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U.S. military pilot Gail S. Halvorsen - known as the 'Candy Bomber' for his candy airdrops during the Berlin airlift after World War II ended - has died aged 101. Halvorsen died Wednesday following a brief illness in his home state of Utah, surrounded by most of his children, James Stewart, the director of the Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation Education Foundation, said Thursday. Colonel Gail Seymour 'Hal' Halvorsen is best known as the 'Berlin Candy Bomber' or 'Uncle Wiggly Wings' and gained fame for dropping candy to German children during the Berlin airlift from 1948 to 1949. Halvorsen was beloved...

Gail Halvorsen, a former U.S. airman known as the “Candy Bomber” for delivering sweets to children during the Berlin Airlift, died on Wednesday at the age of 101. The Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation Education Foundation confirmed the veteran's death in a statement on Thursday. The foundation said he passed away peacefully and surrounded by family at the Utah Valley Hospital following a brief illness. Halvorsen gained his "Candy Bomber" moniker during the 15-month Berlin Airlift after World War II that saw western allies drop essential supplies into West Berlin after it was blockaded by the Soviet Union. The airman had...

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1920, Gail Halvorsen was the second of Basil and Luella Halvorsen’s three children. Growing up on the family’s farm in Garland, Halvorsen graduated from Bear River High School in Tremonton. “Working on our small farm,” Halvorsen recalled, “I was the only tractor my dad had. This was during the Depression, of course, so we didn’t have any discretionary money. We did have a lot of love, though, and plenty to eat. We had no idea we were ‘disadvantaged.’ “In the springtime we had to thin the sugar beets, and that was a hard...

A former U.S. Air Force pilot famous for dropping candy to starving children during the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and 1949 has returned to the German capital as a guest of honor 70 years after the end of the crisis. Gail Halvorsen, 98, received a hero's welcome as he donned his military uniform, signed autographs, and posed for photos with city residents on Saturday. Halvorsen became known as the 'Candy Bomber' after inventing the idea to airdrop small bags of sweets to children in West Berlin, who were going hungry after the Soviet Union blocked railway, road and canal access...

A World War II veteran who has been delivering sweet surprises from the sky for 70 years continues to brings smiles to the faces of children as the "Candy Bomber.” "There's something magical about a chocolate bar come floatin' out of the sky," Col. Gail "Hal" Halvorsen told ABC News. "It's tied on an actual parachute. Hopefully, some kids appreciate it." Halvorsen, 97, started his candy drops when he was a U.S. pilot for the Allied forces during the Berlin Airlift. In 1948, the Russians cut off food and supplies to West Berlin, Germany. The United States and its allies...

On June 26, 1948, the first American C-47 cargo aircraft were launched to supply West Berlin in what would eventually be known as the Berlin Airlift, following the Soviet Union's closure of water and land corridors between the western Allies sectors of occupied Germany and Berlin. Planes from the American, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African Air Forces would eventually participate in the Airlift, flying over 200,000 flights over the next 11 months before the blockade was lifted.

Leadership comes in many forms and with many levels of risk, but history gives us a few moments when leaders stood alone and were proven right. [...] In late June 1948 the Soviets cut all road, rail and water access to Berlin, a city controlled by the Western Allies yet surrounded by Soviet-controlled territories. The Soviet’s goal: take Berlin from the Allies by forcing the US-UK-French alliance into one of two options: try to protect a city of 2.1 million starving Germans, or war. The Soviets expected the West to surrender the city quickly. [...] The US was in the...

Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm first photographed East Germany in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the reunification. He revisited the same locations a decade later, and rephotographed them from exactly the same viewpoints to document the drastic social and economic transformations that came about during the time between the photos.

(Planes flew a distance equivalent to flying to the moon and back 63 times) Ceremonies have been taking place in Berlin to mark the 60th anniversary of the ending of the blockade of West Berlin by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. In 1948, Stalin cut off all land links into West Berlin in an attempt to force out British, French and US troops. Instead, the Western nations launched the biggest airlift in history to keep 2.25 million residents from starving. For the next 11 months, planes landed every two minutes, bringing in total more than 2.5m tonnes of supplies. Seventy-eight aircrew...

