Berlin Airlift

Russian dictator Joseph Stalin chose the night of June 23, 1948 to make good his threat to cut overland supply lines to West Berlin. He wanted to vent his frustration at refusal by the western allied powers to accept East Berlin as the capital of a communist puppet regime and at introduction of the Deutsche Mark in West Berlin. For nearly one year to come, the needs of West Berlin would be supplied by airlift on a scale never seen before.

Operation Vittles, a round-the-clock airborne shuttle from U.S. airbases outside Frankfurt at Rhein Main and nearby Wiesbaden, Germany, supplied food, fuel, and occasionally candy to the beleaguered city and its children.