2 Vandaag: The Candy Bomber – 50 Years of the Berlin Airlift

Berlin 1948 – the city lay in ashes. The Allies had divided it among themselves. In the spring of that same year the Soviets sealed Berlin off. They blocked all access routes into the western sector. The occasion was the currency reform in the western zones, which took effect on 20 June. Overnight an entire city was without electricity, supplies were paralysed. The people of West Berlin had no contact with the outside world. A dramatic relief operation began. Captain Jack O. Bennett took off with the first supply aircraft bound for West Berlin.

The American officer flew almost daily until the last day of the airlift. It was to last 462 days. During that time the Americans and the British supplied two and a quarter million people from the air and thus saved them from freezing and starving. The Big Airlift: almost 280,000 aircraft landed at Berlin’s airports with food, coal and fuel.

Day and night the engines droned. The airlift was a logistical masterpiece.