0:08 [Music]
0:13 Berlin May 1945 the city in ruins the
0:15 Red Army had taken the capital of
0:17 Hitler's Germany in a massive battle
0:20 district-by-district street by street
0:23 room by bloody room at the end they
0:24 raised their red banner atop the
0:27 shattered Reichstag half of Germany now
0:30 lay under Stalin's hand with the western
0:33 portions occupied by the Americans
0:36 British and French from the 17th of July
0:39 to the 2nd of August 1945 while war
0:42 still raged against Japan the victorious
0:45 Allies met at Potsdam near Berlin to
0:48 decide Germany's post-war fate Germany
0:51 was divided into four occupation zones
0:54 British American French and Soviet
0:58 though Berlin was 100 miles or 160
1:01 kilometers within the Soviet zone it too
1:03 was divided into four allied zones of
1:06 occupation in the eastern Soviet zone
1:09 Stalin forcibly unified the German
1:11 Communist Party with the Social
1:14 Democratic Party to create the puppet
1:18 socialist Unity Party or sed the sed
1:21 apparently spontaneously called for the
1:23 establishment of an anti-fascist
1:26 Democratic Republic while the Soviets
1:28 assets stripped their zone of occupation
1:30 of factories technicians and wealth as
1:34 war reparations for World War two Stalin
1:36 was confident that he could undermine
1:38 the British and American presence in
1:40 Berlin and eventually occupy the entire
1:43 city access to West Berlin was
1:47 complicated road and rail access existed
1:49 but only Soviet goodwill kept these
1:52 routes open there were also 3 air
1:54 corridors to fly to Berlin from Hamburg
1:57 luka borg and frankfurt within the city
2:00 there were at this time no barriers
2:02 between the different occupation sectors
2:05 the Berlin Wall was to come much later
2:07 under the Potsdam agreement Western
2:10 Allied Armed Forces personnel and
2:12 citizens could freely enter East Berlin
2:15 and Soviet troops could enter West
2:18 Berlin Berlin became a focal point of
2:21 the Cold War the still heavily damaged
2:24 city only had a population of just 2.8
2:27 million people in a city that in 1939
2:30 had numbered 4.3 million
2:33 many Germans in the East were hostile to
2:36 the Soviet occupiers in free elections
2:39 held in 1946 Berliners voted
2:42 overwhelmingly for non communists to sit
2:45 on the city government in January 1947
2:48 the British and American zones were
2:50 economically unified the French joining
2:53 the following year it was a first step
2:56 towards a future West German state in
2:59 1948 the London debt agreement had
3:02 concluded reducing West Germany's
3:05 payments by 50 percent aiding economic
3:07 recovery also the Marshall aid plan was
3:09 extended to the Western Allied
3:12 occupation zones and a system of federal
3:15 government put in place the Soviets
3:18 reacted by walking out of talks with the
3:20 other powers and restricting Western
3:22 military and passenger traffic from the
3:25 Western occupation zones to Berlin every
3:27 truck and train leaving Berlin was also
3:30 searched by Soviet authorities the u.s.
3:33 commander general blue CST clay ordered
3:36 a halt to all military trains and
3:38 ordered all military supplies brought
3:41 into West Berlin by air to circumvent
3:43 the Soviet restrictions
3:46 although the Soviets ease their road and
3:48 rail restrictions the Americans
3:50 continued to supply themselves in Berlin
3:54 by air for 75 days 20 flights a day
3:56 building up food stockpiles and other
4:00 supplies after 75 days general clay had
4:03 amassed an 18 days supply of food for
4:05 the military which were come in very
4:08 handy quite soon the Soviets changed
4:10 tactics and started using aircraft to
4:13 buzz West Berlin particularly flights in
4:16 and out of the airport's tragedy
4:19 occurred on the 5th of April 1948 when a
4:19 so V
4:22 yak-3 fighter collided with a British
4:25 European Airways vickers viking 1b
4:28 airliner an raf guitar killing all
4:31 aboard both planes in June the US
4:34 Britain and France introduced a new
4:36 currency for their zones the Deutsche
4:39 Mark the Soviets refused to recognize it
4:42 in East Berlin but it was to be used in
4:43 all four sectors of the city
4:46 unofficially Stalin decided to force the
4:48 issue of Berlin once and for all
4:51 the day after the introduction of the
4:53 deutsche mark Soviet forces halted all
4:56 traffic from West Germany to West Berlin
4:59 the Soviet propaganda machine went into
5:02 overdrive against the West rumors spread
5:03 that the Soviets would take over West
5:07 Berlin by force German communist rioted
5:10 and blockaded Crowe West German
5:12 officials from attending meetings in
5:14 East Berlin on the 24th of June the
5:16 Soviets cut all land and water
5:19 connections to West Berlin in response
5:22 the US and Britain stopped all rail
5:25 traffic to East Germany over time drying
5:27 up vital steel and coal imports
5:30 retarding these German economy on the
5:33 25th of June the Soviets stopped all
5:36 food supplies into West Berlin West
5:38 Berlin relied on power generated by
5:40 plants in the Soviet zone and
5:44 electricity was also cut off the only
5:46 way in and out of West Berlin remained
5:48 the three air corridors when the
5:51 blockade began West Berlin had 36 days
5:55 worth of food and 45 days of coal for
5:57 heating and so on the much reduced
6:00 post-war Allied armies were heavily
6:03 outnumbered the Berlin garrison numbered
6:06 8,000 973 Americans
6:08 seven thousand six hundred and six
6:10 British and six thousand one hundred
6:14 French in all of West Germany the US had
6:17 only 98 thousand troops with one reserve
6:20 division available in the States Soviet
6:21 military forces surrounding Berlin
6:25 numbered one and a half million men in
6:28 1948 Western defense rested on atomic
6:31 bombs with the US only had
6:35 Fatman type nuclear bombs just 35 atomic
6:38 capable b-29 Superfortresses were
6:40 available to deliver these bombs worldwide
6:41 worldwide
6:44 none of the b-29s then stationed in
6:47 Europe in 1948 were nuclear capable the
6:50 first ones only arrived in April 1949
6:53 Stalin felt sure the US and Britain
6:55 would not want to go to war over West
6:58 Berlin the general clay in Berlin felt
7:00 the Soviets were bluffing trying to
7:02 obtain political concessions when
7:05 ultimately unwilling to provoke World
7:07 War 3 it was the first really big test
7:09 in the Cold War
7:11 unlike the ground routes to Berlin the
7:14 three air corridors had been agreed to
7:17 in writing by the USSR each route was 20
7:20 miles wide unarmed aircraft would be
7:23 used to supply West Berlin the u.s.
