Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American people.
Speaker 1: And by the way, to check out our Our American
Speaker 1: Stories podcast, subscribe on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Up next, the story of Gail Halverson,
Speaker 1: a young pilot and the US Army Air Corps who
Speaker 1: was assigned as a cargo pilot at the Berlin Airlift,
Speaker 1: in which US forces flew much needed supplies into a
Speaker 1: war torn Soviet blockaded Berlin following World War Two. And
Speaker 1: we're telling this story because on this day in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: Gail Halverson, the Candy Bomber, was born. Here's Colonel Halverson
Speaker 1: with the story beginning with the three weasons why he
Speaker 1: and his fellow servicemen saw the Berlin Airlift as necessary.
Speaker 1: I stayed in the Air Force, the Army Air Corps
Speaker 1: at the time after the war and wanted to keep flying.
Speaker 1: And we were briefed in our pilot meetings all the time,
Speaker 1: every month about the world situation after the war. And
Speaker 1: we knew from these briefings the new enemy was stalling
Speaker 1: and Communism. He'd just taken Czechoslovakia, had the popular Democratic
Speaker 1: leader assassinated taking Hungary. We knew his headed west. The
Speaker 1: second factor was we knew that most of the two
Speaker 1: million two point five million people in Berlin, in West Berlin,
Speaker 1: we're women and children, very few men, and the starve
Speaker 1: and take fresh milk or food from babies, from from
Speaker 1: women and children. That's a mitigating factor and how we
Speaker 1: felt about what we're doing. The third one was when
Speaker 1: I landed that my first trip into Berlin of twenty
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of flour, and opened that have that back door.
Speaker 1: A crew chief went back, opened the door. In came
Speaker 1: these Germans, about six of them, unloading about six in
Speaker 1: the semi trail. I wonder how these superman are gonna look.
Speaker 1: And they had mixed uniforms, part uniform, parts of wading
Speaker 1: pot doctors or vomuk privates altogether for one purpose. They
Speaker 1: needed freedom, they needed flower. We had both. And when
Speaker 1: Night got out of the cockpit and walked back, the
Speaker 1: lead man came right up, put his hand in mind
Speaker 1: and gripped it and looked me in the eye, and
Speaker 1: his eyes remoist and looked down at that flower like
Speaker 1: rangels from heaven. And we were on the same page.
Speaker 1: So there's three factors. So I got to go to
Speaker 1: Berlin and see it on the ground. I had a
Speaker 1: friend in Berlin who says, you get here. I got
Speaker 1: a Jeep four in a driver you take you over
Speaker 1: and see everything. And so one day I came back
Speaker 1: and it was about the seventeenth of July. Came back
Speaker 1: and landed that the Rheine mine about noon, A beautiful day, sunshine.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to go to bed and fly that night,
Speaker 1: having a movie camera in my hand. And Bill Christian,
Speaker 1: a buddy from Mobile, Alabama, was in the year and
Speaker 1: an airplane, the next hardest fan, load of dry potatoes,
Speaker 1: ready to go to Berlin, just getting ready to start
Speaker 1: the engines. But holy cow, what an opportunity. A beautiful day,
Speaker 1: Bill's going. I'll just jump on the airplane with him.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to bed. I got a jeep wointing
Speaker 1: for him in Berlin. I get off the flight line.
Speaker 1: I'll go over the sea and get these great movies.
Speaker 1: And so I told John Pickering, my co po, go
Speaker 1: to bed, John, you and Elkins get to bed. I'm
Speaker 1: going to Berlin. You're crazy, I said, I know it,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to Berlin. If this thing stops tomorrow,
Speaker 1: they're going to send us all home. They're not going
Speaker 1: to let anybody go side the end of Berlin. And
Speaker 1: I want to see Berlin. I want to see Hitler's bunker.
Speaker 1: I want to see the rice dog got posed. I
Speaker 1: loved history, and here I was right in the middle
Speaker 1: of it. I said, I want to it's gonna be
Speaker 1: where I'm going to Berlin. I'll see it before I
Speaker 1: go back. All you need is the uniform. Airplanes come
Speaker 1: back five, no reservations required. So I jumped on the
Speaker 1: airplane went back. We called in and the jeepest waiting.
Speaker 1: But before I went around town, I wanted to get
Speaker 1: on the end of the runway and take pictures of
Speaker 1: the airplanes coming over the buildings before he had to
Speaker 1: come between the building. And that's that's that's how dumb
Speaker 1: I was. I thought it was going to be over
Speaker 1: that quick. But I was there to get movies if
Speaker 1: I ever had any kids, to show them the approach.
