The Candy Bomber/Chocolate Pilot

On June 24, 1948, in response to the Soviet Union blocking all rail, road and canal access to Berlin, the Western Allies (USA, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa) organized the Berlin airlift and dropped food and supplies to the people of Berlin. This lasted almost a year, until May 12, 1949.  You might know these facts but do you know the story of the US Air Force pilot, Gail Halvorsen?

 

It's a wonderful story!  Lt. Gail Halvorsen was one of the pilots bringing food and supplies into Berlin but on one of his days off, he spoke with a group of children behind the barbed wire fence at the Tempelhof Airport.  It was a group of about 30 children and all of him thanked him for the food that had been brought to the city.  What really impressed the young pilot was that not one of the children had asked for any candy or chocolate, they were simply grateful for the food and fuel dropped from the planes.

Of course, that made Gail Halvorsen wish that he had something to give to them.  He reached into his pocket and brought out two pieces of chewing gum, breaking each one in half and giving that to four of the children.  The rest of the children just took the chewing gum papers and SNIFFED the sugary sweet smell of the wrappers!  From that encounter, the pilot had an idea...he took handkerchiefs and tied pieces of chocolate and gum to the corners and dropped them from his plane, dipping his wings slightly to let the children know when he was making his candy drop!  The children were delighted and called him "Uncle Wiggly Wings" and the "Chocolate Flier".  Some of the children wrote to him to let them know that he had missed their houses and to those children, he wrote them back, enclosing chocolate and candy treats. He shared a correspondence with them for many years.  (Here is a children's book that I want to read, "Mercedes And The Chocolate Pilot" by Margot Theis Raven.) 

 

At first, Gail Halvorsen was in trouble since what he was doing was very much against regulations, but eventually, the top brass approved and he was given full approval to continue his "candy drops".  It was called "Operation Little Vittles" (the Berlin airlift was called "Operation Vittles" in the USA) and American children helped in making the little parachutes for the candy.   Candy and chocolate companies got on-board and donated Life-Savers, chocolate bars and chewing gum.  25 other air crews worked on this as well and by the end of the airlift over 23 TONS of sweets had been dropped to the children of Berlin.

 

(On a personal note, my Dad was in Berlin just after the war ended in 1945 and he very much remembers the poverty but also how grateful and happy the German people were to have the American GI's there. You can read about my Dad in this post.)

 

 Happily, I can tell you that Gail Halvorsen retired as a Colonel and is still going strong at the age of 93.  You may read more about Col. Halvorsen here.

Here's another book I want to read..."The Berlin Candy Bomber" written by Col. Gail S. Halvorsen!