[Granville-Hough] 16 Feb 2009 - Berlin Airlift 3

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:01:05 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Berlin Airlift 3 - 16 Feb 2009

Here is the second 
part of Cousin Bland's view of the Airlift, for which I thank him. When 
he and his children were in charge of the 60th Anniversary of the Berlin 
Airlift last year at the Air Force Academy, Bland states they were 
treated like Royalty. Love to all, Granville.

*Berlin** Airlift II*

The Berlin airlift lasted from the June 24, 1948 to May 11, 1949. It was 
one of the first international crises of the cold war. In the first part 
of the airlift I talked about those who were left for the maintenance 
operation. This did not include German nationals who unloaded the 
airplanes and those on the firefighting equipment.

At the beginning of the airlift the C-47s were able to haul 80 tons of 
cargomedicine, milk, flour to Berlin a day. A little later as the 
airlift continued they were able to haul six to seven hundred tons a day 
while 2,000 tons per day is required in normal food. It was enough to 
boost the German morale. It was going to require more C-54s to deliver 
the tonnage so finally 500 C-54s were used. In order to accommodate the 
large number of flights to Berlin, it was required to establish regular 
maintenance time on the aircraft and cargo loading time. So finally 
aircraft were scheduled to take off every 3 minutes, fly 500 feet higher 
than the previous flight, and this pattern began at 5,000 ft and was 
repeated 5 times. The first week the airlift averaged 90 tons a day. By 
the end of the second week it averaged 1,000 tons a day.

On July 27, 1948 General Tunner, who was famous during World War II for 
flying the hump to China, took over the entire airlift operation. Tunner 
made the decision to remove all C-47s from the airlines as it took just 
as long to unload them (3 1/2 tons) as a C-54 which carried 10 tons. He 
ordered that pilots and crews could not leave their airplanes while 
being unloaded and set up a schedule for snack bar trucks to travel 
along the airplane to supply the crews with coffee snacks and so forth. 
By the end of July, after one month, the airlift was succeeding. By the 
end of July the operations flew more than 1,500 flights a day and 
delivered more than 4,500 tons of cargo enough to keep West Berlin 
supplied. By the end September all the C-47s were with drawn. And over 225

C-54s were devoted to the lift. Supplies improved to 5,000 tons a day. 
This turn of events was decidedly against the Soviets. As the tempo of 
the airlift grew, it became apparent that the Western powers might be 
able to pull off the impossible of supplying an entire city. By this 
time the Soviets offered free food to anyone that would cross into East 
Berlin and sign over their ration card. Few took them up on the offer.

By April 1949 Airlift Operation was running smoothly. Tunner took it 
on himself to say that the Easter Sunday airlift would break all 
records. From 12 p.m. April 15 to 12 p.m. April 16 crews worked around 
the clock. When it was over 12,941 tons of coal had been delivered, by 
1,383 flights. The daily tonnage had increased from 6,729 tons a day to 
8,893 tons a day. In total the airlift delivered 234, 476 tons in April. 
By April 21 a point was reached that the amount of supplies flown into 
the city acceded that previously brought in by railway. The Berlin 
airlift finally succeeded and appeared able to operate indefinitely. The 
continued success of the airlift humiliated the Soviets and the Easter 
Parade of 1949 was the last straw. On April 15, 1949 the Russian news 
agency expressed a willingness to lift the blockade.

There is a Berlin Airlift monument at Berlin-Templehof displaying the 
names of 39 British and 31 American pilots and air crewmen that lost 
their lives during the airlift. The Berlin-Templehof monument reads 

 They Gave Their Lives for the Freedom of Berlin in Service for the 
 Berlin Airlift 1948 and 49.



P. S. Cousin Bland Richardson has sent me these additive notes. The 
story should more properly be called the "Berlin Blockade," as that was 
what the Soviets forced upon us. When we successfully countered the 
blockade with the airlift, the Soviets took another tact. They built the 
Berlin Wall to keep their people in.

 
PPS Barbara Roesch noted her earliest memories were in 1953 in the third 
grade in Japan when a schoolmate rode by on his bicycle yelling "Stalin 
is dead! Stalin is dead!!" She did not know who Stalin was but the 
picture of him in his coffin the next day in the newspaper was seared in 
her memory. I do apologize to those who are too young to remember these 
initial Cold War events of 1948 and 1949. What nearly everyone can 
remember is President Reagan saying: "Mr. Gorbachev, take down this 
wall!" and the subsequent removal of the Berlin wall and the eventual 
reunification of Germany. We can work back through them. Stalin wanted 
to keep his people in their respective countries. He instituted the 
Berlin Blockade. We successfully countered with the Airlift. He built 
the the wall. The wall lasted for a whole generation and was fairly 
effective in separating East Germany from the Western World.