The Candy Bombers of W.W. II

                                             The Candy Bombers of W.W. II

The River Main (mine) divides the city of Frankfort, Germany. Unlike most older cities in Europe, Frankfurt’s downtown area now glistens with the shining glass of new office towers. The European Central bank and the German Federal bank are both headquartered here. Locals say with humor that the new name of the city is “Main Hattan.” The reason such glittering splendor now adorn the landscape is that during World War II, over eighty percent of Frankfurt had been leveled by allied bombers attempting to destroy the ball bearing factories that kept the Nazi war machine rolling. Little was left from the previous thousand years of its history. Now it has risen again as a shining, urban Phoenix.

         Just outside Frankfort, we were to come across a touching vignette involving these same bombers that had rained destruction on the city. In July of 1948, The Russians had shut off access to Berlin, to all of the allied powers, hoping to starve the city into submission. For fifteen months, of the Berlin Airlift, elements of the U.S. 8^th Air Force and its allies flew millions of tons of coal, food and supplies, using converted bombers, into Berlin’s Templehof Airport. The Russians relented after fifteen months. During those weary months, allied planes landed every twenty minutes, disgorged their supplies and took off again in all types of weather, a relief effort perhaps unparalleled in modern history.

In the narrow confines of the approach to Berlin’s Templehof Airport, the pilots flew over what was left of many residential areas. The young children waved to them, curious at the distraction. One enterprising pilot, Col Chuck Halverston, started throwing chocolate bar from the side windows of the D.C. 3’s to the children below. That was all it took. There after there was always a crowd of squealing children chasing after the falling candy. They started calling the fliers “Der Candybombers” and “Der chocolate bombers.” One of the young girls wrote a letter to the high command of the U.S. Air force, praising the fliers for their generosity. The letter survived the war. Fifty years later, the now aging recipient of the “candy Bombers” met with several of the “Der Chocolate Bombers” at a happy reunion in Berlin. And now, just outside of Frankfurt, there are two D.C. 3’s parked as a memorial to these warm-hearted “Candy Bombers.”

                                                            -30-

                                                     (403 words)

                                           Joseph Xavier Martin