BERLIN CANDY BOMBER WOULD VOLUNTEER TO FLY HUMANITARIAN MISSION AFTER WAR WITH IRAQ
Retired Air Force Col. Gail Halvorsen flew humanitarian missions over the skies of Germany after World War II. For three weeks he quietly dropped little parachutes of candy to the children before getting caught — and receiving permission to continue showering the children with treats.
(PRWEB) April 5, 2003
DAYTON, Ohio — After the war in Iraq ends, retired Air Force Col. Gail Halvorsen says he would fly over Baghdad in a heartbeat.
"When things get under control, I’d want to fly over schools and drop candy to the children,” he said. “The kids would go crazy.”
Halvorsen knows that from first-hand experience. Best known as the “Berlin candy bomber,” Halvorsen, 82, captivated faculty, students and military officials at the University of Dayton today as he relived his humanitarian mission over the skies of Germany after World War II. Halvorsen headlined the first day of a three-day “Aviation and the Human Experience” symposium sponsored by the Miami Valley Higher Education Consortium as part of Inventing Flight 2003’s yearlong tribute. The group includes Central State University, UD, Sinclair Community College and Wright State University.
Dressed in the same pilot’s jumpsuit he wore in the 1940s, he recounted how hungry children in Berlin taught him the importance of freedom. “They were just in elementary school, but had a post-graduate degree in international relations,” he said. “Their reaction to two sticks of gum changed my life.”
When the Soviets created a blockade around Berlin, Halvorsen and other American pilots started airlifting food, medicine and other supplies to the city as part of “Operation Vittles.” One day the 27-year-old pilot met and talked for about an hour with a group of 30 children across a barbed-wire fence at Tempelhof Base. He was taken aback when not one child put out his hand and asked for candy or gum.
“They started talking to me in their school English. ‘Don’t worry about us. Some day we’ll have enough to eat, but if we lose our freedom, we’ll never get it back,’” he remembered.
Usually when I wore my flight suit, kids would chase me down the street, thinking you were a rich American and a pipeline to a candy shop. They’d shake you down. Not one of these children would lower themselves to become a beggar.”
Halvorsen reached into his pocket, took out two sticks of gum, broke them in half and handed the pieces through the fence. “They looked like they had just received a million bucks. They put that tiny piece of paper to their noses and smelled the aroma. They were on cloud nine. I stood there dumbfounded,” he said.
Struck by an impulse and without permission, Halvorsen told the children he’d fly back the next day and drop more gum, but they’d have to share it. When they asked how they’d know his airplane, he said, “I’ll wiggle my wings.”
Halvorsen’s Air Force friends gave him their candy rations and for three weeks he quietly dropped little parachutes of candy to the children before getting caught — and receiving permission to continue showering the children with treats. In all, Halvorsen and his colleagues dropped 23 tons of candy.
“One child kept his Hershey bar for a week,” said Halvorsen, pointing out that it represented a better future. “He said, ‘Without hope, the soul dies. I can live on thin rations, but not without hope.’”
What did Halvorsen learn? “The kids at the fence taught me the importance of freedom. They put principle before pleasure. They taught me that whenever you have a tough decision to make, make it on principle.”
Halvorsen has reenacted his candy bomber airdrops on many occasions. In September 1989 he flew over Templehof with a television crew from “Good Morning America” commemorating the 40th anniversary of the last Berlin Airlift flight. In 1994, he flew on an Operation PROVIDE PROMISE C-130 mission over Bosnia and dropped candy parachutes to children. He continues to be involved in humanitarian missions and is participating in 100th anniversary of flight events in Ohio and North Carolina this year.
