On this date in 1949 the Soviets lifted the blockade of West Berlin. This thread will address the Soviet blockade and the Allies' airlift in response. In the next paragraphs I will very briefly set out some of the background, for people who aren't familiar with the period.
Background
The allies, Britain, the US, and the USSR decided at one or more of their conferences during the war how they were going to occupy and govern Germany after the war ended. Germany was to be split into zones for each of the three powers to occupy and administer. The capital, Berlin, although located in the Soviet zone, was to be split among the three powers.
Trucks and railroads supplied West Berlin from the Western allies' zone of Germany.
Blockade and Airlift
In June of 1948 the Soviets ordered a blockade of West Berlin and cut off the roads, railroad lines, and river routes through which West Berlin got its food, fuel, and other supplies.
The Western allies decided not to abandon West Berlin but to supply it by air. So Operation Vittles was organized, in which American, British, and French planes would deliver most everything West Berliners needed to survive. In the early days of the operation the planes delivered about 5,000 tons of supplies to West Berlin every day. By the end of the operation, about a year later, those loads had increased to about 8,000 tons of supplies per day. Over the course of the airlift Allied planes carried about 2.3 million tons of cargo to West Berlin. At its height planes were landing every 30 seconds.
These supplies included food and medicines, but also coal which was necessary for heat. The airlift was a remarkable feat of logistics.
There is a story that came out of the airlift, about a pilot who came to be called The Candy Bomber:
One day in July 1948 I met 30 kids at the barbed wire fence at Tempelhof (airport) in Berlin. They were excited... For the hour I was at the fence not one child asked for gum or candy. Children I had met during and after the war like them in other countries had always begged insistently for such treasures...
It was even the more impressive because they hadn’t had gum nor candy for months. When I realized this silent , mature show of gratitude and the strength that it took not to ask, I had to do something. All I had was two sticks of gum. I broke them in two and passed them through the barbed wire. The result was unbelievable. Those with the gum tore off strips of the wrapper and gave them to the others. Those with the strips put them to their noses and smelled the tiny fragrance. The expression of pleasure was unmeasurable.
I was so moved by what I saw and their incredible restraint that I promised them I would drop enough gum for each of them the next day as I came over their heads to land. They would know my plane because I would wiggle the wings as I came over the airport. When I got back to Rhein-Main I attached gum and even chocolate bars to three handkerchief parachutes. We wiggled the wings and delivered the goods the next day. What a jubilant celebration. We did the same thing for several weeks before we got caught, threatened with a court martial which was followed by an immediately a pardon.
http://wigglywings.weebly.com/the-candy-bomber.htmlThe practice of dropping candy soon became widespread among pilots and crews.
After about a year of the airlift the Soviets saw that their blockade wasn't working, indeed was counterproductive, so they stopped it.
