The Allies proposed the idea of flying tons of food, fuel and other supplies into West Berlin. Not just once, but every day, as long as the Russians continued their blockade.
It would be a difficult job. West Berlin was home to two and a half million people. No one had ever before tried to supply so large a city by air. Planes would have to take off every three and a half minutes, day and night, to supply the people with enough food, medicine, clothing, and badly needed coal.
C-47s unloading at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin
The operation involved American C-47 and larger C-54 transport planes, along with British Lancaster, York, and Hastings aircraft.
On June twenty-sixth, the first C-47s landed at Tempelhof Airport – the beginning of the great operation that was to come. Plans called for the operation to last just a few weeks.
The planes landed in the blockaded city and local volunteers provided support on the ground. Former mechanics of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, joined Americans in servicing the aircraft. More than twenty thousand Berliners worked day and night to build an additional landing field for the American and British planes. It became Tegel, now Berlin’s major airport. As part of the supply effort, the British Royal Air Force even landed Sunderland Flying Boats on a Berlin lake.
Brigadier General Joseph Smith was appointed task force commander of the American part of the airlift. General Smith called the mission “Operation Vittles,” using an American slang term for food.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25