#Gail Halvorsen
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So, I just finished watching a Christmas special that tells the story of Gail Halvorsen (and of course, it features the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and since my brain always goes to Klaine fanfiction, I wondered if @wowbright had heard of the story and thought of incorporating it into “Out of Eden.” A devout Mormon delivering candy at Christmas to German children during the Berlin airlift? It sounds right up the alley of Elder Hummel and Elder Anderson!
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A WWII and chocolate story I like is the Candy Bomber. After the war, a pilot organized a system of volunteers air-dropping donated candy to families in East Germany. It has to been so special for war torn and imprisoned children to get chocolates from the air.
They weren't imprisoned yet, but the metaphorical wall was there, soon to be replaced by a real one.
He died earlier this year
I love that he didn't want to tell his CO about what he was doing, because then they couldn't tell him to stop, then by the time they got word of it there was no way they were going to be able to stop him, or the other pilots involved in the unauthorized 'operation little vittles'
That right there is the face of a king among men.
Chocolate really makes a big difference.
Audrey Hepburn told the story of when the area she was in was liberated, soldier handed her some chocolate and then later on in the evening everyone gathered in the town square to watch a movie.
She mentions that it was a war movie, but nobody cared.
She remembered that chocolate till her dying day, that little bit of bonus kindness that sticks with you.
#anonymous#gail halvorsen#Berlin Candy Bomber#Uncle Wiggly Wings#not sure why I included the audrey hepburn bit#it does give a little more humanity to#this kind of thing#you're free the yanks are here#have some chocolate#pure america right there
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Gail Halvorsen-The candy bomber.
Gail Halvorsen-The candy bomber.
Shortly after a war it would be quite unnerving to see a bomber flying over your city.
However in West Berlin in 1948, this was a welcome sight. It probably was the equivalent of Santa delivering presents early. After World War 2, when Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin occupied West Berlin in 1948, Halvorsen participated in the Berlin Airlift, a joint military effort between America and the…
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The "Berlin Candy Bomber" Gail Halvorsen - 1948 - who dropped candy from his cargo plane to Berlin children during the Berlin Airlift as a gesture of goodwill and compassion.
Who else here immediately thought of Douglas Richardson?
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Retired COL Gail S. Halvorsen displays a parachute similar to the ones he used during the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), when he dropped candy from his aircraft to children in the blockaded city. June 23, 1988.
Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense
Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files
Image description: Colonel Halvorsen stands outside and smiles as he holds up a miniature parachute. In the background is a World War II-era military aircraft.
#archivesgov#June 23#1988#1980s#World War II#WWII#Operation Little Vittles#candy bomber#U.S. Air Force#military
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10 October 1920. Birth of USAF pilot Gail Halvorsen (d.16 February 2022). The "Rosinenbomber" or "Onkel Wackelflügel" (Uncle Wiggly Wings). Flying C-47s and C-54s during the Berlin airlift, he dropped sweets attached to parachutes to children to help raise their morale.
@ron_eisele via X
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Women in Arms: Breaking Down Barriers and Paving the Way for Equality
Women have been involved in warfare for centuries, yet their contributions have often been overlooked or minimized. In recent years, however, there has been a growing recognition of the important role that women play in military operations, and many countries around the world have begun to actively recruit and deploy women in arms.
One of the reasons why it is important to have women in arms is that it can help to improve the overall effectiveness and success of military operations. Women bring a unique perspective and skill set to the battlefield, which can help to broaden the range of strategies and approaches that are available to military leaders. In addition, women can often be more effective at engaging with local populations, particularly in cultures where there are strict gender norms and women are not allowed to interact with men outside of their families.
Another reason why it is important to have women in arms is that it can help to promote gender equality and empowerment. By breaking down traditional gender roles and expectations, women in arms can challenge gender stereotypes and pave the way for greater gender equality in society at large. In addition, women in arms can serve as role models and inspiration for other women, demonstrating that they are capable of succeeding in traditionally male-dominated fields.
