‘Service Before Self’: Honoring the Berlin Airlift
The first Cold War battle — 60 years ago today — was both strategically crucial and morally right.
Those of us who, while serving in the United States Armed Forces, found ourselves stationed in the American sector of Berlin after World War II and before the demise of the Berlin Wall knew that our mere location was steeped in history and import. One needed only to take a look at the pre-1989 map of Germany to know that our strategic situation was different, typifying the word “unique” — a word which grated our nerves back then due to repetition.
Our presence in that place and at that time has a complex description but a simple meaning. We, along with the British and the French, occupied West Berlin while our Soviet counterparts occupied East Berlin. And, further, the entire city sat smack-dab in the middle of the USSR’s premiere satellite country, the German Democratic Republic, better known as East Germany. We all know that this state of affairs ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. How the situation came to be is even more complicated; however, the transcendent symbolism wasn’t. We were an entrenched island of freedom encircled by a sea of imposed and enforced communism — a sea of totalitarianism — and our position was a plum one, so plum that, sixty years ago this month, the Soviets tried to drive us out to make their hold on East Germany complete. We, however, were obliged to push back — not by any type of treaty obligation, but by our own values. Thus was the first Cold War battle — the Berlin Airlift of 1948 — engaged and won.
All too few Americans are familiar with the Berlin Airlift, but all USAF basic trainees, officer candidates, and USAFA cadets can count on being required to recount the details of the mission also known as Operation Vittles. This mission is considered the first major successful venture of the infant United States Air Force, which had been in existence only one year.
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Juliette Ochieng blogs at Baldilocks.
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10 Comments
1. Jerald L. Johnson (J.J.):This is an outstanding piece of journalism. Hats off to the editor!!!!
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:43 pm 2. Karmi:Great article! A part of American history that many have forgot and/or choose not to remember.
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:56 pm 3. axel mehrle:As both a survivor in post WWII Berlin,
thanks to the efforts of the USAF and their Allied Air forces, and a veteran of the USAF
I just want to thank ALL of you for your unstinting,heroic efforts that afforded me the
chance to take my son to the Airlift memorial
and explain its significance to him.
Without the airlift I may never have survived
to have a son.
So once again on behalf of our family and all
the citizens of a free and united Berlin our
heartfelt thanks.
Freedom should never be taken for granted
and too often requires the sacrifice of
many unsung people who are often
forgotten.
A humble berlin blockade survivor.
Axel Mehrle
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:25 pm 4. baldilocks:New York
Thanks, folks.
Jun 27, 2008 - 10:21 am 5. Dusty:This is superb, B. And thanks for the reminder via such a great article.
Jun 27, 2008 - 12:43 pm 6. John Samford:It wasn’t a battle. Only the clueless cannot distinguish between a battle and a logistic operation.
It should have been the first battle in a war, but Truman, for all his other sterling qualities, was a craven coward and would not fight a battle that we would have won.
I can make the argument that if Truman had reacted forcefully to Stalin’s aggression, it would have been the end of the Soviet Union. Instead, Truman pissed down his leg and we got 40 years of “cold war”. A cold war that produced more dead then WW1.
55,000 in Korea.
109,000 in Vietnam
115,000 in WW1.
A lot of myths and fables involved with the Cold War. Starting with the ‘cold’ part. It was the N.Y. Times that bestowed the title of ‘cold war’ on the low level conflict that was Truman’s gift to the Post WW2 world.
The Soviet Union was in terrible shape in ‘45. They lost more men taking Berlin thenthe USA lost in all of WW2. Stalin was bluffing in ‘48.. Truman was a coward and afraid to call his bluff.
Truman should have nuked Stalingrad (which was pretty much rubble still) and told Stalin he had 10 days to get ALL soviet troops back into Russia. Stalin would have caved, since the Soviets had NO atomic bomb and no fighter plane capable of intercepting a B-29.
Stalin only had one advantage. Balls. He had huge brass ones, while Truman had tiny little glass beads.
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man
Jun 28, 2008 - 5:16 am 7. Azores:and not materials that counts.”
- Chairman Mao Zedong (Tse-tung), 1938
But never count on Germans to be grateful. The monument to the heros of the Berlin airlift is a shame, some kind of rounded wall. Germans want, above all, to forget Soviet occupation and American protection.
Jun 28, 2008 - 7:45 pm 8. Talnik:I read “Armegeddon” by Leon Uris a couple of weeks ago, a very good (although fictionalized) story of the Airlift. Highly recommended.
Jun 30, 2008 - 3:59 pm 9. Obama: Europeans so much better than Americans! | The Anchoress:[...] not need to speak French to save that nation…twice. Americans did not need to speak German to save the lives of our vanquished German enemy over a long, brutal winter with the Berlin Airlift. Americans did not need to speak Polish or any [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:35 am 10. Leslie:Azores: The monument to those who died in the Berlin Airlift isn’t just “a sort of rounded wall.” It is a bridge. The Germans called the Airlift the “Luftbruecke,” the Air Bridge. And the monument is actually two monuments – one at Rhein-Main, one at Tempelhof. Each is a visible base of a bridge of air that leads to the other. I see the one at Rhein-Main whenever I fly into or out of Frankfurt International Airport, and I find it very moving.
Nov 10, 2008 - 12:50 pm