Germany has been commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Berlin airlift, when the Western allies kept the city supplied despite a Soviet blockade. Veterans of the airlift, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, attended ceremonies in Berlin and Frankfurt. The American and British-led airlift lasted for more than a year, and involved planes delivering everything from coal to sweets. It was one of the biggest humanitarian air relief missions in history. "I find the courage with which this operation was carried out truly admirable," said German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung. A small group of veteran airmen...

It was one of the most-amazing sights of the Cold War. By the hundreds, plane after plane thundered into the Berlin airports of Gatow, Tempelhof and Tegel, often arriving at the rate of one every three minutes. The supplies they delivered during the course of about a year sustained over 22,000 Western troops and over two million German civilians huddled in the ruins of the war-ravaged city. That the chief metropolis of a former, enemy nation could suddenly become a symbol of freedom revealed much about the strange, new era the world was entering. It also said much about the...

At the age of 7, Mercedes Wild waved excitedly at each plane that circled over her Berlin home and landed at Tempelhof Airport, packed with supplies to feed Berliners during the Soviets' Cold War blockade. Today, 67 year old Wild is fighting against city plans to shut down the airport site in central Berlin. After years of debate, Berliners are to vote on the closure of the Nazi-built complex on Sunday. "It's quite emotional. The airport is a symbol of freedom," Wild said, standing in the almost empty, 1,200 metre-long building just a 10 minute drive from the Brandenburg Gate....

As teenage residents of West Berlin during what many consider to be the first battle of the Cold War, Guenther and Gisela Petzold never knew how close the Berlin Airlift came to collapsing. It wasn't until years later, after the couple married and became U.S. citizens, that they learned of the difficulties surrounding the operation and how their neighbor played a critical role in the airlift's success. While the Petzolds didn't get to know retired Gen. T. Ross Milton until the trio met at an Oro Valley affair, they certainly benefited from his actions during the pivotal standoff between the...

BERLIN - Historic Tempelhof Airport — which played a key role in the Berlin airlift in the wake of World War II — will close to passengers in 2008, Germany's top administrative court confirmed Tuesday. The court threw out a bid to prevent Tempelhof's closure as part of plans to expand Schoenefeld airport, a former military airport on the city's outskirts, into Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. Several airline companies that use the centrally located Tempelhof airport tried to block the closure. But the Leipzig-based Federal Administrative Court rejected their claims, approving an earlier decision by a Berlin-Brandenburg administrative court that argued...

(On This Day In History) June 26, 1948 : Berlin Airlift Begins In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked all road and rail travel to and from West Berlin, which was located within the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. The Soviet action was in response to the refusal of American...

10/5/2006 - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AFPN) -- Retired Lt. Col. James and Ellie Spatafora possess a unique answer to a common question couples are quizzed about. When asked where they met, they answer that the seeds of their 56-year marriage were planted during the historic Berlin Airlift. The couple was able to catch up on old times with friends during a Berlin Airlift plaque dedication at Veterans Memorial Park here Oct. 4. More than 150 people attended the dedication, which was one of numerous events held during the weeklong reunion of the Berlin Airlift Veterans Association. The Berlin Airlift was a...

For the past month, there has been heavy advertising for a made-for-tv movie on SAT1 Television called "Die Luftbruecke" (this means "The Airlift"). I was skeptical that it would be pro-American. However, I can't believe me eyes: the movie that everyone in Germany is watching tonight...accurately portrays the Americans as doing everything they can to save Berlin from Stalin, and the film is showing many American heroes dying as their planes crash from the chaos. German children are waving and cheering as the American pilots fly overhead...and German women are saying yes to marriage proposals from Americans. Am I in...

The Berlin Wall is something I grew up talking about. It's a little bit different for my sons. In fact, our 3rd son, now serving in the US Army, was born the year after the Wall came down in the fall of 1989. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and the first casualty came 52 years ago today:

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ 60th Anniversary of the Berlin AirliftPart 4All info and photos from this website.             Berlin Airlift Veterans Return to Germany for AnniversaryBy Air Force Staff Sgt. Julie Weckerlein Special to American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, June 27, 2008 – For 50 years, Dub Southers recalled the grueling hours he...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ The Berlin Airlift Part 1:  The BeginningAll info and photos from this website.             For the next four weeks, on Mondays, the Hall of the Heroes threads will be about the Berlin Airlift and it's heroes.  I hope the story inspires you like it does me!  Thank you to...