Happy National Candy Day!
As we continue to enjoy the post-Halloween candy extravaganza, we look back to the Berlin Airlift and America’s “Candy Bomber,” Colonel Gail S. Halvorsen, whose ingenuity brought joy to thousands of children across West Berlin in the late 1940s.
Colonel Gail S. Halvorsen flew as part of a squadron of Allied airmen who supplied West Berlin during the Soviet blockade of the city after World War II. Halvorsen and his colleagues made up to three flights a day from Western Germany to Allied-controlled West Berlin, providing Berliners with food, fuel, and medical supplies. One day while Halvorsen was waiting on the tarmac, a group of West Berlin children gathered on the far side of the barbed wire. Halverson gave the children some candy, and was shocked to witness their amazement and delight, as most had never tasted candy before.
After seeing how such a small act could bring such joy, Halverson persuaded his fellow pilots to give up their candy rations. The pilots manufactured little parachutes for the candy from handkerchiefs, and with Halverson giving the children a signal by wiggling the wings of his airplane, the candy was dropped onto the streets of West Berlin. Word soon reached Halverson’s superiors, and instead of discipling the pilot, they commended his humanity, and Operation Little Vittles was born. In total, Operation Little Vittles dropped 23 tons of candy from 250,000 parachutes during the blockade.
“Shot of retired US Air Force Colonel Gail Halvorsen, "the candy bomber" who broke the rules by dropping gum and chocolate bars to German children during the 1948-49 Berlin Blockade, demonstrates how candy was attached to parachutes for airdrops to children... 6/1/1996″
"Retired COL Gail S. Halvorsen displays a parachute similar to the ones he used during the Berlin Airlift, when he acquired the nickname of the "Rosinen (raisin) Bomber" for his practice of dropping candy to children who were lined up to watch aircraft landing at Tempelhof, 6/23/1988″
