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'The Candy Bomber' Honored in Germany 70 Years After Historic Berlin Airlift

Kane Farabaugh

   NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - Out of the cloudy skies over Wiesbaden,
   Germany, on a warm June day, gifts descend from the heavens, dropping
   like rain onto the fields below, much to the delight of hundreds of
   children waiting on the ground.

   The "candy bombs," delivered by vintage planes similar to those in
   service long ago, bring Germans and Americans together to commemorate
   an event 70 years ago that was a matter of life or death for the people
   of Berlin.

   "It was a good feeling to give people something they had to have to
   stay alive," said retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gail Halvorsen, who in
   1949 was a young officer serving as a C-54 pilot in the Berlin Airlift,
   also known as "Operation Vittles," the massive U.S.-led humanitarian
   operation to supply food and essentials to Berliners trapped behind a
   Soviet blockade.

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