[Granville-Hough] 15 Feb 2009 - Berlin Airlift 2

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:47:47 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: [Fwd: ] Berlin Airlift 2, 15 Feb 2009

I will include Cousin Bland Richardson's view of the 
Berlin Airlift today and tomorrow:

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From: "BLAND RICHARDSON"
To: "Granville Hough"
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:02:24 -0700

The Berlin Airlift

There are parts of the Berlin Airlift that previously has not been 
discussed because it has appeared to be insignificant.  But when the 
Berlin Airlift started I was a first Lineament in Berlin.  I carried an 
MOS of 4823 which is Aircraft Engineering Officer, but there I worked 
primarily as an Aircraft Maintenance officer.

The first question is:   Why did the Russians close the Zone?
 
When the separation of Germany was started after WWII and the occupation 
was decided upon there were four parts-Russian, British, French and U.S. 
 The Russian part of Germany was called Zones.  It included Berlin.  The 
Russian territory stretched all the way back to Moscow.  The rest of 
Germany was divided into three Zones--British, French and American, but 
did not include any part of Berlin.  Berlin, you might say, was isolated 
in the Russian Zone Based on the four powers agreement, Berlin was 
divided into four Sectors.  The Russian Sector included the largest part 
of Berlin which was extended all the way back to Moscow.  The US, 
British, and French sector included the rest of Germany.  They all three 
made up approximately as much as the Russian sector of Berlin. 

Why were the Russians so concerned about our behavior in Berlin?

First it was because all the professional people such as lawyers, 
doctors, teachers, etc. could escape from the Russian zone of Berlin and 
the Russian sector into the American sector of Berlin.  Since the 
American and British were rebuilding their sectors of Berlin then all 
the professional people wanted to come there plus the fact they could 
escape through the U.S. Sector into the U. S. Zone and to any part of 
the world that they had visas to go.  This was a thorn in the Russian's 
side but was not openly discussed. 
 
Second was money.  The Russians had printed their own money for their 
Russian Zone including Berlin and they printed all they wanted when ever 
they wanted.  This was a thorn in the U. S., British and French side.  
So the U. S. under the cover of darkness, so to speak, printed over two 
million dollars worth of allied marks, different from the Russians and 
started paying their troops and others in Berlin.  This meant that the 
Russians could not counterfeit money anymore to pay their troops.  This 
made Stalin furious.  Now already there was friction between the allies 
U.S. British and French and the Russians and the sectors of Berlin.  The 
Russians reacted to this first by closing the railroad, second closing 
the water way, and finally the Autobahn. This of course made it 
impossible for goods to be brought to the allied zones to feed, clothe 
and bring fuel to the three million Berliners now. 

Why did we have the three air corridors?

We had the three air corridors because of the Potsdam agreement when we 
wanted to fly military aircraft to Berlin.  The Russians gave us in 
writing permission for us to have three corridors, which were 20 miles 
wide, to get into Berlin.  This required that we would sign documents 
because they did not want us flying at will and finding out what they 
were doing in the Russian Zone.  They did not realize that ultimately 
this would work against them.  So in short, we only had permission to go 
to Berlin on three separate corridors, each twenty miles wide. 
Therefore, when they closed the autobahn we could not get coal, food and 
so forth into Berlin.  General Clay who was in charge of the Berlin 
group called General LeMay and asked, "Can we airlift coal and food into 
Berlin by air?  General LeMay, who was commander of the air forces in 
Europe, replied, "We can fly anything to Berlin".  General Clay 
approached President Truman about using tanks to escort supply vehicles 
to Berlin.  The Congress felt that it wasn't worth taking a chance on 
starting a war with Russia since they still had thousands of troops in 
the area and we had very few.  Therefore, we called out all of the 
C-47s, popularly called gooney birds, and moved the air planes, pilots, 
dependants, tools and equipment to Frankfurt.  Although, Nelda my wife 
and Lynda my child were moved to Frankfurt, I was left at the base in 
charge of maintenance for the Berlin end of the Airlift.

The reason all dependants were moved out was so that food would not be 
required to be flown into them.  I was left with about a dozen enlisted 
men and twenty Germans.  Now the Germans were thoroughly trained on C-47 
since they had maintained them during the war when the German air lines 
Lusitania was in operation.  We did not knowingly use any maintenance 
personnel that maintained the German military air force.