Word: airlifts
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...Russians were clearly eager to end the Berlin blockade. The fact that the bold, persistent Berlin airlift-and Berliners' dogged courage-had brought them to this point was a notable cold war victory for the West. But there was far more than that behind the Moscow statement...
...secret orders to U.S. and British airlift pilots was to top their own previous record (8,246 tons in 24 hours) and fly at least 10,000 tons of food, coal and other supplies into Berlin in one day. The crews flew as they had never flown before. The four-engined C-545 and twin-engined R.A.F. Dakotas roared into Tempelhof, Tegel and Gatow airfields at the rate of one a minute. Twenty-four hours and 1,398 trips later, they paused to tot up the score. They had gone way over the top, had flown in 12,940 tons...
...planes streaked across the sunny sky over Berlin, a Soviet officer at the Air Safety Center, charged with keeping track of the Western planes, complained bitterly : "You move around so fast I can't keep my records straight." Airlift Commander Major General William Tunner got a breezy example of his men in action. When he asked one airlift pilot at Tempelhof for a ride back to his headquarters at Wiesbaden, the pilot glanced at the general's regulation pilot's jacket which hid his rank and shouted: "You'll have to shake your tail...
...move cheered most Berliners. It proved once more that the West was in Berlin to stay. Announcing that the airlift would be stepped up once more, the U.S. commander, Brigadier General Frank Howley, declared last Sunday: "Tomorrow is the first day of spring. Neither the Soviet blockade at the Elbe nor winter's ice or snow have kept food, medical aid and coal from coming into the city. Attempts to scare the population have failed ... It must be clear even to the densest and most ill-willed Communists that their tactics are not succeeding...
...road back. The Department of the Army will ticket it for Wiesbaden, in the U.S. zone, but it will not go back to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin-at least not for the present. This is not so much because of the difficulty of shipping art by the airlift as because the Army still holds the paintings "in trust for the German people." As matters now stand, Berlin is a poor place to lodge such a trust...