A Douglas C-54 transport landing at Berlin’s Tempelhof airport during the great airlift.
It began with Operation Knicker, a British response to the stranglehold that Red Army Forces put on the British, American, and French sectors of West Berlin from the middle of 1947. In April 1948 the Royal Air Force sent sixteen C-47 Dakotas to the airfield at Wunstorf in heart of the British sector to bring supplies to their garrison. They brought in sixty-five tons of urgently needed goods daily.
The Russians had put Berlin under siege. Relations had not been good between Russia and the Western powers in Berlin—the United States, Britain, and France—for some time. Germany, since the end of World War II, had been under their combined military occupation and was divided into four zones. Berlin lay more than a hundred miles deep in the Soviet Zone and was split into four sectors.
At the end of the war, the Russians had claimed they lacked sufficient transport to carry supplies to Berlin, and asked the Western Allies to assume responsibility for providing three-quarters of the food and fuel needed by the three western sectors of the city. At the same time the Russians allowed access to their sector via only a single road, one railway line and a few canals. The Western Allies wanted and needed Soviet cooperation to keep Germany running, and didn’t make much of a fuss about the limited access. They believed there was a “gentlemen’s agreement” among the four powers and that all would pull together. Clearly, the Russians had a separate agenda for Germany and never intended to relax their restricted access.
From the end of the war Russia’s Josef Stalin pursued the domination of western Europe, exploiting the countries that were most weakened by economic depression, hunger, and devastation from that conflict. His brand of Communism thrived amid the ruins of these suffering states. In an effort to help rebuild the various economies of Europe in June 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall offered them enormous financial aid. The nations of western Europe gratefully accepted; the Soviet Union, on behalf of her satellites, flatly refused the assistance. The Russians, meanwhile, were systematically plundering their Zone and shipping everything of value, every vital resource, back to the Soviet Union. By the spring of 1948 the “working relationship” between the Western Allies and the Soviets was in tatters. Their patience with the Soviets now exhausted, the British, French, and Americans decided to make Berlin and Germany work without the cooperation of their Russian ally.
A Douglas DC-3, one of the key aircraft in the airlift;
In February 1948 the Western powers proposed to a west European conference in London that the Germans draft a constitution for a semi-independent West German state, designed as an interim measure until there could be agreement with the Russians on a unified, autonomous Germany. To bolster the West German economy the Western Allies announced the introduction of a brand new Deutschmark, a sound currency that would be in use in the western sectors of Berlin by June 1948. It was this move that made Stalin snap.
Through the early part of the year his forces had been interfering with road and rail traffic from the west, creating delays and causing electric power shortages. In March, the Soviet Military Governor quit the Allied Control Council, ending four-power government in Germany. On 5 April, a British European Airways Vickers Viking was harassed by a Soviet Yak-3 fighter that performed aerobatics quite near the airliner as it approached to land at Gatow. Tragically, the Yak pilot collided with the BEA plane and both aircraft crashed, killing the BEA crew and all seven passengers as well as the Soviet pilot. The Russians attributed the crash to the Viking having rammed the Yak. From that day on, British and American transport aircraft were given fighter escort into Berlin, and the Russians hastened to say that no more interference was contemplated.
A British contribution to the massive effort, the Avro York version of the historic Lancaster bomber.
In mid-June the Russians pulled their representative from the Allied Kommandatura which was running Berlin, ending the four-power administration of the city. And on 24 June the Russians began a complete blockade of the western sectors of Berlin. More than two million Berliners were at risk. The Russians must have believed that they could starve the western sectors and take them over, thus destroying the West German recovery.
From the earliest interference by the Russians, U.S. Military Governor General Lucius Clay had threatened that he would instruct his troops to open fire “if Soviet soldiers attempted to enter our trains.” His approach, however, was vetoed by President Harry Truman who stated that the USA would never open fire unless first fired upon. The Western Allies had only 12,000 men in their Berlin garrisons. They were surrounded by as many as 300,000 Soviet troops. Even if the Allies had chosen to storm the city from the west, it meant risking a new war with Russia. They were in no shape to fight such a war, and in fact lacked the strength to prevent the Russians from advancing into western Germany should they have chosen to make that move. The Allies had but a single trump card . . . the atomic bomb, and no one thought that a reasonable option.