Speaker 1: And so I went went around there and started shooting movies.
Speaker 1: The aeroplanes coming over barbar fence in front of me,
Speaker 1: bombed out billings a couple hundred yards over and then
Speaker 1: suddenly here here were the kids. See the color of
Speaker 1: their eyes are right up against me looking at this
Speaker 1: uniform was bowing them three years before maybe killed their
Speaker 1: dad in law. No, and I didn't know how they
Speaker 1: get I looked on all of a sudden, the thirty
Speaker 1: kids about roughie thirty then right on the oreside the
Speaker 1: barbar from me, looking at me, and they were friendly,
Speaker 1: And I thought, why would they be friendly? You know,
Speaker 1: here's that uniform right here. And it was the first
Speaker 1: time they seen the uniform up course, the military Russian
Speaker 1: the first which is terror and occupation guys. Later then
Speaker 1: I found out later why they were so friendly because
Speaker 1: their aunts and uncles there arbitrarily cut off with the border,
Speaker 1: not cut off because you can walk across the border then,
Speaker 1: but they could walk across the border. Their aunts and
Speaker 1: uncles and whoever, the close family type come over to
Speaker 1: West Berlin to use the library to see what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world. They'd lost their freedom, they lost
Speaker 1: freedom of the press, the freedom of expression, freedom of travel,
Speaker 1: freedom of religion, freedom of electing who they wanted to
Speaker 1: be their ruler. They'd lost that. So they were over
Speaker 1: there and they were telling their aunts and uncles man,
Speaker 1: I can't travel, I can't do this, you can't do that,
Speaker 1: And they knew, they knew them what Colm is like.
Speaker 1: They had missionaries from the commist not for this program,
Speaker 1: but negative missionary said, hey, this is not very cool, buddy,
Speaker 1: you know why you do These guys though, they were
Speaker 1: fratling and you're listening to Colonel Gail Halversen tell the
Speaker 1: story of why the Berlin Airlift was necessary. The people
Speaker 1: who Germany knew who we were. We were on their
Speaker 1: side and on the side of freedom. When we come back,
Speaker 1: more of this remarkable story not told enough in America's classrooms,
Speaker 1: the story of the Cold War, the story of the
Speaker 1: Berlin Airlift. Here on our American Stories. Lei Habibi here
Speaker 1: the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
Speaker 1: we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
Speaker 1: from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
Speaker 1: can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
Speaker 1: to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
Speaker 1: you love what you here, go to our American Stories
Speaker 1: dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
Speaker 1: give a lot. Go to our American Stories dot com
Speaker 1: and give and we continue with our American stories and
Speaker 1: the story of Colonel Halverson and in the end the
Speaker 1: story of the Berlin Airlift and why it was so
Speaker 1: necessary and in the end so remarkable and emblematic of
Speaker 1: the people the country that made it happen. American style
Speaker 1: freedom was their dream and Hitler's passed and stall in
Speaker 1: the future but their nightmare. They knew. Those kids they
Speaker 1: ate the fourteen there will give me a lesson about freedom. Look,
Speaker 1: it said, it's pretty good here in July. You know
Speaker 1: the weather is not too bad against some storm. But
Speaker 1: you wait. They had school English. They someone were pretty
Speaker 1: good English schooling. Icons began German. They said, come the winner.
Speaker 1: In the fall. You can't get in here. There's going
Speaker 1: to be bad kids. Give me a lecture. Said, but
Speaker 1: when that happens, don't worry about us. We don't have
Speaker 1: to have enough to eat. Just don't give up on it.
Speaker 1: Someday we'll have enough to eat. But if you're losing freedom,
Speaker 1: we'll never get it back. American style freedom with their dream,
Speaker 1: and they knew about the other system. They don't want.
Speaker 1: Those kids were incredible. I just did the whole way out,
Speaker 1: and I got so interested in listening to them. I
Speaker 1: looked at whist some acts. I've been there over an hour,
Speaker 1: and I said, boy, he might not be waiting. I
Speaker 1: gotta get out of here. So I started to run
Speaker 1: to see you later, kids, and I got about five
Speaker 1: steps and the kids I stopped. I said, boy, these
Speaker 1: incredible kids. Well they got a postgraduate degree and international relations.
Speaker 1: They know what's important. They got their head screwed on.