Unfortunately, despite the benefits of having women in arms, there are still many challenges and barriers that women face when trying to enter the military. One of the biggest challenges is overcoming gender stereotypes and biases, which can make it difficult for women to be taken seriously and to advance in their careers. In addition, women in the military often face higher rates of sexual harassment and assault, which can be devastating to their physical and mental health, as well as their careers.
Despite these challenges, however, there are many women who have succeeded in the military and who continue to blaze a trail for future generations. One such woman is Brigadier General Tammy Smith, who became the first openly gay general officer in the US military in 2012. Another is Colonel Gail Halvorsen, who became known as the "Candy Bomber" during the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 for dropping candy to children in the war-torn city from his plane.
There are also many organizations and initiatives that are working to support and promote women in arms. The Women in International Security (WIIS) organization, for example, is dedicated to advancing the leadership and professional development of women in the field of international peace and security. The International Women's Forum (IWF), meanwhile, brings together women from different backgrounds and sectors to promote women's leadership and to create a more inclusive and equitable world.
In conclusion, women in arms have played a critical role in military operations throughout history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked or minimized. By promoting greater gender equality and empowerment, and by breaking down traditional gender roles and expectations, women in arms can challenge gender stereotypes and pave the way for a more inclusive and equitable society. While there are still many challenges and barriers that women face in the military, there are also many women who have succeeded and who continue to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.
To know more about a woman named Ginger and how she manages to her life as a secret agent, read Foley Western’s book series “Agent Ginger.”
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Events 9.22 (after 1940)
1941 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: On the Jewish New Year Day, the German SS murders 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. Those are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.
1948 – Gail Halvorsen officially starts parachuting candy to children as part of the Berlin Airlift.
1948 – Israeli-Palestine conflict: The All-Palestine Government is established by the Arab League.
1957 – In Haiti, François Duvalier is elected president.
1960 – The Sudanese Republic is renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation.
1965 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 between India and Pakistan over Kashmir ends after the United Nations calls for a ceasefire.
1966 – Twenty-four people are killed when Ansett-ANA Flight 149 crashes in Winton, Queensland, Australia.
1975 – Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by the Secret Service.
1979 – A bright flash, resembling the detonation of a nuclear weapon, is observed near the Prince Edward Islands. Its cause is never determined.
1980 – Iraq invades Iran, sparking the nearly eight year Iran–Iraq War.
1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time.
1993 – A barge strikes a railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama, causing the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak history. Forty-seven passengers are killed.
1993 – A Transair Georgian Airlines Tu-154 is shot down by a missile in Sukhumi, Georgia.
1995 – An E-3B AWACS crashes outside Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska after multiple bird strikes to two of the four engines soon after takeoff; all 24 on board are killed.
1995 – The Nagerkovil school bombing is carried out by the Sri Lanka Air Force in which at least 34 die, most of them ethnic Tamil schoolchildren.
2006 – Twenty-three people were killed in a maglev train collision in Lathen, Germany.
2013 – At least 75 people are killed in a suicide bombing at a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan.
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A Day of Two Anniversaries: 75th Berlin Airlift/60th “Ich bin ein Berliner” Speech
On a sunny June evening, the John-F.-Kennedy-Platz in front of Berlin’s Schöneberg City Hall set the scene for a celebration of two significant anniversaries in Germany’s post-war history.
The flags of France, the UK and the US were flying in honour of the three Allied powers who occupied Berlin after World War II. Tents with benches underneath were fringed in matching white, red and blue bunting.
And underneath the flags of the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023 and of Ukraine, a stage was set up with musical instruments, an antique carved wooden podium, and a VIP area in front that seated about 180 special guests.
The massive steps of the City Hall were at first deserted except for a blue, white and red flower arrangement underneath two tarnished memorial plaques. Above it, the balcony.
