Joseph Smith, first US commander of the operation, grabbed the first code name that came to mind. Young Air Force personnel across Europe saw their plans, orders, and schedules scrapped overnight. Charlie T. William A. The fighter pilot became a maintenance control officer at airlift headquarters, scheduling upkeep and tracking the burgeoning fleet of airlift aircraft.
Paul A. Jarrett, of Warner Robins, Ga. Smith, the commander of the post at Wiesbaden, made one crucial decision after another, shaping an operation that would frustrate Moscow for 15 months. Drawing upon his experience as a mail pilot for the Army Air Corps in , Smith established a duty and maintenance schedule designed to keep 65 percent of his aircraft airborne each day. The elaborate schedule enabled each C in the expanding aircraft fleet to complete three flights a day into Berlin.
Smith had airlift pilots fly under the most rigid system of air traffic control to be instituted up to that point. He established the pattern of one-way operations through the three corridors—two corridors devoted to Berlin-bound aircraft and the central East-West corridor reserved for outbound traffic.
Aircraft flew at five different altitudes, later cut to three. Aircraft at the same altitude were separated by minute intervals. Pilots flew their routes at predetermined speeds, checking in one after the other at successive beacons, then landing in Berlin in close succession. As the operation got under way, some members of President Harry S.
One who disagreed with the view was Gen. Hoyt S. He was Maj. William H. Tunner, who became provisional commander on July 29, , saw the Berlin crisis as a golden opportunity to demonstrate the concept of airlift as a strategic force. He ordered pilots to rely on instrument procedures at all times to avoid variations due to weather or darkness.
He had ground operations reassessed repeatedly to shave turnaround times. His motion study experts developed a procedure for a member ground crew to load 10 tons of coal packed into pound burlap bags into the cargo bay of a C in six minutes. Aircraft unloading times in Berlin were cut from 17 minutes to five; turnaround times in Berlin were cut from 60 minutes to 30; refueling times at bases in West Germany were slashed from 33 to eight minutes.
Marcus C. West remembers coal-bearing trucks rolling toward his returning airplane at Fassberg even before he cut the engines. Ten workers ran an oval racetrack pattern from the truck to the front of the cargo bay with bags of coal. Victor R. Kregel of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Berlin was starving. Whatever you had on board was whisked off. There was never any foot dragging. When Tunner learned that arriving aircrews were leaving their aircraft on the apron at Tempelhof to head inside to the terminal for snacks and weather briefings, he ordered meals, snack trucks, and weather briefers to move out to the flight line.
The same flight-line services became the pattern elsewhere. However, the operation needed more than just speedy ground operations. The first American Cs flew out of Fassberg on Aug. At Celle, a former Luftwaffe fighter base in the UK sector, the British began building a 5,foot runway to enable American Cs to use the base, as well.
Hugh C. Kirkwood of Greenville, Maine, a former gunner on a B, worked as an approach coordinator in the Celle tower. Every pilot knew they had to do it right. In Berlin, the US airfield at Tempelhof and British airfield at Gatow were overwhelmed by stepped-up airlift operations.
Tunner moved ahead with plans to build a third airfield in Berlin, to be located in the French sector to disperse the flow of aircraft. Tegel AB was dedicated in November Bill L. Cooley, who kept ground control radar up and running as chief of maintenance at Tegel, remembers that the problem was handled by a group of no-nonsense French troops.
I drove to work one day and saw the tower lying across a field like a broken snake. A French patrol had just gone out there with their munitions, forced the Russians to back off, and blown up the tower. In the fall of , the Allies took other steps to prepare for the demands of onrushing winter. Five C Packets joined the airlift to deliver wide-bodied cargo from Wiesbaden. On Oct. Merer as his deputy. Preparations for a lengthy operation greatly increased the demand for C pilots.
West, like so many others, swept through the fast-paced ground school and flew 21 hours aboard Cs to transition into the aircraft as a copilot before shipping out to Germany. With enough C pilots coming into the pipeline, the last of the USAFE Cs were replaced with Cs, clearing the way for a steadily expanding US effort in the face of fast deteriorating weather.
The last Cs were withdrawn from the operation in late September By Jan. The British flew airplanes. He boosted from to the number of weathermen assigned to the operation, a move that enabled the airlifters to continue operating in some of the most unpredictable, fast-changing weather found anywhere on Earth. Crewmen on every seventh C reported weather conditions at four points along the way. In June, without informing the Soviets, U.
Soviet authorities responded with similar moves in their zone. Besides issuing their own currency, the Ostmark, the Soviets blocked all major road, rail, and canal links to West Berlin, thus starving it of electricity, as well as a steady supply of essential food and coal. The United States and United Kingdom had few immediate options if hostilities broke out. Because of the draw down in U. On June 13, , the administrator of U.
We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent. Based upon written agreements with the Soviet Union in , the only connections to Berlin left to the Western Allies were air corridors from West Germany used to supply Berlin by air.
The administration calculated that if the Soviets opposed the airlift with force, it would be an act of aggression against an unarmed humanitarian mission and the violation of an explicit agreement. Thus, the onus of igniting a conflict between the former allies would be on the aggressor.
Planes were flown at minute intervals at each foot level between the altitudes of and feet. Despite these difficulties, by the Spring of it was clear that the Airlift could supply Berlin from the air. To prove the point, General Tunner ordered a maximum effort on Easter By the end of April, daily deliveries grew from 6, to tons per day, more than enough to keep the city alive.
Faced with increasing international condemnation and the fact that the airlift succeeded despite months of bad weather and Soviet harassment, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called off the blockade and reopened the ground routes to Berlin on May 12, General Clay continued the Airlift until September to ensure that Berlin would survive the winter if the Soviets resumed the blockade. The Allies won. In the course of the Airlift, they had safely delivered an astonishing 2.
Skip to main content. For 18 months, Allied forces flew round-the-clock, bringing 2. Over the course of the Berlin Airlift, the Allies safely delivered an astonishing 2. View the discussion thread. Aircraft Cold War. Thank you. You have successfully signed up for our newsletter. As far as the western Allies were concerned, withdrawal from the city was not an option. Finding another way to re-provision the city seemed to the Allies to be the only reasonable response.
It was quickly settled: The Allies would supply their sectors of Berlin from the air. Allied cargo planes would use open air corridors over the Soviet occupation zone to deliver food, fuel and other goods to the people who lived in the western part of the city.
The Berlin airlift was supposed to be a short-term measure, but it settled in for the long haul as the Soviets refused to lift the blockade. For more than a year, hundreds of American, British and French cargo planes ferried provisions from Western Europe to the Tempelhof in the American sector , Gatow in the British sector and Tegel in the French sector airfields in West Berlin. At the beginning of the operation, the planes delivered about 5, tons of supplies to West Berlin every day; by the end, those loads had increased to about 8, tons of supplies per day.
The Allies carried about 2. Life in West Berlin during the blockade was not easy. Fuel and electricity were rationed, and the black market was the only place to obtain many goods. Still, most West Berliners supported the airlift and their western allies. By spring , it was clear that the Soviet blockade of West Berlin had failed.
It had not persuaded West Berliners to reject their allies in the West, nor had it prevented the creation of a unified West German state.
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