Speaker 1: They really know it's important. And it started walking and
Speaker 1: the little voice just kept came back again. I don't
Speaker 1: know how it overcame to get to the jeep. You're late,
Speaker 1: but it did. It don't treat me. And then I
Speaker 1: knew in a flash why why? And it was because
Speaker 1: during the war and after the war, walked down the
Speaker 1: street in the foreign country where the kids had some chocolate,
Speaker 1: not much, but had something. Those kids that changed it.
Speaker 1: Going down the street, intercept you and surround you begging
Speaker 1: for chocolate, and government, of course the military, since the
Speaker 1: Continental Army was Washington, going through the town to give
Speaker 1: kids stuff from the ration. They had a little piece
Speaker 1: of chocolate or hard attack or somebody give it the kids.
Speaker 1: That's nothing new. And but then I said, they haven't
Speaker 1: had any chocolate for months. They haven't had gum. They
Speaker 1: hardly knew what gum was it anyway, but no chocolate
Speaker 1: for months, and not one of those kids would lower
Speaker 1: themselves to be a beggar for something mostravgous chocolate when
Speaker 1: they had flower to be free, and they wouldn't ask
Speaker 1: for more than freedom, lower themselves to beg for something more.
Speaker 1: It blew my mind. When somebody gives you a million dollars,
Speaker 1: you don't ask for four bucks more. Yeah, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: ask for that. Well they didn't. They didn't ask for
Speaker 1: that cream on the top, because there was so thankful
Speaker 1: for what freedom meant to them. When I realized that,
Speaker 1: I just the holy cow, can't believe it. Not one
Speaker 1: child put out their hand, not one. By voice in
Speaker 1: reflection indicated which you got some chalk or something? Not one.
Speaker 1: So I reached my pocket and just had two sticks
Speaker 1: are gone, the holy cow, two sticks are gone. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have fights, You're gonna have blade noses. Get out
Speaker 1: of here, and well, I've never seen these kids again.
Speaker 1: I'll be flying twenty four hours. I'll sleep. I'll be
Speaker 1: sleeping on the autopilots flying coming to going the copile, probably,
Speaker 1: But I can't come to the fence anymore. I'll never
Speaker 1: see these kids again. How can how could I possibly
Speaker 1: get something? That's what everybody? Well? I said, well give
Speaker 1: it to him. It's all you got. Broke in a
Speaker 1: half four pieces through the barbar. The kids that were translating,
Speaker 1: I gave them half a stick that did most of it.
Speaker 1: And boy, they looked like they got a hundred dollar bill.
Speaker 1: And boy they'd got a hold of that. And then
Speaker 1: here came the rest of kids, and no fight. They
Speaker 1: just wanted a piece of the wrapper. And the kids
Speaker 1: of the half a stick jum tore off the outer
Speaker 1: wrapper and the tinfoil and handed the kids that didn't
Speaker 1: get any anything at all. And the kid that got
Speaker 1: a piece of paper put it up their nose and
Speaker 1: smelled it and smelled it a piece of paper. I
Speaker 1: stood there, the flattened them. Could believe what I've seen?
Speaker 1: Holy cow? For thirty cents, I could buy him thirty
Speaker 1: sticks of gum, and they could have the rapper and everything.
Speaker 1: But how do I deliver it? I can't come out here.
Speaker 1: Could I get some German to deliver it? Who knows
Speaker 1: what kids would get it? Or if you'd even deliver it.
Speaker 1: About that time, an aeroplane flew over my head, landed
Speaker 1: right and run away behind me. And I got to
Speaker 1: the idea, I'm coming in tomorrow. I'm delivered to these kids.
Speaker 1: I can put it in that open place and I'll
Speaker 1: get enough for everybody. And boy, and then the red
Speaker 1: light came on. So you got to have permission for that.
Speaker 1: You can't drop stuff out of airplanes unless you get
Speaker 1: the clearance. And then I rationalized, and that's how you
Speaker 1: get in trouble. That's the first step, getting off the path.
Speaker 1: And so I thought, well, darving two million people, not
Speaker 1: according to oil anyway, what's a few sticks of gum?
Speaker 1: And so I found myself almost horrified, saying, kids, you
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow. Stand in this open place. When I
Speaker 1: come into land, I'll drop enough out of the aeroplane
Speaker 1: who is before I land. If you'll share it, I
Speaker 1: know you'll volved, you'll volve, will share it. They said,
Speaker 1: you bet, and bouncing up and down, and I started leaving.
