The end of World War II created an atmosphere of mistrust and competition for territorial and doctrinal ascendancy amongst the two Allied superpowers, Russia and the USA. This era is called the Cold War which lasted from 1945 to 1989.
Berlin remained a frequent hot spot of this war after the fall of Nazi Germany in May 1945. The victorious Allied powers divided the country into four zones. These zones were controlled by four Power Allied Control Council. The capital of Germany was similarly divided into four sectors. Berlin, under the Allied control, was now like an island, surrounded all round by the Russian occupied East Germany. It thus depended entirely on the Russian goodwill for its sustenance and for its logistics.
On January 1, 1947, the British and American zones of West Germany were merged into a single economic zone to be administered under Allied supervision by 52 elected German citizens. The Russians vehemently opposed this step as they considered it as the beginning of an independent West Germany. Six months later, the US, Britain and France agreed to a plan of creating a West German State with limited autonomy. The major step taken was to introduce currency reforms in the western merged zones. On June 18, 1948, Deutche Mark was introduced in American, British and French zones. It restored people’s confidence in money as a medium of exchange rather than the barter which had been prevalent after the war.
Currency reforms hit the Russians sensitivity the most and their retaliation came severe and soon. Their target was the isolated city of West Berlin. To Russia, the unilateral bipartite action of the US and Britain was in breach of Yalta Accord and existing Allied Agreements for administering German zones. After these events the Control Council did not meet normally again until after 42 years when the Berlin wall fell! The Soviets were forced to embark upon a policy of turning out these powers from Berlin in order to liquidate this anti-Soviet post situated on their side of the iron curtain!
On 21st March 1948, the Russians demanded the right to board the Allied Berlin bound trains coming from the West. The telephone links for West Berlin were severed and there were power cuts as well. On the 16th June, a long and final meeting of City Control Council was held at which the Russian member walked out never to return. Two days later the Western Allies introduced the new currency in West Berlin also. On the same day, the Russians turned back all east-bound surface traffic from West Germany into their zone of occupation. The water borne traffic to West Berlin was also stopped. The Russians had this way planned the use of mass blockade to coerce the Western powers to abandon their post in West Berlin. Border guards all along the eastern line were increased. Berlin was under siege now. The risk of war over the blockaded West Berlin had tremendously increased. But the West was very careful in not to be hastened into retaliatory measures as they had inadequate resources.
This left the Allies with the only choice to “jump” over the Berlin blockade and supply Berlin by air. The air transports could have been interrupted by Russian fighter planes. But this would have been an act of war which Soviets could also not embark upon due to pre-programmed nuclear targeting of Russian industrial centres and cities in such a case.
On 26 June 1948, the US Air Force in Europe was ordered to start airlifts to Berlin. The food supply needs of Berlin was 4500 tons per day. On the first day of airlift, the C-47 air crafts, the only available transports, carried 80-tons of milk, flour and medicine to the stricken zone. The largest airlift of fuel, raw material and consumer goods had now started.
To run this enterprise, General William H. Turner of USAF was recalled. He was the most experienced leader in this field who had kept the US forces supplied in China behind Japanese lines by air hops over the Himalayas from bases in British India. The guiding principles General Turner laid down for the operators of the logistics mission changed it from a haphazard operation in the beginning to one of the most efficiently measured in term of quick turn round of aircrafts and continuous build up of stock piles at Berlin.
The first principle was that the aircrafts would fly at three-minutes interval round the clock. The second was that if an aeroplane could not land at first attempt at a Berlin airfield, it would fly back to the West. The third step was that all multinational aircrafts would be flown under one set of rules. The fourth rule was that the pilots would not be allowed to leave their aircrafts at Berlin and would take off for return passage as soon as the plane had been unloaded.
Three air corridors of 20 miles width had been allowed for the Allied flights into Berlin. The air corridors were always abuzz with Yak Fighters of the USSR Air Force to harass the mercy flights. For protection of the flights under constant Russian threat on diplomatic and military fronts, the Allies placed 60 B-29 bombers in Germany and UK. Sixteen F-80 Shooting Stars (fighter planes) reached Greenland in mid July, bound for Germany just in case the Russians interfered with or stopped the Berlin flights.
By the spring, 400 aircrafts of all sorts were shuttling between US and British zones and West Berlin. Six extra airfields had been built in the British zone. One plane every three minutes was now landing in Berlin. At the peak of the airlift, this frequency had risen to one plane every 30 second and 8000 tons of deliveries per day!
During 13 months of the airlift, 500,000 sorties were flown bringing half a million tons in light weight food supplies and 1.5 million tons of coal. On return passages nearly 175,000 Berliners, mostly old people and children, were airlifted to the West!
Although so much was being supplied, the war ravaged and besieged citizens were still living on rationed supplies and on frugality. The blockade could not break their spirit just as it could not impede the will of the West to sustain this free outpost in the Communist wilderness. The Soviets, seeing such a firmness and perseverance, threw in the towel towards May 1949 and ended 328 days of blockade. The US and British announced phase out of the airlifts by October 31, 1949. Thus the biggest humanitarian airlift to keep a city of two million sustained ended in which 48 American and British airmen lost their lives in accidents.
