GERMANY: Berlin Airlift veteran Gail Halvorsen meets school children as part of 60th anniversary celebrations

Record ID: 357248

  • Title: GERMANY: Berlin Airlift veteran Gail Halvorsen meets school children as part of 60th anniversary celebrations
  • Date: 29th June 2008
  • Summary: BERLIN AIRLIFT VETERAN, RETIRED UNITED STATES COL. GAIL HALVORSEN, KNOWN AS "CANDY BOMBER" AND "CHOCOLATE PILOT" ARRIVING BY CAR CHILDREN WAVING FROM STEPS HALVORSEN OPENING CAR DOOR FOR HIS WIFE LORRAINE AND ENTERING SCHOOL BUILDING POSTER READING "THE BERLIN AIRLIFT WAS NOT JUST ABOUT CHOCOLATE" PAN FROM SALUTING BOY SCOUTS TO HALVORSEN "CHEER LEADERS" WELCOMING HALVORSE
  • Embargoed: 14th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVADJVST7NQJ2PUYPBT3A9UQ6JGP
  • Story Text: Berlin Airlift veteran Gail Halvorsen meets with children of an international school as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the the life-saving operation.
    Berlin Airlift veteran Gail Halvorsen, a retired United States colonel, met with children of an international school in the German capital on Friday (June 27), a day after he attended the official celebrations to mark the life saving operation's 60th anniversary.
    87-year-old Halvorsen to this day is known as the "Candy Bomber" or "Chocolate Pilot" because during the airlift, along with food supplies, he also dropped American candy for the children of Berlin from little parachutes aboard his plane.
    The airlift was a turning point of the Cold War, pitting the United States against the Soviet Union over the fate of the two million people living in West Berlin, a western enclave in the Soviet-controlled zone that became East Germany.
    Soviet dictator Josef Stalin called off the blockade in 1949 when he realised it would only succeed if he was to attack the airlift and thereby risk war with the United States.
    During his visit to "Quentin Blake Europe School" on Friday, Halvorsen was moved to tears when children performed "The Chocolate Pilot Song for him," a presentation they had worked on for weeks.

    "The kids bring back these memories just like when I was standing at the fence (at Berlin's Tempelhof airport) 60 years ago and their faces looking up at me, like these faces," Halvorsen said.

    "When I first flew over Berlin, the people were faceless. But when I saw those children's faces in front of me in Berlin who didn't have any chocolate, these faces today it seemed like I was at the fence just now."
    One of Halvorsen's most dedicated fans, Mercedes Wild, was a 7-year-old girl during the Berlin Airlift.
    Mercedes Wild started writing to Halvorsen as a little girl and they have been in contact ever since.
    She accompanied Halvorsen to the bilingual German-English speaking public school which has some 260 students from various countries.

    "I see the children and how they should become a part of the joy I was able to experience when I received a parachute," Wild said.
    Allied planes streamed into Berlin from Frankfurt day and night and dropped vital supplies -- and sweets -- to residents during the Soviet blockade in 1948. Many Berliners vividly recall the 15-month airlift, during which some 2.3 million tonnes of food and supplies were delivered to the city.
    Halvorsen became one of the most famous pilots from the era.

    "He helped other people and that's what makes him happy,"
    9-year-old Nils said of Halvorsen, adding "that makes everybody happy."
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