Michael O. Tunnell - Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlifts Chocolate Pilot

To Gail
M. O. T.

Text copyright 2010 by Michael O. Tunnell
Photographs copyright by individual copyright holders. See photo credits on page 107 for further details. While every effort has been made to obtain permissions from the copyright holders of the works herein, there may be cases where we have been unable to contact a copyright holder. The publisher will be happy to correct any omission in future printings. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Charlesbridge and colophon are registered trademarks of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tunnell, Michael O.
Candy bomber : the story of the Berlin Airlifts Chocolate Pilot /
Michael O. Tunnell.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-60734-248-9
1. Berlin (Germany)HistoryBlockade, 19481949Juvenile literature.
2. Halvorsen, Gail S.Juvenile literature. 3. United States. Air Force.
Military Airlift CommandBiographyJuvenile literature. 4. Air pilots,
MilitaryUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title.
DD881.T845 2010
943.1550874dc22 [B] 2009026648

W hen I was a boy I would watch beautiful silver airplanes fly high in the sky, going to faraway places with strange-sounding names. I didnt know then that when I grew up I would fly one of those silver birds myself. I never imagined I would fly food to boys and girls so they would not starve.

This book is special to me because it tells about the people of Berlin who valued freedom over food. The Russians promised them food if they agreed to live under Soviet rule, but they refused. They wanted to be free, even if that meant going hungry. Children felt this way, too. I can live on thin rations but not without hope, one ten-year-old boy told me. The Berlin children taught me to put principle before pleasureto stand by what is important to you.

Lt. Halvorsen mingles with a friendly crowd at Tempelhof Central Airport.

The children I spoke to the first time did not beg for chocolate, although they had not had any for years. They were so grateful for flour they would not ask for more. Their pride and dignity moved me, and I gave the thirty children all I had: two sticks of gum. That was just the beginning. All in all, my buddies and I ended up dropping over twenty tons of candy and gum during the next fourteen months!

Those two sticks of gum changed my life forever. I received many honors and gifts on behalf of the pilots who volunteered for the candy drops. However, all the gifts and other worldly things that resulted did not bring near the happiness and fulfillment that I received from serving otherseven serving the former enemy, the Germans, who had become friends.

I had so much fun on my first drop of chocolate to the Berlin children. When I flew over the airport I could see the children down below. I wiggled my wings and the little group went crazy. I can still see their arms in the air, waving at me. I was able to give them a little candy and a little hope, but they were able to fill me up with so much more.

Thank you to all those children, and to you who are about to read their story.

Gail S. Halvorsen
The Chocolate Pilot

G ail Halvorsens fame as the originator of Operation Little Vittles has followed him throughout his life. Now in his eighties Halvorsen continues to receive accolades for his candy bombing during the Berlin Airlift.

Halvorsen has also participated in candy drops at schools and in other humanitarian airlift efforts around the world. These activities began the moment Halvorsen returned to the United States in 1949. His hometown, Garland, Utah, threw a two-day celebration to welcome him back, and the festivities included a candy drop from a C-47 flying over Main Street. The only casualty was a little girl [whose] lollipop came loose and gave her a scratch on the head, Halvorsen remembers.

Home on leave, Lt. Halvorsen flies over Garland, Utah, dropping candy parachutes to a crowd on Main Street. (February 26, 1949)

Since his days as Base Commander at Tempelhof, he has returned to Germany for many Airlift-related events. In 1985 he was there when the grade school at Rhein-Main Air Force Base was christened with a new name: Gail S. Halvorsen Elementary School. Then Halvorsen was back in Berlin on September 30, 1989, for the fortieth anniversary of the Airlifts final day. Two of his sons joined him in a large C-130 cargo plane as he dropped candy parachutes over the city. Among the children who chased after the treats were four of Mercedes Simon Wilds children, three of Gail Halvorsens children, and seven of his grandchildren.

Halvorsens first opportunity for another humanitarian airlift experience came in 1994. The Air Force allowed him to participate in Operation Provide Promise, a three-and-a-half-year relief mission to refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia (one of the former Yugoslavian republics) had ignited age-old ethnic hostilities that erupted into civil war in this region of Eastern Europe. Nearly two million homeless refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (also former Yugoslavian republics) had to flee the war-torn area.

Gail Halvorsen prepares to drop a candy parachute from a US Army helicopter as part of the fortieth-anniversary celebration of the Berlin Airlift. (September 1989)

A spry seventy-three-year-old Halvorsen joined the crew of a C-130 flying from Germany to Bosnia. Unlike in the Berlin Airlift, this plane didnt land to unload. Instead, it parachuted several giant pallets, each holding 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) of supplies. A cardboard box filled with candy parachutes was fastened to the last pallet, and they scattered as it dropped away from the plane.

Since the Bosnia drop Gail Halvorsen has continued to be involved in a variety of events related to the Berlin Airlift. In 1995 NASA took a candy parachute from 1948 on the Space Shuttle. When the Shuttle docked with the Russian space station, Mir, an astronaut snapped a photograph of a Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut holding the parachute between them.

In 1994 the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation completed restoration of a C-54 and dubbed it the Spirit of Freedom. The plane became a flying museum of the Berlin Airlift, which Halvorsen has flown to many locations for display. In 1998 he joined the crew to pilot the Spirit of Freedom to Berlin for the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Airlift.

Timothy Chopp, founder of the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation, and Gail Halvorsen serve as pilot and copilot of the Spirit of Freedom. (1998)