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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: The Candy Bomber of Berlin
Description: Operation Little Vittles" - an initiative during the Berlin Airlift to drop Allied sweets and chocolates from planes as a gift to the German children below - began on September 22, 1948.
Lt. Gail Halvorsen, a 27-year-old U.S. pilot, had been moved to the gesture by a group of children he encountered one day near Tempelhof airport. After seeing their eagerness to share even the most meagre of resources, he decided to drop sweets for them during his next flight, signalling his arrival by waggling his plane’s wings. The drop soon became a weekly ev...