Speaker 1: They called me back to what's the matter. You gotta
Speaker 1: know what airplane you're in? Every five minutes was an
Speaker 1: aeroplane coming by here? Well, I didn't know what aeroplane
Speaker 1: because the airplanes from Alaska I had ridden noses and
Speaker 1: red tails. They crashed in the snow they could find them.
Speaker 1: And the aeroplanes from Hawaii had coconut palms and stuff.
Speaker 1: Arm everybody had a different signet. And I flew whatever
Speaker 1: airplane was loaded. I don't know what airplane though, for
Speaker 1: I'm just sure it was a four engine. You're a
Speaker 1: lot of two engine see forty se it was still
Speaker 1: fun before engine, and said I not enough, We're gonna know.
Speaker 1: They had told him, wiggle the wings when I come
Speaker 1: over the beacon of first before we go ice Berlin,
Speaker 1: to come around land, all wiggle the wings. Boys. Let's
Speaker 1: let's get out of here. Let's start this thing, trolling
Speaker 1: all over town. Got the movies you see in every
Speaker 1: documentary every major producer put out, and got my film
Speaker 1: in it. I took around the city and off of
Speaker 1: the airlift as it went on, and I took those pictures.
Speaker 1: Went back to several hours Agay to start flying that night.
Speaker 1: Went the basic change open twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1: Bought all I could. I'm a weekly ration and I
Speaker 1: didn't have enough. So I went to my crew and
Speaker 1: I said I gotta have your ration. They gave me.
Speaker 1: There's that big double handful of chocolate, chocolate bars, rashy bars,
Speaker 1: Babe ruth bounds and double mint gun and then broke
Speaker 1: up in three piece, put three parachutes on it, anxious parachutes,
Speaker 1: and the next day flew that night, of course, and
Speaker 1: the next day fore noon that weather was good. Looked
Speaker 1: down there and those kids were right in the open
Speaker 1: place between the botted out buildings for the barbar fences.
Speaker 1: They hadn't told anybody else in a small group, and
Speaker 1: we'll go to the wings. And he went crazy, still
Speaker 1: see their arms, and they came over the bottom out
Speaker 1: building right behind the policy there's a flair shute where
Speaker 1: emergency flares pushed out in case you have emergency in flight.
Speaker 1: It's easy for the Q chief stamp between the policies
Speaker 1: access that. So as he came over, the head just
Speaker 1: told push it out, and he pushed it out, unloaded
Speaker 1: twenty thousand pounds of flower. The Germans did and worried
Speaker 1: that somebody had seen the airplane as parachutes to get
Speaker 1: me in trouble and wind up to take off, and
Speaker 1: or they pulled the parachutes over barbed wire where they
Speaker 1: couldn't get him in on the field to assal out
Speaker 1: there three hanktive wavering through of all the airplanes. The
Speaker 1: mouth were going up and down. We waved and I said,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do that, waiving all airplanes. I love. That's
Speaker 1: how it starving. And you're listening to Colonel Gail Halverson
Speaker 1: tell the story of how the Berlin Airlift came to be.
Speaker 1: Two million people trapped without any means of really supporting themselves.
Speaker 1: We had bombed many parts of Germany to bits and
Speaker 1: leave it to American gis to come up with the
Speaker 1: idea or one. As he said, a light bulb went
Speaker 1: off in my head. But then he realized, quote, you
Speaker 1: can't drop stuff off out of airplanes without permission. And
Speaker 1: then he added, Then I rationalized, and that's when you
Speaker 1: get in trouble. More. This remarkable story, the story of
Speaker 1: Gail Halverson, the Candy bomber, born on this day in
Speaker 1: history in nineteen twenty. Here on our American stories, and
Speaker 1: we continue with our American stories and the story of
Speaker 1: the Berlin Airlift, how it came to be, how it happened,
Speaker 1: And we're telling this story because on this day in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, Gail Halverson, the candy bomber, was born. Let's
Speaker 1: continue where Gail last left off after the first drop.
Speaker 1: Let's see, it was about three weeks later when I
Speaker 1: got called in and and chewed out because I didn't
Speaker 1: have permission like Colonel Hall. And it was about that
Speaker 1: long ago. And then they said, it's okay, but you've
Speaker 1: got to report down to Frankfort, to the press center
Speaker 1: at Frankfort. They won't know all about it. This news
Speaker 1: release came out, so it was then I knew that boy,
Speaker 1: something read somebody thought this was a crazy idea. So
Speaker 1: I went in and all the news, all the news agencies.
Speaker 1: Of course we're covering the brown earlier. So they were
Speaker 1: all there in this big press center in Frankfort, and
Speaker 1: I was pretty humble. The first of litten guy and
Speaker 1: had a chauffeur and the driver and took me in
Speaker 1: the Frankfort in a hurry, and and all these guys
Speaker 1: waiting for me. Wow, what do I call? What had happened?
Speaker 1: Then I knew, and then I was crazy. Everybody was
Speaker 1: talking about it. When the word got out. We came
Speaker 1: back from Berlin to the beds and there'd be boxes
Speaker 1: of chocolate at bars gum. The guys give the ration,
Speaker 1: and we figured that overall we must have dropped about
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand parachute during the during the
Speaker 1: course of the flock cape we we're able to drop.
Speaker 1: My buddies dropped after I had left. They kept dropping
Speaker 1: and dropped until the end of September nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: so it went on that long. What happened is that
Speaker 1: the American Confectioneers Association that represents all the candymakers in
Speaker 1: America got a hold of me when I was in
Speaker 1: New York in September nineteen forty eight to pick up
Speaker 1: an airplane. General Tunner had me stay for a week
Speaker 1: in New York and appear on the early television program
Speaker 1: We the People and a number of radio talk shows
Speaker 1: and to inform people about what the airlift was like
Speaker 1: and my operation. And they, representing the American Confectioneers Association,
Speaker 1: said how much of this stuff can you use? And
Speaker 1: gave him some ridiculous number, And later they sent six
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of chocolate bars by boat and by rail
Speaker 1: and drew Bremerhaven down the Rhine Mine. I came back
Speaker 1: Berlin one day and and an officer met me and
Speaker 1: there with a cheep and said come with me, and
Speaker 1: with four and said I'll show you. Went over the
Speaker 1: railway spur on Rhine Mine and there was a box
Speaker 1: car with arm guard. And then I said, what's in
Speaker 1: the box car? This is chocolate bar. And it was
Speaker 1: two shipments of one three thousand pounds one thirty five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds of chocolate bar. And we couldn't drop that
Speaker 1: much because we didn't count tie up the parachute. We
Speaker 1: were busy, and so we decided to have a Christmas
Speaker 1: party in Berlin with that. And we we got that
Speaker 1: about the middle of Eastumber nineteen forty eight, those shipments,
Speaker 1: and and we hadn't we put it and loaded to
Speaker 1: put it in the you know, supply building. Somebody there
Speaker 1: all the time to guard it. To boy that there's
Speaker 1: enough chocolate to buy King doing his castle on the
Speaker 1: black market. There's an incredible value. And so we accumulated
Speaker 1: all of it before Christmas. And on the twenty fourth
Speaker 1: of December nineteen forty eight, the German youth association in
Speaker 1: Berlin was the Youth of West Berlin and the military
Speaker 1: teamed up and had Christmas parties for the kids all
Speaker 1: of the west Berlin for that amount. But from then
Speaker 1: on they said, I said, we can't, we can't handle
Speaker 1: it this way. If we had it ready to drop,
Speaker 1: then we could drop it over the city as we
Speaker 1: came in. And so they said, okay. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they found it, but ELM's Junior College in Chickabee, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and missus a miss O'Connor said we'll handle that project
Speaker 1: for him to send all the candydas and we'll tie
Speaker 1: up the parachute, put in the boxes ready to drop
Speaker 1: and ship it. And Chickapee, mass they had a fire
Speaker 1: station and old fire station that they get a new
Speaker 1: and so the city gave it to them. They had
Speaker 1: a big sign up from Operation a Little Bittle and
Speaker 1: twenty two schools with alternate tying up. Parachute and sail
Speaker 1: boat companies donated old sail cloth off they have cut
Speaker 1: it up parachutes about the size of man's hankstif a
Speaker 1: little bigger, and the twine companies gave them all the twine.
