I went back to the fence and pulled out my two sticks of Wrigley’s Doublemint, broke them in half and passed the four pieces through the barbed wire. There was no fight. The kids who got gum carefully tore the tin foil and passed it to the others, who put it up to their noses to smell—just smelled it—and I stood there dumbfounded. I told them, “Come back here tomorrow, and when I come in to land, I’ll drop enough gum for all of you.”

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One asked, “How do we know what airplane you’re in?”

“I’ll wiggle the wings.”

“Vas ist viggle?” he asked.

Did you get permission?
No. At first I thought, Well, I won’t have time for that. Then I rationalized, What’s a few sticks of gum and chocolate bars, anyway?

How did you work it?
My copilot and engineer gave me their candy rations—big double handfuls of Hershey, Mounds and Baby Ruth bars and Wrigley’s gum. It was heavy, and I thought, Boy, put that in a bundle and hit ’em in the head going 110 miles an hour, it’ll make the wrong impression. So, I made three handkerchief parachutes and tied strings tight around the candy.

The next day, I came in over the field, and there were those kids in that open space. I wiggled the wings, and they just blew up—I can still see their arms. The crew chief threw the rolled-up parachutes out the flare chute behind the pilot seat. Couldn’t see what happened, of course. It took about 20 minutes to unload the flour, and I worried all the time where the candy went. As we taxied out to takeoff, there were the kids, lined up on the barbed-wire fence, three handkerchiefs waving through, their mouths going up and down like crazy.

Three weeks we did it—three parachutes each time. The crowd got big.

Did anyone notice?
On one trip to Berlin, I ran into base operations. Inside was a big planning table, and it was loaded with letters addressed to Onkel Wackelflügel (“Uncle Wiggly Wings”). And I just broke out in a sweat. Holy cow, we’re in trouble! I went back out and said, “Guys, we gotta quit.” For two weeks we quit, the crowd getting bigger all the time. And we looked at each other and said, “Once more, and that’s all.” Fateful words. We got six parachutes—two weeks’ rations—and dropped them.

Next day an officer met the airplane and said, “The colonel wants to see you right now.” So I went in, and he says, “Whatcha doing, Halvorsen?”

“Flying like mad, sir.”

“I’m not stupid. What else you been doing?” And he pulled out a newspaper with a big article and a photograph of my plane and the tail number. So I told him. He understood, and airlift commander General William Tunner said, “Keep doing it!”

And the operation grew?
It went crazy. I’d come back from Berlin, and my buddies would have my bed covered with candy bars. That September a representative of the National Confectioners’ Association asked, “How much candy can you use?” I gave him this ridiculous number, and he said, “We’ll send all you can drop.”

A squadron—must have been 10 planes—was doing it. We had big cardboard boxes filled with the stuff. We’d cut off the top of each box, put it up against the escape hatch, and it would draw like a vacuum cleaner—scatter it everywhere.

Did you have enough handkerchiefs?
Word got back all over the United States. One day I went down to the post office and picked up three mailbags of letters—all filled with handkerchiefs. The news release said I was a bachelor. Some of the handkerchiefs were black lace, some perfumed. "I love what you’re doing. Write me."

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