Photograph: Scene in front of the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. Photo: Edith Haimberger. Public domain.
After 5 p.m., guests trickled into the VIP area to be served water and Bouvet sparkling wine. Locals had gathered in greater numbers, standing and sitting in the square. A small wedding party drifted by from the registry office at the far side of the City Hall. And the US Air Forces in Europe Jazz-Band from Ramstein began playing jazz and swing music.
🎶 The Stars and Stripes Forever 🎶
🎶 A Tisket A Tasket 🎶
🎶 Straighten Up and Fly Right 🎶
🎶 Sing, Sing, Sing 🎶
In the VIP section, former and current city officials, as well as members of Germany’s Bundestag, took their seats.
Berlin’s current mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) was joined by predecessors Franziska Giffey (SPD; she is also Wegner’s governing coalition partner), Michael Müller (SPD), and Eberhard Diepgen (CDU).
Diplomats from Austria, France, Ukraine, the UK, and the US joined them.
Jörn Oltmann, district mayor of Berlin-Tempelhof-Schöneberg, greeted everyone in his opening speech. He paid tribute to the 87 people who died in the Berlin Airlift that began 75 years ago, delivering supplies to the half of the city that had just been cut off by the Soviet government’s land blockade.
The Berliners in the audience applauded warmly when Oltmann mentioned Gail Halvorsen. In the Airlift, Halvorsen was the US Air Force colonel who pioneered the ‘Rosinenbomber’ drops of chocolate, gum, and other candy for Berlin’s children.
It’s also the 60th anniversary of the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech that John F. Kennedy held at the City Hall.
Oltmann said of the President, “You are still a Berliner in the hearts of the people of our city.”
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address (1961)
Mayor Kai Wegner took the stage next. [Two or three people booed. So perhaps he was being ironical when he said “Vielen Dank für die freundliche Begrüßung” (’Thank you very much for the friendly welcome.’).]
Wegner himself is too young to have been an eyewitness. Yet his father joined the almost 500,000 people who gathered before the City Hall to hear President John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963. It was a troubled time, but Kennedy’s words inspired.
“Mein Vater verließ diesen Platz voller Hoffnung.” (’My father left this [City Hall] square full of hope.’)
Wegner’s conclusion: “feiern wir jeden Tag die Freiheit in unserer Stadt” (’Let us celebrate the freedom in our city every day.’)
Photograph: U.S. Ambassador Amy Gutmann speaking at the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann signed the guest book of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. She received a small sculpture from district mayor Jörn Oltmann, as the US Air Forces in Europe Jazz-Band from Ramstein played another song.
In her speech, Ambassador Gutmann recalled the nerve-wracking, high stakes of the Cold War era with its bristling arsenals of nuclear weapons.
Like the other politicians on the stage, she seemed to be putting herself in the shoes of Kennedy and imagining what it was like to navigate the era as a statesman. Certainly Kennedy gracefully managed to conduct himself as a “global citizen,” in her phrase.
Thanking Berliners for “opening their homes and their hearts to victims of war.” she was likely referring to over 200,000 Ukrainian refugees passing through the city since early 2022.
Referring again to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, she said that today: “’Wir sind Ukrainer.’” (’We are Ukrainians.’)
Caroline Kennedy, the sister of John F. Kennedy who is serving as US Ambassador to Australia, spoke in a pre-recorded video message. She translated the “Ich bin ein Berliner” message for the present day to “Slava Ukraini.”
Finally Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics and nephew of Caroline Kennedy, took the stage.
Lightening the mood and radiating charm to which the crowd responded enthusiastically, he reminisced about his experiences at the time when his uncle Kennedy visited West Berlin.
His mother Eunice had organized a “Camp Shriver” back in the United States, inviting children with intellectual disabilities. Three-year-old Timothy was playing amongst them; his only responsibility was ‘to have fun.’
