World War II Woman

Candy for the Berliners (repeat)

This past week, Stephen Colbert had as one of his guests Andrei Cherny, the author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour. In spite of the silliness of Colbert’s interview, I did learn something about the period following World War II when Russia placed a blockade around Berlin, preventing anything to pass in or out of the city in the American, French and British zones. This blockade continued from June 24, 1948 until May 11, 1949, and represented the initial event in the Cold War.

The Western powers had a major decision to make – whether to leave Berlin or try to figure out how to feed and keep the people of Berlin warm in the months ahead. After considering various options, it was determined to provide supplies by air power. A monumental effort was launched resulting in the opening of the roads and rails a little short of a year later.

Along with the lifesaving food, coal, and other essentials, candy and chewing gum dropped from planes helped win the hearts of the children. The planes delivering these goodies came to be known as the Candy Bombers with Lt. Gail Halvorsen as one of the major players.

In thinking about the Berlin Blockade, I recalled one of the stories in my book We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II. Molly went with her family to Berlin when her father was the American liaison working with the rail systems in the four sectors of Berlin. The family was in Germany from immediately after the war in 1945 until 1947. This was before the blockade but she does recall the tension as she and her mother and brother visited the Russian zone. Soldiers with guns were everywhere and the checkpoints were particularly onerous.

Aside from the Colbert Report, another reminder of World War II came last week in the form of the Saturday afternoon opera – John Adams “Doctor Atomic.” The story brings together young scientists under the leadership of J. Robert Oppenheimer in July of 1945 after the defeat of Germany as they consider the moral implications of the use of the bomb.

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