RIP "Candy Bomber"
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Retired Air Force Col. Gail Halvorsen, the “Candy Bomber” who brought joy to Berlin's children by dropping candy in tiny handkerchief parachutes from his plane when the Soviets blockaded the divided city during the Cold War, has died. He was 101.
Without asking permission, he purchased candy and a handful of handkerchiefs at the Rhein-Main Post Exchange Store, wrote John Provan, an American historian and son of a retired Air Force chief master sergeant.
The next day, he opened the window of his C-54 and began the candy drops.
“My copilot and engineer gave me their candy rations — big double handfuls of Hershey, Mounds and Baby Ruth bars and Wrigley’s gum,” he recalled in the interview. “Three weeks we did it, three parachutes each time. The crowd got big.”
Operation Little Vittles, as the drop of gum and chocolate bars came to be known, turned into a diplomatic coup, altering Germans' perceptions of Americans and paving the way for future humanitarian airlifts. Halvorsen became known as the "Candy Bomber" and "Der Schokoladen Flieger" — "the Chocolate Flyer."
