How two sticks of gum started Berlin’s candy parachutes

An airlift for a blockaded city

The encounter took place during the Berlin Airlift. Soviet forces had cut off land and water supply routes to the Western-controlled sectors of Berlin in June 1948. American and British aircraft carried food, fuel and other essentials into the city. Halvorsen was among the pilots flying those supply missions. ²

In Halvorsen’s later recollection, the children at the airport fence did not fight over the gum. Those who went without wanted pieces of its wrapper to smell. He decided to bring treats on a later flight, telling the children to look for an aircraft wiggling its wings as it approached.

Handkerchiefs became parachutes

Halvorsen and his crew attached sweets to improvised parachutes made from handkerchiefs and string. The drops gave the children a way to receive the candy while the aircraft approached Tempelhof. His wing-wiggling signal earned him the nickname Uncle Wiggly Wings, alongside the name by which he became widely known: the Candy Bomber. ³

The operation began without formal permission. PBS recounts that Halvorsen’s commander reprimanded him after learning about the drops, but airlift commander William Tunner approved their continuation. Other pilots joined in, turning one crew’s experiment into a much wider undertaking.

Donations helped it grow. Candy manufacturers supplied sweets, while schoolchildren in Chicopee, Massachusetts, assembled parachutes that were sent on to Germany. The story was no longer only about a pilot and the children beneath his flight path; people far from Berlin could take part in the deliveries.

The story outlasted the airlift

The Air Force’s historical accounts put the operation’s total at about 23 U.S. short tons of candy, delivered by American pilots collectively. That figure describes the wider effort, rather than Halvorsen’s personal cargo. The sweets were a small addition to an airlift whose essential purpose was sustaining the city with food and fuel.

Decades later, Halvorsen was still demonstrating how to make the little parachutes and speaking about the encounter that started it all. An Air Force account of a 2006 visit to Pope Air Force Base describes him teaching children the technique. He died on February 16, 2022, aged 101, leaving a story that connected wartime survivors with generations born long after the blockade. ¹; ⁴

The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.