But we couldn’t handle the volume. Then Mary Connors, a college student from Chicopee, Mass., got a hold of the confectioners association: “We’ll tie up all the parachutes. Have the candy sent to us.”

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Have you revisited Berlin?
We flew the restored C-54 Spirit of Freedom back for the 50th anniversary of the airlift. People would come streaming through, men and women who had been there during the blockade, their eyes moist, shake your hand and say, “Thank you, for freedom!”

I’ve been back 35 times in all, three times in 2009. Every time we came back into Berlin, boy, it’d just make you feel like a hero every time you landed. The public affairs people would let groups of children, large groups, come out on the sideline and meet flight crews. Incredible. And they’d bring gifts.

Do you recall a particularly memorable gift?
A lady and her daughter, about 10 years old, came out to our airplane. The little girl had a teddy bear—well worn, you could see. She tried to give me the teddy bear. “I can’t take your teddy bear,” I said. “This is probably the only thing you’ve got left.” She spoke a little English. Her father had been killed in the war, in the bombing of Berlin, and she wanted to give it. I said, “Naw, you can’t do that.”

Her mother interceded. “This teddy bear, my daughter thinks it saved her life during the bombing of Berlin—in the air raid shelter or, if we didn’t have time, in the basement,” she said. “She had this teddy bear every time and held it tight. In Germany the teddy bear is like a talisman, for good luck. She’s convinced it saved her life, and she wants to give it to you.…You gotta do it.”

Do you still have the teddy bear?
Well, I gave it to three of my kids, and it came apart. I’ve got a newspaper picture of it.

How do you explain such strength of feeling?
Without hope, the soul dies. And that was so appropriate for the day. In our own neighborhoods people have lost hope, lost function because they have no outside source of inspiration. The airlift was a symbol that we were going to be there—service before self.

The Soviets made an offer: “We’ll give you fresh fruit, all you want, if you turn in your West Berlin [ration] card for our card.” Some capitulated, but not many. Why? Because of the integrity of people saying, “We’ve got to stay,” and the hope demonstrated by the food coming into Berlin. The strength food gave people was less important than the strength hope gave them—hope that someday they’d be free. Of course, it did end up causing the walls to come down.

Operation Little Vittles dropped more than 21 tons of candy during the airlift. How does that total strike you?
All from two sticks of gum in 1948—unbelievable!

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