The Berlin Airlift - The Cold War Mission to Save a City

[Music] Berlin May 1945 the city in ruins the Red Army had taken the capital of Hitler's Germany in a massive battle district-by-district street by street room by bloody room at the end they raised their red banner atop the shattered Reichstag half of Germany now lay under Stalin's hand with the western portions occupied by the Americans British and French from the 17th of July to the 2nd of August 1945 while war still raged against Japan the victorious Allies met at Potsdam near Berlin to decide Germany's post-war fate Germany was divided into four occupation zones British American French and Soviet though Berlin was 100 miles or 160 kilometers within the Soviet zone it too was divided into four allied zones of occupation in the eastern Soviet zone Stalin forcibly unified the German Communist Party with the Social Democratic Party to create the puppet socialist Unity Party or sed the sed apparently spontaneously called for the establishment of an anti-fascist Democratic Republic while the Soviets assets stripped their zone of occupation of factories technicians and wealth as war reparations for World War two Stalin was confident that he could undermine the British and American presence in Berlin and eventually occupy the entire city access to West Berlin was complicated road and rail access existed but only Soviet goodwill kept these routes open there were also 3 air corridors to fly to Berlin from Hamburg luka borg and frankfurt within the city there were at this time no barriers between the different occupation sectors the Berlin Wall was to come much later under the Potsdam agreement Western Allied Armed Forces personnel and citizens could freely enter East Berlin and Soviet troops could enter West Berlin Berlin became a focal point of the Cold War the still heavily damaged city only had a population of just 2.8 million people in a city that in 1939 had numbered 4.3 million many Germans in the East were hostile to the Soviet occupiers in free elections held in 1946 Berliners voted overwhelmingly for non communists to sit on the city government in January 1947 the British and American zones were economically unified the French joining the following year it was a first step towards a future West German state in 1948 the London debt agreement had concluded reducing West Germany's payments by 50 percent aiding economic recovery also the Marshall aid plan was extended to the Western Allied occupation zones and a system of federal government put in place the Soviets reacted by walking out of talks with the other powers and restricting Western military and passenger traffic from the Western occupation zones to Berlin every truck and train leaving Berlin was also searched by Soviet authorities the u.s. commander general blue CST clay ordered a halt to all military trains and ordered all military supplies brought into West Berlin by air to circumvent the Soviet restrictions although the Soviets ease their road and rail restrictions the Americans continued to supply themselves in Berlin by air for 75 days 20 flights a day building up food stockpiles and other supplies after 75 days general clay had amassed an 18 days supply of food for the military which were come in very handy quite soon the Soviets changed tactics and started using aircraft to buzz West Berlin particularly flights in and out of the airport's tragedy occurred on the 5th of April 1948 when a so V yak-3 fighter collided with a British European Airways vickers viking 1b airliner an raf guitar killing all aboard both planes in June the US Britain and France introduced a new currency for their zones the Deutsche Mark the Soviets refused to recognize it in East Berlin but it was to be used in all four sectors of the city unofficially Stalin decided to force the issue of Berlin once and for all the day after the introduction of the deutsche mark Soviet forces halted all traffic from West Germany to West Berlin the Soviet propaganda machine went into overdrive against the West rumors spread that the Soviets would take over West Berlin by force German communist rioted and blockaded Crowe West German officials from attending meetings in East Berlin on the 24th of June the Soviets cut all land and water connections to West Berlin in response the US and Britain stopped all rail traffic to East Germany over time drying up vital steel and coal imports retarding these German economy on the 25th of June the Soviets stopped all food supplies into West Berlin West Berlin relied on power generated by plants in the Soviet zone and electricity was also cut off the only way in and out of West Berlin remained the three air corridors when the blockade began West Berlin had 36 days worth of food and 45 days of coal for heating and so on the much reduced post-war Allied armies were heavily outnumbered the Berlin garrison numbered 8,000 973 Americans seven thousand six hundred and six British and six thousand one hundred French in all of West Germany the US had only 98 thousand troops with one reserve division available in the States Soviet military forces surrounding Berlin numbered one and a half million men in 1948 Western defense rested on atomic bombs with the US only had Fatman type nuclear bombs just 35 atomic capable b-29 Superfortresses were available to deliver these bombs worldwide none of the b-29s then stationed in Europe in 1948 were nuclear capable the first ones only arrived in April 1949 Stalin felt sure the US and Britain would not want to go to war over West Berlin the general clay in Berlin felt the Soviets were bluffing trying to obtain political concessions when ultimately unwilling to provoke World War 3 it was the first really big test in the Cold War unlike the ground routes to Berlin the three air corridors had been agreed to in writing by the USSR each route was 20 miles wide unarmed aircraft would be used to supply West Berlin the u.s. believed the Soviets would not shoot down unarmed humanitarian aircraft but it was an horrendous task preventing starvation on a vast scale general clay consulted general Curtis LeMay commander of US air forces in Europe to see if such an airlift was even feasible LeMay thought so but general clay also wanted to enlist the help of the British the RAF was already running a small-scale airlift to the British garrison in Berlin in April 1948 British air Commodore Reginald Waite calculates precisely what would have to be brought into West Berlin daily to support the population he based his calculations on a minimum daily ration of 1990 calories per adult each day West Berlin would need 646 tons of wheat and flour 125 tons of cereal 64 tons of fat 109 tons of meat and fish a hundred and eighty tons of dehydrated potatoes a hundred and eighty tons of sugar eleven tons of coffee 19 tons of powered milk five tons of whole milk four children three tons of fresh yeast for baking 