It seemed that the only solution to the problem of keeping Berlin supplied with food and fuel was a dramatic expansion of the British airlift. While the Allies did have access from their zones to Berlin via three twenty-mile-wide and 10,000-foot-high air corridors that had been allocated by the Russians in November 1945, the idea was fraught with complications. Berlin had two available airfields—Gatow and Tempelhof, each had only one runway and in both cases it was merely of temporary pierced-steel planking, a surface never intended to withstand the heavy landings of the laden transport planes that were required. There was the threat that the Russians would block the air corridors with barrage balloons or bring up anti-aircraft batteries in the Soviet Zone. Navigation was a problem, complicated by the fact that the Americans did not have the navigational aids the British used, and had to rely mainly on the radio compass. The primitive ground control facilities at the Berlin fields were not up to dealing with heavy air traffic, and especially not in poor weather. Most worrying to the Allies, though, was the need to bring at least 13,500 tons per day of food and fuels that they had been previously providing by road, rail and canal. Neither the British nor the Americans could quickly provide enough aircraft to mount the airlift on the scale required.
The C-54 Skymaster served the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II and later in the Korean War, as well as during the Berlin Airlift.
Despite the difficulties, Britain’s Operation Carter Paterson, which soon became Plainfare, began on 28 June with an initial RAF Dakota taking off from Wunstorf, the first airlift base and the main feeder airfield in the British Zone, in very heavy weather to bring a maximum 7,500-pound load to Gatow. The American effort, called Operation Vittles, was started on 26 June by twenty-five C-47s operating initially from the Wiesbaden and Rhein-Main airfields in the American Zone. These operations were launched primarily by British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and U.S. President Harry Truman who, to their credit, stood firm in the face of some determined domestic, political and military opposition to the planned airlift. Many generals believed at the time that, rather than expanding the effort to provide the airlift capability, they should be concentrating all efforts on preparing for war with the Soviets. Many of the air crewmen who were to fly the airlift had already seen their share of war, having flown as bomber crew members with the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, or the South African Air Force, in World War II. In a great historic irony, some who only a few years earlier had been dropping bombs to destroy Berlin now found themselves delivering supplies to help keep its people alive.
The Berlin Airlift was simply a stopgap meant to buy time to keep the city supplied. Truman and Bevin hoped to save Berlin from a Russian takeover and to convince the Kremlin of the West’s strength and determination. They gambled that the Russians would not risk starting a war by shooting down one of the airlift planes. At the same time Bevin arranged for a force of American B-29 Superfortress bombers, by then well known for their nuclear delivery capability, to be stationed in England.
It was all the Allies could manage to supply about 4,000 tons of food and fuel a day. It was September before they could bring in 4,500 tons daily, and January 1949 before a daily delivery of 5,500 tons was achieved. The Berliners were struggling to survive on this greatly reduced ration. The scope of the problem was simply overwhelming. Even with a massive infusion of York, Hastings and Sunderland aircraft by the British, and C-54s by the Americans, to augment the overburdened RAF Dakotas and USAF C-47s, as well as a mish-mash of civilian aircraft, they were still significantly short of airplanes and load capacity. Most of the crews who flew the airlift were former RAF and USAAF bomber air crew members.
Spare parts were in short supply, as were personnel for servicing and time to do the work. The state of the Tempelhof and Gatow airfields necessitated their upgrading for landing and unloading, which meant that heavy building equipment and materials had to be flown in, and a third airfield had to be constructed at Tegel in the French sector. The new facility was built by the Americans using mostly German female labor who were paid DM1.20 an hour and one hot meal per shift. The women had to do the work as the majority of German military prisoners of war had still to be repatriated. Work on Tegel was round-the-clock and the new airfield allowed a substantially greater quantity of supplies to be flown into Berlin. All ground control facilities had to be modernized and nine new supply airfields had to be built; seven in the British Zone and two in the American. Much of the rubble used as hardcore for the new fields came from the staggering bombed-out ruin of Berlin and was cleared mainly by women. Air traffic control had to be not just reformed, but revolutionized. Aircraft had to take off in timed departure blocks from the supply airfields, and the flights and landings had to be precisely timed to avoid chaos and collision.
RAF Sunderland flying boats were employed from 4 July to operate from the Havel See, a lake located just five minutes by car from the airfield at Gatow. The Sunderlands were special in that they could bring a 10,000-pound load on each trip and because they were sufficiently corrosion-proofed to carry a cargo of salt to Berlin. The flying boats carried their salt to the city until the winter of 1948-49 ended their role, which was then picked up by converted Halifax bombers known as Haltons. They stored the salt in externally-mounted belly panniers. Soon more aircraft types were added to the airlift effort, including the Tudor, and the Lancastrian version of the Avro Lancaster bomber.
