Word: airlift
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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While bossing the Berlin airlift, Major General William H. Tunner -often thought of what the ideal military cargo plane should be like. Last week, at an "Air Cargo Day" meeting in Manhattan's Hotel Statler, he described it. It should have four engines and be able to carry 50,000 Ibs. of cargo on a 3,000-mile flight at 250 m.p.h. It should be able to fly at 20,000 ft., land on a 6,000-ft. runway. Engines and equipment should be designed for easy repair and cargo doors should be wide enough...
...Western sector of Berlin on a summer morning of 1948, General Lucius Clay cast the die: "We will stay in this city." Clay's fighting faith mounted into the thunder of the airlift. And with their will, Berlin's people tipped the scales of decision; the Russians lifted the blockade when they realized that Berliners would not be intimated...
...Balance Your Budget." Today the memories of the struggle dissolve into melancholy. In the fifth month of the post-blockade "peace," Berlin is a city deserted by power, prosperity and purpose. At Tempelhof airport, where 15 big airlift transports landed every hour night & day, a few senile C-47s snooze in the autumn sunlight. On the grass between the runways, once jammed with quartermaster trucks and mobile canteens for hungry flyers, there sit stacks...
...dropped down onto Berlin's Tempelhof field, turned off the runway and swung around in the wake of the yellow jeep with the big red-lighted sign: "Follow me." At the unloading stand, its crew climbed down and workmen began unloading its cargo of coal. The Berlin airlift had ended...
Operating day & night for more than 15 months, in fair weather and foul, U.S; and British pilots had flown 277,264 trips, shuttled 2,343,301 ½ tons of fuel and food into the old German capital. The airlift had taken the lives of 31 U.S. airmen, 39 British and seven German civilians. By the time it finally shut down last week most of the original airmen had long since been transferred home, crammed with the invaluable lessons of the largest air freight operation in history...