The "Candy Bomber" (60 years later)

'CANDY BOMBER' WON BERLINERS' HEARTS

Excerpt:

there were still hard feelings from the war between American occupation forces and the German people.

"Germany was a conquered nation, and they still had the wounds of war pretty deep in them, and of course our guys had the same feelings about them," Halvorsen said.

All of that changed with the airlift and a brainstorm Halvorsen had one day to drop candy in tiny parachutes to German children watching the planes land at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport.

"That's the smartest decision I made in my life," he said, "and it had a lifelong impact."

Hundreds of letters of gratitude came pouring in from Berliners, both young and old. One little girl insisted on giving Halvorsen her only surviving possession, a well-worn teddy bear.

"'I want you to have it to keep you and the other fliers safe on your trips to Berlin,'" she told him. "I tried to refuse it, but her mother said words to the effect that I must accept it."

Halvorsen still has the teddy bear.

The "Candy Bomber" captured the hearts of the Berliners, and the airlift saved them from the Soviets.

Resources:

Berlin Blockade

Colonel Gail Halvorsen

The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour