Gail S. Halvorsen, the Berlin Candy Bomber, dies at 101
In 1948, when he was a young U.S. Air Force pilot
ferrying humanitarian aid in the Berlin airlift, Gail Halvorsen
encountered a group of German children standing by the runway at
Tempelhof Airport.
As the kids peppered him with questions, he reached in
his pocket and found two sticks of gum, which he broke into pieces and
passed around the crowd. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Looking at the
faces of all the kids who had been left out, he had a brainstorm.
Tomorrow when he flew in his load of cargo, he promised the children, he
would drop small handkerchief parachutes filled with candy and gum on
his approach.
“How will we know it’s you?” they asked.
“I’ll wiggle my wings,” said Halvorsen.
The legend of the Berlin Candy Bomber was born.
Gail S. “Hal” Halvorsen died Wednesday night at Utah Valley Hospital in Provo after a brief illness, according to the Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation Education Foundation. He was 101.
Halvorsen leaves behind a legacy of giving and generosity that goes far
beyond the 21 tons of candy he and his fellow pilots collectively
dropped to the children of Berlin in 1948 and 1949. Spurred by that
event, he continued to participate in humanitarian causes throughout his
life, including candy and toy drops across America and countries around
the world. He took part in relief efforts in Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo,
Japan, Guam, Iraq and the Micronesian islands
He steadfastly attributed his lifetime of service to “those two sticks of gum.”
A Utah native, Halvorsen was born Oct. 10, 1920, in the
farm town of Garland in northern Utah. Growing up during the Great
Depression in the 1930s, he worked in his father’s fields, hoeing sugar
beets while gazing skyward every time the commercial airplane flew
overhead on its route between Salt Lake City and Malad, Idaho.
Mesmerized, the teenager daydreamed about what it would feel like to
fly.
When he was 19, his dream materialized when he won a
scholarship from what is now the Federal Aviation Administration to
study for, and receive, a pilot’s license at the Brigham City airport.
Two years later, in May of 1942, five months after the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor and America entered World War II, Halvorsen joined the
United States Army Air Corps as an aviator. During the war he flew C-54
cargo planes in the South Atlantic, stationed in Natal, Brazil.
After the war ended in 1945, Halvorsen remained in the
service, choosing to make the U.S. Air Force (the Army Air Corps’
successor) his career. His proficiency flying the C-54 resulted in his
being assigned to the yearlong Berlin airlift that began in July of 1948
in a divided Germany. Halvorsen was one of dozens of pilots assigned to
transport food, clothing and other necessities from air bases in West
Germany to citizens living in the western sector of Berlin who had been
cut off from outside support by the Soviet Union, the overseer of East
Germany.
At first, Halvorsen made his candy drops surreptitiously,
not sure if his extracurricular missions of mercy would be officially
allowed. But when his commanders learned of what he was doing, he was
not only encouraged, but given official approval. The effort was called
“Operation Little Vittles,” to differentiate it from the name given to
the overall Berlin airlift of “Operation Vittles.”
When news of the Berlin Candy Bomber filtered back to
America, the story met with considerable interest and attention.
Halvorsen and his squadmates were flooded with cards and letters of
support. National candy companies contributed candy and other
confections that were collected in Massachusetts and sent to Germany.
Following his duties with the airlift, Halvorsen obtained
his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering from
the Air Force Institute of Technology and worked in research and
development at various bases in the U.S. and abroad from 1952 to 1970.
At that point the U.S. Air Force assigned him to be
commander of Tempelhof Central Airport in Berlin — a place Halvorsen
knew well. He spent four years in Berlin, where he was reunited with
many of the kids (now adults) he once dropped candy to, before retiring
from the service in 1974.
In 1976 he returned to Utah and became assistant dean of
student life at Brigham Young University, a position he held until he
retired from academia in 1986.
Halvorsen married fellow Utahn Alta Jolley in 1949 and
together they had five children. Alta died in 1999, just months short of
their 50th wedding anniversary. Later, Halvorsen married Lorraine Pace.
So-called retirement did not slow Halvorsen down a step.
After he left BYU he worked on his farm in Spanish Fork and concentrated
on the myriad opportunities afforded him as a result of “those two
sticks of gum.”
In and around missions he and Alta served for The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England and Russia, he
participated in any number of candy drops and candy drop reenactments.
In 2002, author Margot Raven published “Mercedes and the
Chocolate Pilot,” based on Halvorsen’s relationship with one of the
German girls who caught candy he dropped during the airlift. The book
was used in elementary school classrooms across America to educate
students about the Cold War. As often as he could, Halvorsen would
comply with requests to come to schools and let the children hear
stories from the Berlin Candy Bomber himself.
In 1998, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
Berlin Airlift, Halvorsen took part in a 69-day tour sponsored by the
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation that crisscrossed Europe and the
U.K. in a vintage C-54 cargo plane.
For his accomplishments at improving American-German
relations and inspiring countless others to humanitarian service,
Halvorsen received numerous honors and awards. The U.S. Air Force
bestowed on him its Cheney Award, for outstanding humanitarian work, and
its Legion of Merit, for exceptional meritorious conduct, while also
creating the Col. Gail Halvorsen Award, for outstanding air
transportation support.
In addition, the Air Force named the Halvorsen Loader (an
aircraft loading device) and the Halvorsen C-17 Aircrew Training Center
in Charleston, S.C., after him. In Germany, the Gail S. Halvorsen
School in Berlin and the Gail S. Halvorsen Elementary School at
Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt bear his name.
The German government awarded Halvorsen its Service Cross to the Order of Merit, bestowed upon him in 1974.
In 2001 Halvorsen was inducted into the Utah Aviation
Hall of Fame. In 2014 he received the Congressional Gold Medal, the
highest award the U.S. Congress can give to a civilian. In 2015 the FAA
chose him to receive its Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. In 2017 the
Utah Legislature passed a resolution honoring Halvorsen for “unselfish
acts that brought honor to himself, his family, the United States
military, the citizens of the state of Utah, and the citizens of the
United States.”
In 2012, shortly after he turned 92, the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir (now the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square) adopted
Halvorsen’s candy bomber story as the theme for its Christmas concert,
“Christmas From Heaven,” which was narrated by Tom Brokaw and later
turned into a book. A number of other books have been written about the
Berlin candy drop, including Halvorsen’s own quasi-autobiography, “The
Berlin Candy Bomber,” first published in 2010.
“In man’s search for fulfillment and happiness, material
rewards pale compared to the importance of gratitude, integrity and
service before self,” Halvorsen wrote on his website before his death.
“Service to others before self … is the only true recipe by which full
fulfillment may be attained in this life. It is one of the core values
of the United States Air Force. Today the Air Mobility Command, in the
Airlift tradition, launches a mission of mercy every 90 seconds
somewhere around the world. The American flag on the aircraft tail is the symbol of hope to those in deep despair from whatever the source of oppression.”
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