Intern Heather Shares A History Lesson

Hey y’all!  I am writing today to shed light on a different part of our history.  Everyone is talking about what passed through the Supreme Court on June 26.  Some think its bad and others find it a good thing.  However, that is all I will be mentioning about the new piece of history-to-be for the 26th of June.  I want to talk about a different historical event, which saved millions of lives, that occurred on June 26th.

In June 1948, Josef Stalin tried to combine the control of Berlin by severing all routes, by land and sea, to West Berlin.  He had hoped this maneuver would make the Allies evacuate that area.  That is when the isolation began.

On June 26, 1948, the news headline read, ‘U.S. begins Berlin Airlift.’   U.S. and British airplanes sent supplies to Berlin, that were crucial to their survival.  The city’s 2 million people had been isolated with no food or means of staying warm, since June 24, due to a Soviet Union blockade.

US President Harry S. Truman did not respond aggressively to Stalin’s strategy for fear of causing another world war.  Instead, General Lucius D. Clay, American-appointed military governor of Germany, was put in control of a huge airlift operation, “Operation Vittles.” The operation’s planes would take off from England and western Germany. The first planes to leave, on June 26, were loaded with food, clothing, water, medicine and fuel.

On July 15, there was a daily average of 2,500 tons of supplies being transferred into the city.  Planes flew in around the clock.  Pilots often flew planes in disrepair for multiple round trips in a single day.

It wasn’t until May 1949, that the Soviets lifted the blockade.  However, the die Luftbruke, German for “the air bridge,” remained in operation until September 1949.  In that 15 month period, more than 1.5 million tons of supplies were delivered, costing more than $224 million.