|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
1948-49
We dedicate this site to all helpers
of the Berlin Airlift.
When WWII ended the four major powers, the United States, Great Britain, France and Soviet Russia, met in Potsdam to map out four control zones. Each had its zone of responsibility. Further Berlin, which was within the Soviet area of responsibility, was also divided into four zones. The free access to Western Berlin had been agreed upon but never signed by the Soviets. Marshal Georgi K Zhukov, The Soviet Commander in Germany, had verbally promised General Clay the use of major highways and rail line into Berlin. But the only free access to Berlin was by air.
A long series of inter-allied disagreements ragarding both details of day-to-day supply of basic necessities within the various Sectors of Berlin had now reached an issue of great difficulty, but rather than address any or all of the issues as individual points, Moscow soon found it convenient to cite "technical difficulties" as justification for cutting off overland access to Western Berlin. On Monday, 31 March 1948, three U.S. Military trains were detained by the Soviets. General Clay ordered all such trains to be stopped and all personnel airlifted. A check of aircraft available revealed only 25 of 36 C-47's were operable, plus a DC-4 belonging to American Overseas Airline that provided scheduled service from Rhein-Main to Berlin. Before midnight 2 April 1948, Operation Little Lift was started. The C-47's from the 60th and 61st Troop Carrier Groups flew 300 tons of supplies with the RAF doing the same for the military garrisons in Berlin. It lasted about ten days. On 21 June at 5 o'clock in the morning a train of the US Army was stopped by the Soviets once more. The train was not allowed to proceed to Western Berlin due to refusal of train commander to permit Soviets to open cars for inspection. At approximately 5 PM. on 22 June, Soviets took over train under threat arms, attached it to a Soviet locomotive and sent it back to Helmstedt - all under strong protest of (American) train commander. Midnight on 23 June the Soviets
began to cut electric power and at 6 AM, they halted all civilian road,
rail and barge traffic. The Blockade had started, Western Berlin was isolated.
“Operation Vittles” - The Berlin Airlift US General Clay called Lt General Le May and asked “ can you transport coal by air?”. Le May asked “ how much do you want to haul?”. “All you can!”. The Berlin Airlift had started. The first Airlift flight was by
a RAF C-47 Dakota on 25 June (the British operation was named Operation
Plainfare). The next day USAF delivered 80 tons to begin Operation
Vittles. At first it was referred to as “Le May’s Coal and Feed
Company - Round the clock Service guaranteed”.
General’s Clay, Le May and Smith were combat commanders but an airlift specialist was required to make the Berlin Airlift a success. Lt General William Tunner, famed for his operation of the “HUMP in WWII” was sent to take over the command of the operations. The 60th and 61st Troop Carrier Groups were ordered to fly the maximum number of missions to Berlin. This required three flight crews and ground crews per aircraft. By 30 June 1948, 102 C-47's were assigned to the airlift, with each capable of hauling an average of only 3 tons. The Airlift Task Force determined the daily requirement to support Berlin to be 4,500 ton’s per day. The C-47's, with their small load capacity, could not fulfil this requirement. Calculations assured that the C-47's could not fulfill the requirements. A search went out for the only suitable aircraft at the time that could fit the bill, theC-54.
With the arrival of Gen. Tunner, MATS (the Military Air Transport Service), which provided air transport around the world, supplied USAFE with the aircraft and personnel required for the airlift. On 23 July, 682 officers , 1818 airmen and 20 civilians were transferred to Germany as part of the Airlift. Within a month the combined fleets were hauling up to 1,000 tons per day. With the arrival of the much larger C-54's the daily tonnage increased to more than 5,000 tons per day.
The movements increased at a steady pace reaching its greatest effort on Easter Sunday, 16 April 1949 when a record of 1.398 flights in a single day, about one flight per minute for 24 hours was reached. A total of 12,849 tons of goods. The US carried the major portion of the tonnage, mostly coal, flour and dehydrated potatoes, along with other foods. The British carried the liquid fuel - oil and gasoline, kerosene, and diesel- plus salt and fish.  February 1949 US and Soviet delegates began negotiations to end the blockade. The Soviets had realized finally that they had failed and furtherance of the blockade was pointless. On May 4 1949, the four powers issued a joint communique announcing that the blockade would end one minute after midnight on 12 May. The first movement to Western Berlin was a 10 truck British convoy from Helmstadt to Berlin. At 0630 the first train from West Germany arrived in Western Berlin. The final “Operations Vittles “ flight left Rhein-Main 30 September 1949. The aircraft was painted: “Last Vittles Flight, 1,783,572.7 tons to Berlin.” The final RAF airlift flight was on 5 September 1949.
Tonnages Commodity
US
British
C-54 were drawn from all possible sources within the US Forces C-54's were drawn from every location that the USAF was stationed: 45 from Alaskan Air Command,
Troop Carrier Command between 28 June - 11 July
The Navy came a long way to participate in the Airlift. The Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) had two squadrons based in the Pacific. VR6 was serving the western Pacific as far as China and Japan with VR8 deployed in the west central islands. Orders were received on 27 October 1948 and 20 R5D’s left on 1 November 1948 from Honolulu’s John Rogers Field. These were augmented at Moffet Field to bring the two squadrons to full strength of 24. At Jacksonville, FL. They were fitted with radar but unfortunately it was learned later that the radar equipment was not compatible with that in Germany. The Navy played a vital role in
the Airlift with these two squadrons. VR6 was attached to the 513th Troop
Carrier Group and VR8 was attached to the 61st Troop Carrier Group.
The Air Force had 250 men in any given squadron while the Navy had 400.