But Shriver noted that while the Berlin Wall divided sibling from sibling, children from parent, etc., families were separated for more than one reason in the 1960s.
Children with intellectual disabilities might be secluded from the family home, and from their communities, behind the walls of institutions.
The Kennedy family’s own experiences with institutionalization inspired Eunice to organize the Special Olympics.
In the meantime, the Berlin Wall has fallen. “The world can change.” But people with disabilities still face barriers when they participate in schools and in the workplace.
Photograph: Scene in front of the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. Trees belonging to the Rudolph-Wilde-Park. Photo: Edith Haimberger. Public domain.
***
Recollections of then-mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt (d. 1992), after President Kennedy’s speech
“In der Geschichte Berlins war solch ehrlicher Jubel noch keinem Gast zuteil geworden.”
“Den Augenblick vor der Kundgebung, da er lachend in meinem Amtszimmer die berühmten vier Worte -- ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ -- einübte, werde ich nie vergessen.”
“Den Dokumentarfilm über seinen Berlin-Besuch hat er sich wiederholt vorführen lassen; so erzählte es mir seine Witwe am Abend nach der Beerdigung.”
(Willy Brandt. Erinnerungen. Berlin: Ullstein, 2014)
(’In the history of Berlin, such honest rejoicing had not been shown to any other guest.’ ... ‘The moment before the speech, in which he laughingly rehearsed the famous four words ‘I am a Berliner!’ in my mayor’s office, I will never forget.’ ... ‘He asked several times to be shown the documentary film about his Berlin visit; that is what I was told by his widow on the evening after the burial.’)
Photograph of John F. Kennedy at the Schöneberg City Hall on June 26, 1963, by Cecil Stoughton. Credit: White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
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//A PBS Documentary on one of Salem’s heroes—Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber of the Berlin Airlift, a fellow I got to meet with my family and shake his hand this weekend.
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#¢::cinematicspooks::¢#candy bomber#salem’s heroes#Gail Halvorsen#//My eldest aunt’s husband was one of the children Uncle Wigglywings dropped chocolate to#//It was a very special event#history#ww2#wwII#//Also i have determined that while Stanley would actually be unfit for service bc of Shyce#//Salem wouldn’t and might probably be medical or air force (or both) after hearing about Gail from between the worlds
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R.I.P. Thank you for your service, Captain Candy.
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Thank you for your service, enjoy your rest now
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This is too cute. He would rock his plane back and forth to let children know which plane was going to drop candy.
#uncle wiggly wings#wholesome sunday#wholesome history#airdrop#candy#Gail Halvorsen#berlin#berlin airlift
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Never forget the Berlin Candy Bomber
Also known as Uncle Wiggly Wings
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On February 16, 2022 the world lost a hero when Col. Gail "Hal" Halvorsen passed away at the age of 101. This famous American pilot was never known as a great war hero of the sky, but was recognized for something greater... kindness.
When the Soviets launched their blockade of Berlin in 1948, Halvorsen participated in the joint U.S.-U.K. effort known as the Berlin Airlift. For almost a year, pilots delivered food and fuel to Berlin airfields from Allied bases in western Germany.
After meeting a group of German children, Halvorsen gave them two sticks of gum and vowed to deliver enough for everyone. He instructed the children that he'd wiggle the wings of his C-54 Skymaster when delivering more candy.
As Halvorsen continued aerial deliveries of candy, the number of children grew. Soon additional airmen joined in the effort of dropping candy wrapped in small parachutes. Halvorsen became known by many names... Uncle Wiggly Wings, Candy Bomber, and Chocolate Flyer.
In a world devastated by war, a little kindness, candy, and a smile from a friendly pilot was exactly what was needed.
RIP Col. Gail "Hal" Halvorsen
#my writing#berlin airlift#RIP Gail Halvorsen#avgeek#aviation#aviation history#history#vintage#airplane#cold war#pilots
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