Hero #20 Gail Halvorsen

In June 1945, COL Frank Howley set the tone for the U.S. Army's occupation of Berlin. "He thought of the Germans he would rule over in Berlin with a cold loathing instead of sympathy. His brother had been crippled fighting Germans during World War I," and many of his friends had perished during World War II. [Source]

To Howley, the residents of Berlin deserved to suffer. And that, they did. 125,000 of Berlin's civilians died as the Russians took the city from the east. Those that survived endured "an orgy of rape and rage beyond the bounds of human imagination. Over the course of ten days, about 130,000 women were raped -- and most were violated repeatedly by various soldiers." It was so pervasive that "Doctors in 1945 would report that one of Berlin's children's favorite games was 'rape.'" Upon seeing a man in uniform, "they would start screaming hysterically," and seeing a plane overhead could send them into a panic.

The 16th Constabulary Squadron established police operations in the American Sector in 1946, but they most assuredly were not there to make friends. As the full horror of the Holocaust came to light, they were there to make sure "the German will not pick up his shooting iron and start throwing lead and lies at an unsuspecting world once more." American troops were instructed as they entered Germany: "In heart, body, and spirit, every German is Hitler," and "Don't make friends with Hitler." Neither were military personnel permitted to share their rations. Most Berlin residents subsisted on 1000 calories per day, and were left to scrounge through soldiers' food waste to augment their diets.

So when the Soviets closed the roads around Berlin's western zones in spring 1948, few felt that the residents of western Berlin were worth risking war with the Soviet Union. Although President Truman committed to resupplying the city by air (beginning the Berlin Airlift), Berliners were still "a ruined, poverty-stricken, brutalized people, with little to eat, everything to fear, nothing to hope for."

Lt. Gail Halvorsen helped change that. As a pilot during the Berlin Airlift, he took a moment to talk with a group of children near the Templehof airfield, and shared the sticks of gum that he had in his pocket. Judging from their reaction, Halvorsen concluded that this was the first time any of them had ever had a piece of candy.

The next day -- July 20, 1948 -- Halvorsen concocted a plan. Using three handkerchiefs and his weekly ration of gun and candy from the post exchange, Halvorsen and his crew parachute-dropped three bundles of sweets from their plane during their runway approach. He hoped it would be discreet enough that his crew wouldn't get in trouble for it.

In subsequent weeks, Halvorsen's crew would repeat their secret mission, which caused the crowd of children to grow. Eventually, the crowds grew so big that reporters took notice. "Soon mothers and the few fathers joined their children. More than a thousand Berliners started to stand outside Templehof every day. On warm days, the number would reach 10,000."

The "Schokoladen Flieger" (Chocolate Flyer) became a public relations coup, and changed the tone of the Berlin Airlift. For supplying the residents of Berlin during the Soviet blockade, Germans appreciated the Americans, but still "felt like they were pawns in a global power play." What Halvorsen's actions did -- his consideration of their children -- communicated to Berliners a sense of value and dignity. For the first time, Germans thought of Americans as "the good guys."

"When a C-47 crashed near Templehof, killing the two American lieutenants on board, residents set up a plaque commemorating the loss. 'Once we were enemies yet you now gave your lives for us. We are now doubly in your debt.'"

Gail Halvorsen retired after 30 years of service in the Air Force. Decades later, he attended Berlin's 50th anniversary commemorations of the Airlift in 1998. Berliners brought their children and grandchildren to the event, and "sixty year-old men broke down as they told him what a parachute that fell to their feet as they walked through ruined streets meant to them as children."

Sadly, Gail Halvorsen passed away today at the age of 101. [Source] For his role in the Berlin Airlift, and the impact he had on my grandfather (who served in the 16th Constabulary), I will never forget him.