Speaker 1: The cardboard companies gave them all the cardboard. They had
Speaker 1: processed eighteen tons through that facility by January nineteen forty
Speaker 1: nine and west over Air Force Bases right next to
Speaker 1: the Chickapee mask there's one of the big transport basis
Speaker 1: that supported Rhyme Mine and there's airplanes going back and
Speaker 1: forth all times. And so I had all my squadron
Speaker 1: were there organized so that we had a map of
Speaker 1: Berlin with pins on the map on the best places
Speaker 1: to drop through the cloud when it was cloudy. We
Speaker 1: knew where the homing beacons were around the city for navigation,
Speaker 1: and so we knew where the biggest playgrounds or where
Speaker 1: the children most likely cargating. So we'd bring that those
Speaker 1: boxes in and the pilot would take them out, and
Speaker 1: we quit dropping on the end by the end of
Speaker 1: the runway because the crowd was got too big and
Speaker 1: concentrated area. Afraid the kids get hurt, bigger guys running
Speaker 1: over and for the stuff, and so we started dropping
Speaker 1: randomly all over the city. So when we come over
Speaker 1: different parts of the city where we wanted to d up,
Speaker 1: why the creacie should go back and just check this
Speaker 1: kept the top of the cardboard bosh and just check
Speaker 1: it up against the escape patch. And the stuff had
Speaker 1: come out like popcorn and just blow all over the
Speaker 1: place and scatter all over the countryside. We dropped it
Speaker 1: from the thousand feet to two thousand feet and they
Speaker 1: just go all and I've got letters from kids that
Speaker 1: but see one man. In nineteen ninety eight we flew
Speaker 1: the I'm still flying the Berlin Airlift Flying Museum, the
Speaker 1: Spirit of Freedom, the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation aeroplane and
Speaker 1: we make parachute drops out of it a lot and
Speaker 1: go to the air shows all over the country. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight we flew across the North Atlantic back
Speaker 1: to Europe, fifty nine days in Europe, air shows and
Speaker 1: air drops in Great Britain, France, Luxembourg, the Berlin twice,
Speaker 1: and then Berlin. When the people had come through the aeroplane,
Speaker 1: you could tell immediately those who were there doing the blockade.
Speaker 1: They're very emotional about telling you thanks for our freedom,
Speaker 1: and with moist eye they'd tell you how much it
Speaker 1: meant to them. And you've been listening to Colonel Gail
Speaker 1: Halverson tell the story of the Berlin Airlift. After that
Speaker 1: first drop of his the one where he didn't ask
Speaker 1: for permission, well, just a few weeks later he was
Speaker 1: hauled in as he put it, and shoot out. But
Speaker 1: soon thereafter he found himself into Frankfurt in a big
Speaker 1: press conference. He'd stumbled onto something, by the way, this
Speaker 1: old adage that my dad taught me, a military adage,
Speaker 1: better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And boy is
Speaker 1: it no better evidence of that than right here, and
Speaker 1: my goodness. Starting the drop in one place created problems.
Speaker 1: Everybody started to gather. Then the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: Halverson was worried that young kids would get trampled by
Speaker 1: the starving big kids. So then the drops started to
Speaker 1: get scattered all over Germany and from one to two
Speaker 1: thousand feet. Can you imagine being starving and waiting for
Speaker 1: stuff to come out of the sky from American planes
Speaker 1: that it bombed you only well, just years before. It's remarkable. Actually,
Speaker 1: when we come back more of the story of the
Speaker 1: Berlin Airlift here on our American stories, and we continue
Speaker 1: with our American stories and with Colonel GAYL. Halverson, who
Speaker 1: was there and who in essence sort of got the
Speaker 1: thing rolling, the idea of the Berlin Airlift. Let's return
Speaker 1: where Gail last left off. But one of the men
Speaker 1: that came truly sixty years old and said to me
Speaker 1: fifty years the guys A boy at ten going to school,
Speaker 1: and the clouds were very low, and it was raining,
Speaker 1: and I knew you were using radar the land because
Speaker 1: I couldn't see a neuroplanes. And suddenly, out of this
Speaker 1: cloud team a parachute with a fresh or she candyborn,
Speaker 1: landed right at my feet and took me a week
Speaker 1: to eat it. He said, it's astounded. I hit it
Speaker 1: day and night, and he said, it's not. The chocolate
Speaker 1: is important. It was important, was it? Somebody in America
Speaker 1: knew eyes con trouble. Somebody cared, He said, I can
Speaker 1: live on thin rations, but not without hope. Without hope
Speaker 1: the souled eye, he said. And one little boy was
Speaker 1: going to school. Suddenly he'd here come a bunch of parachutes,
Speaker 1: and was that better weather before? And they're picking him up.
Speaker 1: But he was out of the group of ways, and
Speaker 1: he saw the one landing the duck pond, and he
Speaker 1: ran in the duck pond after it and got all
Speaker 1: monkey with duck stuff and everything else. They got the
Speaker 1: parachute in the chocolate bar and they went on to school.
