Gail Halverson grew up on a farm. But as he did chores, he would sometimes look up to see planes and vowed to one day be a pilot. When WWII broke out, Halverson enlisted and joined the Army Air Corps. He spent the war ferrying transport planes to England, Italy, and North Africa. He stayed in the Air Force after the war. In 1948, he was stationed in Alabama when the Soviets began the Berlin Blockade. He was given an hour’s warning that he was going to West Germany to participate in the Berlin Airlift, which began on June 26, 1948. Halverson would fly three round-trip supply flights per day as the U.S. helped the West Berliners keep their city free. One day, Halverson had some down time so he hopped a flight to visit West Berlin. He noticed a group of kids watching the landings from the other side of a fence at Tempelhof air field. He went over and offered some chewing gum. They broke the two sticks into smaller pieces and the kids who did not get one got to sniff the wrappers. The kids thanked him and asked if the supplies would keep coming even when winter came. Halverson reassured them and promised to bring candy next time he flew over. How would they know which plane was his? He would waggle his wings. When he returned to his base, he began constructing candy parachutes out of handkerchiefs. Soon “Uncle Wiggly Wings” (or the “Chocolate Flier”) was drawing large crowds for his paradrops. At first, his superiors chewed him out for violating the rules, but when the Berlin newspapers reported the feel-good story, the Air Force decided it liked the good publicity. Capitalism gives you candy, communism takes your freedom. “Operation Little Vittles” (the Airlift was called Operation Vittles) officially began on Sept. 22, 1948. It had expanded to include more planes. The American Confectioners Association donated tons of candy. Local students at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts made the parachutes. By the end of the blockade, more than 250,000 parachutes had been dropped. That was about 23 tons of candy. As one Berliner said: “It wasn’t just chocolate, it was hope.” “The Candy Bomber” became a celebrity. Later, he performed morale-boosting candy drops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Japan, Guam, and Iraq.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/airlift-gail-halvorsen/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Halvorsen
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