.
And I've got letters from kids that would see it.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
One man.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
In nineteen ninety eight we flew the I'm still flying
the Berlin Airlift Flying Museum, the Spirit of Freedom, the
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation airplane, and we make parachhoe drops
out of it a lot. We go to the air
shows all over the country. In nineteen ninety eight we
flew across the North Atlantic back Europe, sixty nine days
(25:49):
in Europe, air shows and air drops in Great Britain, France, Luxembourg,
and Berlin twice. And in Berlin the people had come
through the aeroplane. You could tell immediately those who were
there during the blockade. They're very emotional about telling you
thanks for our freedom and wished I they'd tell you
(26:12):
how much it meant to them.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And you've been listening to Colonel Gail Halverson tell the
story of the Berlin Airlift. After that first drop of his,
the one where he didn't ask for permission, well, just
a few weeks later he was hauled in, as he
put it, and shoot out. But soon thereafter he found
himself into Frankfort in a big press conference. He'd stumbled
(26:33):
onto something byther Way, this old adage that my dad
taught me, a military adage, better to ask for forgiveness
than permission. And boy is it no better evidence of
that than right here, and my goodness, starting to drop
in one place created problems. Everybody started to gather. Then
the next thing you know, Halverson was worried that the
(26:54):
young kids would get trampled by the starving big kids.
So then the drops started to get scattered all over
Germany and from one to two thousand feet. Can you
imagine being starving and waiting for stuff to come out
of the sky from American planes that it bombed you
only well, just years before.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's remarkable. Actually, when we come back.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
More of the story of the Berlin Airlift here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(27:40):
and with Colonel Gail Halverson, who was there and who
in essence sort of got the thing rolling the idea
of the Berlin Airlift.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Let's return where Gail last left off.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
The one of the men that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Came through is sixty years old and said to me
from his boy attend going to school, and the clouds
were very low, and it was raining, and I knew
you were using radar to land, cause I couldn't see
the aeroplanes. And suddenly, out of this cloud came a
parachute with a fresh airshy candy bar and landed right
(28:15):
at my feet. And it took me a week to
eat it, he said. I says, sounded I hit it
day and night. And he said, uh, it's not the
chocolates important. What was important? Was it somebody in America
knew I was in trouble. Somebody cared. He said, Uh,
I can live on thin rations, but not without hope.
(28:37):
Without hope, the soul die, he said. And one little
boy was going to school and suddenly he'd hear coming
much parachutes, said, wasn't that batter weather before? And they'd
they're picking him up. But he was out of the
group of ways, and he saw that one land in
the duck pond, and he went in the duck pond
after it he got all muncky with duck stuff and
(28:59):
everything else. They got the parachute in the in the
chocolate bar and they went on to the school wasn't
very far from the where they caught it, and the
head master so i'ment, what are you doing? Kind of
school and all money and all messed.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Up, and he showing the thing. The guy said, oh,
that's alright, that's alright, that's.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Okay, and uh so he yeah, I think he had
the same moment changed his clothes, but uh so that
was it was exciting for him that they never knew
where it was gonna the east.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
The East Bolin kids wrote to me and.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Said, look, uh we we can't help it where they
put the border.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
We were over here with these Russians, we like the Americans.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And and when we're getting some of that stuff, we'd
come over to West Berlin and we're catching it, and
and uh, we'd like to have you drop it over
East Berline. There's not so many people over here. It'd
be a lot better for us. And so I said
why not, And so I did, And it'd be fun.
There are some soccer fields as in our pattern. As
we'd go around East berlind And and when they'd be
(29:58):
playing soccer. W that's when I liked it best, cause
we'd saved the candy and we got over the kids
playing soccer in East Berlin and kick it out and
then the soccer ball would go one direction, the kids
would chase the ball, the parachutes going somewhere else break
up the soccer game. But that was fun to watch it.
That we'd bank the airplane and get a look at
(30:19):
what's going on. And so I had to quit because
uh in East Berlin, because the Soviets complained to the
State Department, there's a dirty capitalist trick. We're trying to
influence the minds of the young people against that's the Soviets.
I gave him chocolate and they said it was a
CIA operation. This government operation gotta stop. Was never a
(30:41):
government operation. And so uh I came back from Berlin
one day and this Austin met the airplane and says,
what are you doing over East Berlin?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And and then I knew I was in trouble. He said, well,
he got to stop. He told me why, I've had
lots of.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
L people in East Berlin that I've met that caught purachutes.