Speaker 1: Wasn't very far from where they caught him headmaster. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to what are you doing? Kind of school
Speaker 1: and all money and all messed up, and he showing
Speaker 1: the thing and the guy says, oh, that's all right,
Speaker 1: that's all right, that's okay, and so he yeah. I
Speaker 1: think he had the same home to change his clothes.
Speaker 1: But so that was it was excited for him that
Speaker 1: they never knew where it was going to. These these
Speaker 1: Berlin kids wrote to me and said, look, we can't
Speaker 1: help it where they put the border were or here
Speaker 1: with these Russians. We like the Americans. And when we're
Speaker 1: getting some of that stuff, we come over to West
Speaker 1: Berlin and we're catching it, and we'd like to have
Speaker 1: you drop it over East Berlin. There's not so many
Speaker 1: people over here. It'd be a lot better for us.
Speaker 1: And so I said why not, and so I did,
Speaker 1: and it'd be fun. There are some soccer fields in
Speaker 1: our pattern as we'd go around East Berlindon and when
Speaker 1: they'd be playing soccer, that's and I liked it best
Speaker 1: because we saved the candy and we got over the
Speaker 1: kids playing soccer in East Berlin and kick it out
Speaker 1: and the soccer ball would go one direction. The kids
Speaker 1: had chased the ball, the parachutes going somewhere else break
Speaker 1: up the soccer game. But that was fun to watch it.
Speaker 1: We'd bank the aeroplane and you know, look at what's
Speaker 1: going on. So I had to quit because in East Berlin,
Speaker 1: because the Soviets complained to the State Department, there's a
Speaker 1: dirty capitalist trick. We're trying to influence the minds of
Speaker 1: the young people against us, the Soviets by giving them chocolate.
Speaker 1: And they said of the CIA operation, this government operation?
Speaker 1: Who got to Stoble? Never a government operation? And so
Speaker 1: I came back from Berlin one day and this Austin
Speaker 1: met the airplane and says, what are you doing over
Speaker 1: East Berlin? And now I knew I was in trouble.
Speaker 1: He said, well, he got to stop, and he told
Speaker 1: me why. I've had lots of people in East Berlin
Speaker 1: that I've met caught parachutes. Asked me why I quit.
Speaker 1: That's politics, not people and politics atone I guess addictive.
Speaker 1: It's the only drug. I was very addicted to smile
Speaker 1: in the kid's face when I got something unexpected. I
Speaker 1: didn't think I did anything special. I just gave kids
Speaker 1: two sticks agone and I just keep thinking it's just
Speaker 1: two sticks again, and it's all of this and whatever's
Speaker 1: made of it somebody else, not not by doing. I didn't.
Speaker 1: Whenever you think that you you're causing all the good
Speaker 1: things to happen. Boy, you're in deep trouble. I mean,
Speaker 1: from then on you are off the path of life.
Speaker 1: You don't give credit for a good lord of what
Speaker 1: what he's made available to us and what other people
Speaker 1: do for you, then you just as well say, hey, buddy, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not a contributor to society anymore. I'm a millstone
Speaker 1: on the system. I think the airlift was to me.
Speaker 1: It was a reinforcement of the things my church taught
Speaker 1: me all my life, and my family taught me. Basically,
Speaker 1: money is not the answer to happiness. The more you get,
Speaker 1: the more you want, and there's just no answer, open
Speaker 1: ended the chase for the for the found of youth
Speaker 1: that the only way to real fulfillment is serving others,
Speaker 1: service before self. And that's one of the air force.
Speaker 1: The core values service before self. And that's what the
Speaker 1: Savior thought. This is life as you want happiness, serve others.
Speaker 1: The dead see is dead because it takes in all
Speaker 1: the good ideas of fresh water and gives out nothing,
Speaker 1: so it's dead. And people are that way. They say
Speaker 1: give me, give me all the time, and give nought
Speaker 1: of themselves. The dead see soul and that was demonstrated
Speaker 1: in space one Genus Christ a greater love that this
Speaker 1: has no man that you lay down his life or
Speaker 1: a friend and or you want to. The Buddies gave
Speaker 1: their lives for an enemy Germans that became a friend.
