Meeting the Candy Bomber

In 1948, the Soviet Union closed highway and railway access to West Berlin, which although deep in East Germany (DDR), had been divided among the four victorious powers of WWII, USA, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.  The Allies (US, UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) responded with Operation Vittles, a huge undertaking, supplying West Berlin by air with everything necessary to keep the citizens alive.  During what became known as the Berlin Airlift, 1Lt Gayle Halvorsen, a C-54 pilot from Salt Lake City, began a campaign to drop candy to kids watching the planes come and go.  He originally gave up his own (and his crew's) candy ration, made tiny parachutes from handkerchiefs, and a crew member tossed them out of the aircraft as they were on the final approach into Tempelhof Airport.   Over the next months, those few small parachutes became many thousands of small parachutes dropping what would eventually become tons of small pieces of candy for the children of Berlin.  For that, he became known as the Candy Bomber, and even today, is hailed as a hero by Berliners.

He stayed in the Air Force, and in the early 1970's, served as Base Commander at Tempelhof Airbase.  Later, in January, 1975, I was assigned to Tempelhof as an Air Force Staff Sergeant.  While there, I was promoted to Technical Sergeant and assigned a position in Maintenance Quality Control, in an office in my unit's headquarters area on the 7th floor.

We were regularly briefed to be on guard for any unusual activity.  After all, we were 120 miles inside the Iron Curtain surrounded by forces dedicated to our destruction.  One day after lunch, I got on the empty elevator to go back to my office and just as the door was closing, a neatly dressed older civilian carrying a package wrapped in brown paper entered the elevator cab.  I gulped, but mindful of the responsibility for security, I said to him, "Excuse me sir, but I have to ask what you have in that package,"  figuring I was going to be blown to bits any moment.

He seemed a bit startled at first, then with what I now know in a characteristic grin, stuck out his hand, and said, "It's a pound cake and a pair of shoes I'm sending to my daughter in Spain.  I'm Gayle Halvorsen."

That evening, as the Tempelhof NCO of the Quarter, I had been invited to a small ceremony welcoming the Candy Bomber to Berlin.   There was a receiving line with the base commander, Col Donald LaJeunesse, and when I got to them, Col LaJeunesse introduced me to Col Halvorsen who responded, "Sgt McNamara and I met earlier," and then told my commander the story from his point of view.   

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.