OPERATION VITTLES
Tomorrow will be the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Berlin Airlift; the fifteen-month campaign to supply West Berlin by air with all its needs—from food and medicine to clothing, and even coal to operate their power plant—in defiance of a Soviet blockade of all other methods of supply.
The events that led to the blockade comprise another complex story - though one that is well worth learning. This post celebrates the tightrope walk of Harry Truman and his counterparts in London and Paris; ready to do everything required to preserve the freedom of West Berlin – while taking precautions that these efforts not trigger World War III. These efforts were not only successful in that, but transformed nations who were, just three years earlier, hated enemies, into allies - and friends.
Richard Reeves' history of the airlift 'Daring Young Men', is a tribute to the veterans who were suddenly called back to duty to help save the same people they had only three years earlier been bombing into oblivion. He includes a story that illustrates this transition. He tells about Captain Arlie Nixon, who was called up from his job as chief pilot at TWA (that paid $750 per month) to go back rejoin the military (at $150 per month).
"Arlie tells the story of before the Airlift really got underway, he would go into a restaurant in Frankfurt and every German would stand up and walk out when he went in," Reeves said. "Two weeks after the airlift was underway, he went back and walked into the same restaurant and everybody stood up and went to the bar and bought him a stein of beer and cheered him as he drank the first one."
I'm not among those who drape themselves in the flag, but this chapter in our history makes me feel very proud.
There's a particularly heartwarming sidebar about the 'Candy Bomber', and the effect that 'Operation Little Vittles' had on children who gathered near the airport for treats.
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