The U.S. Air Force had established a primary airlift operation at the Tempelhof airport in south-central Berlin. Tempelhof now had three parallel runways, each more than 2,000 yards long. The approaches to it were, however, still obstructed by the remains of some fairly tall buildings, requiring an attentive, on-your-toes landing. The Americans mainly operated Douglas C-54s capable of carrying a ten-ton load into Tempelhof. They had used C-47s until sufficient quantities of the larger planes were available. They also operated a small number of rear-loading Fairchild C-82 Packet cargo planes, mostly for the transport of vehicles and machinery.
The problem of how to haul coal for the essential fueling of industry, for light and heat, was of great concern to the Allies. This heavy, bulky item had to be properly loaded aboard the planes or it could upset their trim and the dust from the coal could find its way into every area of the aircraft, making controls sticky and unresponsive. Similar problems were encountered with the transport of flour. Vegetables and fruit were dried for lighter shipment. Meat was boned to save on weight, and then tinned or made into sausage to give it a longer life. One such sausage product was evidently so repellent that even the undernourished Berliners could not tolerate it. It is said that a civil servant then had the bright idea that they could be bribed to eat it by offering them a double ration. There were few takers.
Through it all the hungry and courageous people of Berlin carried on, feeling that as long as they could hear the drone of aircraft they had hope. Through it all the Russians continued to hassle and harass the Berliners. They were only allowed four hours of electricity a day and never knew when it would be turned on. There was very little coal for heating in that terrible winter and they broke up their furniture to burn rather than accept Soviet offers of free coal. They endured endless abuse and harassment by the Russians, but held fast to their will to be free. And through it all they retained their sense of humor: “Aren’t we lucky? Imagine if the British and Americans were besieging us and the Russians were running the airlift.”
The great airlift continued beyond 12 May 1949, when the Soviets officially ended their 318-day blockade of Berlin. Scaled down from their peak days, the British and Americans continued Plainfare and Vittles through 23 September and 1 October respectively, to stockpile supply reserves for the Berliners. In the end the numbers were impressive. Royal Air Force aircraft delivered 394,509 tons, British civil aircraft delivered 147,727 tons, and U.S. Air Force aircraft brought in 1,783,573 tons, for a combined total of 2,325,809 tons. Of the load carried by the British, food amounted to 241,713 tons; coal 164,800 tons; military 18,239 tons; liquid fuel 92,282 tons; and miscellaneous 25,202 tons. Of the total delivered by the USAF, food amounted to 296,303 tons; coal 1,421,730 tons, and liquid fuel 65,540 tons. The British also elected to bring loads back west from Berlin, a total of 35,843 tons. The French delivered 800 metric tons of supplies to the garrison in their sector in 424 sorties. Both British and American aircraft were used to airlift passengers to and from Berlin; the British bringing in 36,218 and carrying out 131,436, while the Americans brought in 24,216 and carried out 36,584. In the course of the airlift British and American aircraft made 195,530 sorties to Berlin. The daily average tonnage carried was 4,980. Aircraft used in the Berlin airlift included the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Dakota, the Avro York, the Handley-Page Hastings, the Handley-Page Halifax, the Short Sunderland, the Fairchild C-82 Packet, the Handley-Page Halton, the Avro Tudor, the Avro Lancastrian, the Douglas C-54 Skymaster, the Avro Lincoln, the Short Hythe, the Consolidated Liberator, The Bristol Freighter, the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter, the Douglas C-74 Globemaster, and the Vickers Viking. During the airlift there were thirty-one American fatalities, eighteen British military fatalities, and twenty-one British civilian fatalities.
A cargo of what may be coal is unloaded from this C-54 in Berlin.
The Berlin Airlift was a kind of miracle. Even the weather seemed to cooperate to some extent, with less frost and ice in Germany than in most winters. As the complex problems of the effort were gradually resolved, so too did the hoped-for effect occur. Stalin undoubtedly realized that West Berlin would come through his siege to the prospect of a bright and prosperous future thanks to the Marshall Plan and their rescue by the amazing airlift.
February 1949. Germany’s political leaders met in Bonn to draft their constitution for a separate West German state. And in light of the burgeoning airlift the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations approached his American counterpart for conversations leading to a settlement of the Berlin crisis. There followed meetings of the Western Allies on the establishment of a new bond of nations to be called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which all members would come to the aid of any member nation that was attacked. The treaty was ratified on 9 May and the next day the Russians announced that they were lifting the Berlin blockade.
German school children watch the departure of a Douglas Skymaster after it delivered its precious cargo of supplies to the people of Berlin in the midst of the airlift operation.
