The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘ Candy Bomber’ receives a birthday treat
Ex- Air Force pilot, 100, thanked for his efforts during Berlin airlift.
It was the summer of 1948 when U. S. Air Force pilot Gail “Hal” Halvorsen noticed children clustered around a barbed- wire fence watching military planes at Tempelhof airfield in Berlin.
World War II had ended, and Halvorsen was part of an air mission to deliver food and fuel to desperate Berliners after the Soviet Union had blocked land and water access to areas of the country, leaving millions without access to basic goods.
Halvorsen, then 27, decided to park his plane and say hello to the kids at the fence.
“I saw right away that they had nothing and they were hungry,” he recalled. “So I reached into my pocket and pulled out all that I had: two sticks of gum.”
Halvorsen tore the Wrigley’s Spearmint gum into small strips — one for each child, he said. Then he made the kids a promise: He would return the next day to drop a load of chocolate bars from the sky.
“I told them that I’d ‘ wiggle’ my wings so they’d know which pilot had the goods,” he said. “Then I went back to the base and asked all the guys to pool their candy rations for the drop.”
Following his first sweet mission — hundreds of Hershey chocolate bars were wrapped in parachutes made of handkerchiefs — Halvorsen returned again and again during the 15- month humanitarian airlift.
The children of Berlin soon gave him a nickname: the “Candy Bomber.”
And now, some of those kids — now in their 80s and 90s — have sent cards, letters and video messages of thanks to Halvorsen in honor of his 100th birthday on Oct. 10.
The legacy of the retired colonel was celebrated at an outdoor reception on his birthday
for about 130 family members and friends. In addition to birthday cake, there was a helicopter flyover to drop chocolate bars and other candy to the guests, said Denise Williams, 67, the second- oldest of Halvorsen’s five children.
Although it’s a few weeks early for Halloween candy, Halvorsen said he was happy to see another candy “bombing” run.
“I’ve always had a sweet tooth,” he said. “But I have to be honest. I’d rather have black licorice than chocolate.”
Williams, who now helps care for her dad, said she had initially invited a large contingent of grateful German candy recipients to the party, but then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
“There are hundreds of people who will never forget my dad dropping those candy bars during the Berlin airlift,” she said. “He’s beloved around the world for his positive attitude and giving heart.”
Several of those children from the 1940s now live in the United States and shared tributes to Halvorsen via Zoom at the party, Williams said.
Ingrid Azvedo of Sacramento, California, was among them.
Azvedo, 86, said she was with the group of kids who were handed small strips of gum through the wire fence from Halvorsen that hot July day in 1948.
“There was no food or clean water in Berlin; we were starving to death,” recalled Azvedo, who was 14 at the time. “Then along came this tall and skinny pilot, who reached into his pocket to give us all that he had. A kindness like that stays with you for a lifetime.”
Azvedo didn’t eat her gum, she said, but instead placed it under her pillow.
“I would smell it every night,” she said. “And when he came back to drop chocolate instead of bombs, we could hardly believe it. Nobody had tasted chocolate for a very long time.”
Christel Jonge Vos, who now lives in Keizer, Oregon, said she was never able to catch a chocolate parachute because the teenage boys in Berlin ran ahead of her.
“But that was not important to me or the other kids who did not get one,” said Vos, now 86. “We knew there was an American pilot called the Candy Bomber who cared about us. He laid the ground stone to the fact that enemies could become friends in Berlin.”