The Candy Bombers

Orange Anchor

New Member
Just finished the Candy Bombers and it is a highly recommended read. Chocked full of details, it is about the Berlin Airlift and how the US responded to a very aggressive Russia; about how the allies vacillated at times; about how the occupation of Berlin was a hot topic with much of the glitterati on the wrong side of the debate (we have no business being there.. let's leave!), about how the press played the various events.

In '48, the US had shrunk from its WWII size as a behemoth of a rather enfeebled nation militarily. Where it once had more than 50,000 airplanes, in '48 there were less than 300 airplanes in all of Europe. The thousand plane raids were already a distant past. Russia had 16 divisions poised near Germany. The US had 3.

Whereas 3 yrs earlier, the US pilots were dropping bombs on Berlin, now they were carrying food and coal to former enemies. Whereas Berlin had once been a beautiful city, it had been razed by some of the very pilots now flying into Berlin. There was anger and resentment on both sides.

It was only when 1 person, a flier, noticed the kids at the end of the runway on approach and dropped a few candy bars that the lift began to take on a different tone and image.

It is well worth the reading and contemplation of America then and America now. A direct response to an unmistakable challenge from Russia.
 
I'd also recommend, if you want some background context, that you watch the 1961 film "Judgment At Nuremburg." The film works within the political landscape of escalating US-USSR tensions immediately following the war, and gives you some background on events leading up to the Berlin Airlift.

It's also a really good movie, if a bit long. Stars Maximilian Schell, William Shatner (a very, very young Shatner) Burt Lancaster and a few others. Very good flick.
 
I'd also recommend, if you want some background context, that you watch the 1961 film "Judgment At Nuremburg."

It's also a really good movie, if a bit long. Stars Maximilian Schell, William Shatner (a very, very young Shatner) Burt Lancaster and a few others. Very good flick.


Excellent movie. Tracy as judge is remarkable. Oddly enough (or with some irony), Werner Klemperer is there also albeit it without "Schultz".

Hate to say it but so few really great movies now.. mostly bam-smash-kill-blow things up, scene 2 see scene 1, etc. ???
 
Just finished the Candy Bombers and it is a highly recommended read.
I'll join in the recommendation.

The book puts a special part of the Greatest Generation in a historical context that ties it to much that is great about America and to the close nature of American-European relations for the balance of the 20th century.

(Heck, it was so well done I almost felt sorry for the occupied Germans.)
 
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