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese in total 1534 tons of foodstuffs would have to be flown in daily to support around 2 million people but worse was to follow in order to supply power and heating another three thousand four hundred and seventy-five tons of coal diesel and petrol would have to be flown in daily the grand total five thousand and nine tons each day seven days a week where there even enough aircraft to carry such a tonnage the US had ninety-six c-47 skytrains or Dakotas in Europe each capable of carrying three and a half tons per flight general LeMay estimated that running these planes at maximum service making a hundred plus trips a day they could deliver about four hundred tons the RAF reported it could also deliver 400 tons daily far short of what was required the RAF could expand quickly flying in fresh aircraft from England the British fleet included 150 dakotas and for T larger Avro York's the latter with a 10 ton payload the British could now deliver around 750 tons a day the US needed more aircraft they needed the biggest aircraft that could still land safely at Berlin's airports the answer was the c-54 skymaster the US had 565 around the world planners calculated they could amass 447 for the Berlin operation on the 24th of June 1948 general LeMay appointed Brigadier General Joseph Smith has provisional task force commander operation vittles the Berlin Airlift began on the 26th of June 32 c-47s flew in 80 tons the first RAF lift was on the 28th of June by July c-54s were arriving in numbers the Americans and British used separate air corridors into West Berlin and a separate command system British short sundaland flying boats also joined in landing on the Havel River near got all aircraft took off every four minutes flying in patterns on a loop into West Berlin and back to their bases in West Germany by the second week the airlift was managing a thousand tons a day still too little for the Allied effort was disorganized with controllers having no experience of staging air lifts with inefficient use of aircraft and crews Major General William H Tanner who had led the hump airlift over the Himalayas in World War two to supply nationalist China from India was brought in to take over he unified the US and RAF operations under a single command 126 c-54s were utilized with three crews per aircraft to keep them going round-the-clock new regulations were issued after a day of accidents on the 13th of August with aircraft stacking eliminated accident rates dropping and tonnage landed increased one issue was aircraft types the c-47 was awkward to load and took as long to load as the bigger c-54 so from September 1948 c-54s became the primary US airlift aircraft to maximize aircraft use general tunner spread aircraft at three minutes and 500 feet separation from 4,000 to 6,000 feet maintenance was stepped up to keep aircraft in the air he also managed to squeeze in another shift with a goal of 1440 landings in Berlin daily the Allies lack manpower and Berliners volunteered in large numbers to unload aircraft many were former Luftwaffe ground crew from world war ii the record time for unloading 10 tons of coal from a c 54 was by a 12 man german team in five minutes 45 seconds by the end of August 1948 one and a half thousand flights a day were delivering four and a half thousand tons of cargo enough to keep West Berliners alive from January 1949 when 225 c-54s were working the tonnage increased of 5,000 tons a day at the same time some enterprising pilots started dropping chocolate bars attached little homemade parachutes to German children as they flew into Berlin's airports Operation little vittles was a massive propaganda success City Hall fell in the Soviet sector of Berlin and the provisional Parliament was disrupted by communist bully-boy tactics SED members tried to take over the entire parliament in september pro-western Berliners took to the streets to protest against the communists actions five hundred thousand people gathering in the British sector outside the Reichstag ruin when the crowd surged towards the Brandenburg Gate and tore down the Soviet flag Soviet military police opened fire killing one person at this point British military police intervened pushing the Soviets away preventing a massacre Berlin's Parliament convened instead at a college in the British sector but was boycotted by SED members he's Berlin founded its own communist government as winter 1948 approached the airlift faced new challenges food tonnage remained the same but more coal and fuel would be required for heating bringing the daily airlift total to six thousand tons the British added large handley page hastings aircraft to their flights in november general tunne hired more X Luftwaffe ground crews runways were limited just to at Tempelhof and one at RAF cuttle another runway was built at Tempelhof aircraft approaching directly over city apartment blocks the British added another runway at gutta the French couldn't help much they were heavily involved in the first Indochina war in Vietnam and Cambodia all they contributed to the airlift was some old Yonkers 50 two's captured from the Germans at the end of World War two but they could build and they constructed Tegel Airport in under 90 days the US and British also installed radar systems at their bases in Berlin but November and December 1948 were very foggy over Europe many aircrafts couldn't land at Berlin for example on the 20th of November 42 aircraft flew into Berlin but only one actually landed Berlin had only a week's supply of coal left at this point where the weather dramatically improved and the tonnage delivered rose steadily until over 196 thousand tons was delivered in March 1949 the Soviets blinked and ended the ground blockade on the 12th of May 1949 her British truck convoy was first into West Berlin followed by a train general clay retired and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City flights continued until the 30th of September 1949 in 15 months of frenetic activity planes and pilots from the United States Great Britain Australia Canada New Zealand South Africa and France had kept West Berlin alive 40 British 31 Americans and one Australian were killed from the airlift 17 US and 8 RAF planes crashed though the blockade was over divided Berlin was to face many more crises during the Cold War particularly when the Soviet Union and East Germany conspired to imprison East Berliners behind a giant wall thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also help support my channel at PayPal and patreon details in the description box [Music] you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 717,749

Rating: 4.9501934 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Berlin Airlift, Curtis LeMay, Royal Air Force, C-47, C-54, Short Sunderland

Id: gzTDbsQKKpo

Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2019