The Airlift Route Pattern The Potsdam Agreement called for three routes or corridors to Berlin over the Soviet Control Area of Germany. Each corridor was 20 miles wide and during the Airlift pilots had to take extreme care not to stray from them (to the map). During the Airlift, the northern corridor was flown by the British in both directions with the eastbound flights staying to the southern half and westbound flights staying to the north half. The center corridor was strictly for the westbound traffic, while the southern Corridor was for eastbound traffic. The British used medium-frequency (M/F) radio beacons and Eureka radar beacons for navigation. The southern corridor used Radio Range Beacons that had been in use by the US Air Force since the ‘30's. The busiest airfields were equipped with the Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) developed by the US Air Force. This displayed on a radar screen, the height, bearing and distance of all aircraft within 40 miles. The ground controller could then direct all aircraft by radio exactly how to approach and land. Without GCA the Berlin Airlift would never have maintained the intense schedule necessary to meet the mission. The Soviets tried all means to harass the pilots, the most frequent incidents were such as: buzzing, close flying, searchlights and radio interference. The airspace quickly became a crowded
series of aerial highways. The density of traffic movements, up to 20 per
hour or more, required strict adherence to approach and landing procedures.
Scheduled and Non-scheduled help The suddeness of the blockade had found the Armed Forces not immediately prepared to meet the demand. A call to arms of the commercial airlines was put out. American Overseas Airline was already there. Pan American made five flights and TWA made seven. The non-scheduled carriers that assisted were: Seaboard and Western Airlines who made106 flights, Transocean Air Lines made 50 flights and Alaska Airlines which made 87 flights. The British however also contracted
specific missions to a number of civilian aircarriers. This somewhat colorful
array of individuel charter operators carried out their work as agents
of the Royal Air Force from various sites around Northern Germany. The
organisation of this civil airlift was guided by British European Airways
(BEA) who maintained their own passanger traffic system between England
and Berlin-Gatow via Hamburg in addition. More than 150 aircraft from 23
British Companies were flying missions for the Airlift at one time or another.
Some of these British Commercial Airlines: Air Contractors, Airflight,
Air Transport Charter, Aquila Airways, British American Air Service, British
Nederland Air Service, British Overseas Airways Corporation, British South
African Airways, Eagle Aviation, Flight Refueling Skyways, Lancashire Aircraft
Corporation, Silver City Airways, Skyways, Westminster Airways, World Air
Freight. The majority flew a limited number of missions before returning
to their original corporate routes after a short while.
US Military Units Wiesbaden
Rhein-Main
Fassberg
513th Supply Squadron
Celle
Tempelhof (Berlin)
Gatow (Berlin)
Tegel (Berlin)
Maintenance General Tunner stressed good maintenance, to the point that 64% of all aircraft were always operational. Aircraft required a great deal of maintenance, caused primarily by vibration and short life span of parts. 6% of all aircraft were grounded because of work in shops, 10% through scheduled maintenance, 9% through major maintenance which was performed in Oberffaffenhofen, near Munich or Burtonwood, England, with another 11% grounded because of unscheduled maintenance. Aircraft required on-line maintenance after every 25 hours of flight. After 200 hours, a major inspection was performed at Oberpfaffenhofen in Bavaria. Later these inspections were shifted to Burtonwood due to the harsh winters in Bavaria. After 1,000 hours of flight time, every aircraft was given a comprehensive overhaul in the United States, either at Texas Engineering & Mfg,. Co. in Dallas; Aircraft Engineering & Maintenance Co., a division of Trans-Ocean Airlines Inc. , in Oakland; or Lockheed Aircraft Service Corp., in Sayville, NY. The Navy routed their R5D to VR44 Squadron at Moffet Naval Air Station near San Francisco, while occasionally sending the aircraft to Lockheed Aircraft Service Corp. Burbank. The Pratt & Whitney R-2000-9 and R2000-11 engines for the C-54's were overhauled at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, then flown to Westover Air Force Base, Mass. then on to Germany. All C-54's returning to Germany
were routed through Westover AFB and loaded with Aircraft spare parts and
supplies, this subsequently created a shortage of parts in the CONUS.
Aircraft Accidents There were three C-47 crashes that resulted in six casualties, eight C-54 crashes resulting in twenty-three casualties and one R5D crash that resulted in one casualty.
There were five crashes involving
the RAF with twenty-five casualties. And five crashes involving British
Civil Contractor’s resulting in eighteen casualties.
General Lucius D. Clay
Lucius D. Clay not only gave the order to initiate the Airlift, he made a point of honor to extend his military service in Germany until the Airlift succesfully broke the Soviet Blockade of Berlin. When that Blockade was finally lifted after nearly 10 months, Berliners renamed the "Kronprinzenallee" which runs in front the former US Headquarters in Berlin-Zehlendorf, "Clayallee". General Clay retired from the Army on May 26, 1949. 1961 President Kennedy appointed General Clay to be personnel representative to Berlin when the Soviets erected the wall. Lucius D. Clay died one week before his eighty first birthday, on April 16, 1978. He is buried at West Point and at the foot of his grave is a small marble marker inscribed: Wir danken dem Bewahrer unserer Freiheit We thank the defender of our freedom
The Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof
In essential parts this text dates
from the following sources:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
larger C-54's were ordered in from everywhere the USAF and US Navy was
stationed. They started to appear in July 1948 and by January 1, 1949 there
were 200 USAF and 24 Navy C-54's operating in the Airlift. The C-47' were
phased out completely 1 October 1948. Shortly thereafter 240 C-54's
were operating in the US Airlift with 100 more in the maintenance pipeline.
On the British side, 40 C-47's , 35 Avro Yorks, and 26 Handley Page Hastings
were in operation.