Speaker 1: Why because the service, the reward you get, you can't
Speaker 1: buy by helping somebody, especially having somebody need, and the
Speaker 1: enemy is the epitome. If you're able to do that, well,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the ultiment. If you're able to forgive
Speaker 1: and the servant enemy so service before so earlest the
Speaker 1: perfect demonstration, an absolute perfect demonstration. And that indicates what
Speaker 1: my parents and my church taught me. The other thing
Speaker 1: is that the little decision you can make in life
Speaker 1: are important, extremely important, more important the big decisions because
Speaker 1: they put your footsteps in your mindset on a path
Speaker 1: that leads you to your final destination, your final position,
Speaker 1: and you're down that path where you're not going to
Speaker 1: return when the big decision comes. That little decision for
Speaker 1: two sticks again, me the whole world change for me
Speaker 1: for two six again. That's a boy as small as
Speaker 1: you can get. Where does the little decision come from? Well,
Speaker 1: we get an impression. Everybody's got a conscious, a spirit
Speaker 1: we believe every person has, and the conscious and you've
Speaker 1: got a trigger and it tells you very subtly what
Speaker 1: you ought to do, and then you argue with it
Speaker 1: and do something different, and then then you miss out
Speaker 1: on on the good things in life. The gratitude to
Speaker 1: break down the wall between people when you when you're
Speaker 1: grateful for something. And I don't think that you invented
Speaker 1: the world by yourself, and everything that happens to you
Speaker 1: was because of how smart you are, and give credit
Speaker 1: to nobody else. Boy, you're in the dead seat, getting
Speaker 1: the dead sea again. But a gratitude by stopping and
Speaker 1: telling the lady moping the floor and the office building
Speaker 1: on the way out, boy, you're doing a good job
Speaker 1: and sure make this place look better. If you can
Speaker 1: see that, then see grateful back and that that job
Speaker 1: is getting even better next time. And the other the
Speaker 1: other thing I guess too, is attitude. Ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the things that happened to us, including the airlift, we
Speaker 1: can do something about it. We can hate the enemy
Speaker 1: and be mad all the time that we can get
Speaker 1: on with it and enough to get the reinforcement to
Speaker 1: find out that we're doing something worthwhile. But the attitude
Speaker 1: determined the success or failure in the family, in the home,
Speaker 1: or in the nation of the community. The attitude how
Speaker 1: you approach things. Nine percent of the things I think
Speaker 1: that happened us, we can determine how we feel. We
Speaker 1: have controls that one string on their violin, that how
Speaker 1: we react. That's attitude. And ten percent we can, let's
Speaker 1: be said, John Drot me the serenity to accept the
Speaker 1: things I can't change at ten percent that you can't change,
Speaker 1: and the courage to change the things I can, and
Speaker 1: the wisdom to tell the difference. So attitude, attitude, boy
Speaker 1: about everything. Then the airlift had all of them. Attitude, gratitude,
Speaker 1: serves the fourth self, and integrity. All those things were
Speaker 1: factored in this earlift. To me and a great job
Speaker 1: on the storytelling and production by Greg Engler and his
Speaker 1: special thanks to Colonel GAYL. Halverson, who celebrated his one
Speaker 1: hundred and first birthday recently, and thanks to the National
Speaker 1: Archives for the interview and the Truman Presidential Library. There's
Speaker 1: also a wonderful children's book, Christmas from Heaven, The True
Speaker 1: Story of the Berlin Candy Bomber, with Tom Brokaw narrating
Speaker 1: the story in the book's accompanying DVD. My goodness, how
Speaker 1: rich to bump into a beneficiary of the Berlin Airlift
Speaker 1: decades later and have a grown man say, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the chocolate that was important. It was the sense that
Speaker 1: someone out there cared. A person can survive thin rations.
Speaker 1: One can't survive without hope. And my goodness, two point
Speaker 1: three million tons of supplies were dropped in the Berlin Airlift,
Speaker 1: two point three million tons. It was called Operation Victuals
Speaker 1: and took place over an eighteen month eeriod. And I
Speaker 1: simply love what Halverson said at the end. The Berlin
Speaker 1: Airlift reinforced many of the things my church taught me
Speaker 1: and my family. Money is not the answer. Real fulfillment
Speaker 1: comes from serving others, service before self. It's what our
Speaker 1: Savior taught us. Colonel Gail Halverson's story the Berlin Airlifts story,
Speaker 1: and a story of so much more, including the American
Speaker 1: spirit and American generosity by the way we did this
Speaker 1: with the British as well our compatriots across the sea.
Speaker 1: The story of Gale Halverson, the Candy Bomber, born on
Speaker 1: this day in history in nineteen twenty. Here on our
Speaker 1: American stories.