Ask me why I quit. It's politics, not people, and
politics a problem. It's uh, I guess the addictives. It's
the only drug. I was very addicted to smile on
the kid's face when I got something unexpected. I I
I didn't think I did anything special. I just gave
(31:19):
kids two sticks a gun. I just keep thinking, it's
just two sticks a gun, and that's all.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
It is, and whatever's made of it somebody.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Else, not not not my doing.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Whenever you think that you d you you're causing all
the good things to happen.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Boy, you're in new trouble. I mean, from then on
you you are. You're off the path of life.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
If if you don't give credit for a good lord
of what what he's made available to us and what
other people do for you, then you just as well say, hey,
but yeah, I'm I'm not a contributor to society anymore.
I'm a millstone on the system.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I think the airlift was to me.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
It was the reinforcement of the things my church taught
me all my life, and my family taught me. Basically,
money is not the answer to happiness. The more you get,
the more you want and there's just no answer and
open ended the chase.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
For the for the family, youth.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
That the only way the real fulfillment is serving others,
service before self. That's one of the air Force UH
core values service before self. And that's what the Savior
taught this his life. If you want happiness, serve others.
(32:41):
The dead sea is dead because it takes in all
the good ideas of fresh water and gives out nothing.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So it's dead. And people are that way.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
They say give me, give me all the time, and
give naught of itself. The dead sea souls and that
was demonstrated in the space thirty one of us well
Jesus Christ a greater love and that no man he
laid down his life for a friend, and thirty one
or the buddies gave their lives for an enemy Germans
that became a friend. Why because uh, service, the re
(33:11):
the reward you get you can't buy by helping somebody,
especially having somebody need and the enemy. It is the epitome.
You're able to do that, Why, that's the that's the element.
If you're able to forgive and and to serve an enemy,
So service before so are airly is the perfect demonstration,
absolute perfect demonstration, and that indicates what my parents and
(33:34):
my church tell me.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
The other thing is that the little decision you make
in life are important, extremely important, more important than big decisions,
because they put your footsteps and your mindset on the
path that leads.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
You to your final destination, your final position.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you're down that path where you're not going to
return when the big decision comes. That little decision for
two sticks again, and the whole world change for me
for two six a gun.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
That's about as small as you can get.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Where does the little decision come from? Well, we get
an impression. Everybody's got a conscience, the spirit we believe
every certain person has, and the conscious and you got
a trigger and it tells you very subtly what you
ought to do.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Then you argue with it and do something different.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And then you miss out on the good things of life.
The gratitude break down the wall between people when you
you're grateful for something and don't think that you've invented
the world by yourself and everything that happens to you
(34:44):
was because how smart you are, and give credit to
nobody else. Boy, you're in the dead seat, getting the
dead sea again. But the gratitude by stopping and telling
the lady mop and the floor and an office building
on the way out that boy, you're doing a good job.
We're sure to make this place look better if you
(35:05):
can see that, then be grateful back and that that
job is getting better next time, and and the other.
The other thing I guess too is attitude. Ninety percent
of the things that happened to us, including the airlift,
we can do something about. We can hate the enemy
(35:26):
and be mad all the time, or we can get
on with it and and enough to get the reinforcement
to find out that we're doing something worthwhile. But the
attitude determined success or failure. Determine in the family, in
the home, or in the nation of the community. The
attitude how you approach things. Ninety percent of the things
(35:46):
I think that happened to us, we can determine how
we feel we have control of that one string on
their violin that how we react. That's attitude, and.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Ten percent we can't.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Let's be sent Does drod drant me the serenity to
accept the things I can't change about ten percent that
you can't change, and the courage to change the things
I can and the wisdom to tell the difference. So attitude,
attitude is boys about everything. Then the airlift had all
(36:20):
of them. Attitude, gratitude, serves the foreself, and integrity, all
those things were factored.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
In this airlift.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
To me and a great job on the storytelling and
production by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Colonel
Gail Halverson, who celebrated his one hundred and first birthday recently,
And thanks to the National Archives for the interview and
the Truman Presidential Library is also a wonderful children's book,
Christmas from Heaven, The True Story of the Berlin Candy Bomber,
(36:51):
with Tom Brokaw narrating a story.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
In the books accompanying DVD.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
My goodness, how rich to bump into a beneficiary of
the Berlin Airlift decades later and have a grown man say,
it wasn't the chocolate that was important. It was the
sense that someone out there cared. A person can survive
thin rations. One can't survive without hope. And my goodness,
(37:16):
two point three million tons of supplies were dropped in
the Berlin Airlift, two point three million tons. It was
called Operation Victuals and took place over an eighteen month period,
and I simply love what Halverson said at the end.
The Berlin Airlift reinforced many of the things my church
(37:36):
taught me and my family. Money is not the answer.
Real fulfillment comes from serving others, service before self. It's
what our Savior taught us. Colonel Gail Halverson's story, the
Berlin Airlift story, and a story of so much more,
including the American spirit and American generosity. By the way,
(37:58):
we did this with the British as well, our compatriots
across the sea. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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