7:24 believed the Soviets would not shoot
7:28 down unarmed humanitarian aircraft but
7:30 it was an horrendous task preventing
7:33 starvation on a vast scale general clay
7:36 consulted general Curtis LeMay commander
7:38 of US air forces in Europe to see if
7:41 such an airlift was even feasible LeMay
7:44 thought so but general clay also wanted
7:46 to enlist the help of the British the
7:48 RAF was already running a small-scale
7:50 airlift to the British garrison in
7:53 Berlin in April 1948 British air
7:55 Commodore Reginald Waite calculates
7:57 precisely what would have to be brought
8:00 into West Berlin daily to support the
8:03 population he based his calculations on
8:07 a minimum daily ration of 1990 calories
8:10 per adult each day West Berlin would
8:16 need 646 tons of wheat and flour 125
8:20 tons of cereal 64 tons of fat 109 tons
8:23 of meat and fish
8:25 a hundred and eighty tons of dehydrated
8:28 potatoes a hundred and eighty tons of
8:32 sugar eleven tons of coffee 19 tons of
8:34 powered milk five tons of whole milk
8:37 four children three tons of fresh yeast
8:41 for baking 144 tons of dehydrated
8:45 vegetables 38 tons of salt and 10 tons
8:50 of cheese in total 1534 tons of
8:52 foodstuffs would have to be flown in
8:54 daily to support around 2 million people
8:57 but worse was to follow in order to
9:00 supply power and heating another three
9:02 thousand four hundred and seventy-five
9:05 tons of coal diesel and petrol would
9:07 have to be flown in daily the grand
9:10 total five thousand and nine tons each
9:14 day seven days a week where there even
9:16 enough aircraft to carry such a tonnage
9:21 the US had ninety-six c-47 skytrains or
9:24 Dakotas in Europe each capable of
9:25 carrying three and a half tons per
9:28 flight general LeMay estimated that
9:30 running these planes at maximum service
9:34 making a hundred plus trips a day they
9:35 could deliver about four hundred tons
9:37 the RAF
9:40 reported it could also deliver 400 tons
9:43 daily far short of what was required
9:47 the RAF could expand quickly flying in
9:49 fresh aircraft from England the British
9:53 fleet included 150 dakotas and for T
9:56 larger Avro York's the latter with a 10
9:58 ton payload the British could now
10:02 deliver around 750 tons a day the US
10:04 needed more aircraft they needed the
10:06 biggest aircraft that could still land
10:08 safely at Berlin's airports
10:12 the answer was the c-54 skymaster the US
10:15 had 565 around the world
10:19 planners calculated they could amass 447
10:22 for the Berlin operation on the 24th of
10:25 June 1948 general LeMay appointed
10:28 Brigadier General Joseph Smith has
10:30 provisional task force commander
10:32 operation vittles the Berlin Airlift
10:37 began on the 26th of June 32 c-47s
10:40 flew in 80 tons the first RAF lift was
10:44 on the 28th of June by July c-54s were
10:47 arriving in numbers the Americans and
10:49 British used separate air corridors into
10:52 West Berlin and a separate command
10:55 system British short sundaland flying
10:57 boats also joined in landing on the
11:00 Havel River near got all aircraft took
11:02 off every four minutes flying in
11:04 patterns on a loop into West Berlin and
11:07 back to their bases in West Germany by
11:09 the second week the airlift was managing
11:12 a thousand tons a day still too little
11:14 for the Allied effort was disorganized
11:17 with controllers having no experience of
11:19 staging air lifts with inefficient use
11:22 of aircraft and crews Major General
11:24 William H Tanner who had led the hump
11:26 airlift over the Himalayas in World War
11:29 two to supply nationalist China from
11:31 India was brought in to take over he
11:35 unified the US and RAF operations under
11:40 a single command 126 c-54s were utilized
11:42 with three crews per aircraft to keep
11:45 them going round-the-clock new
11:47 regulations were issued after a day of
11:50 accidents on the 13th of August with
11:52 aircraft stacking eliminated accident
11:55 rates dropping and tonnage landed
11:58 increased one issue was aircraft types
12:01 the c-47 was awkward to load and took as
12:04 long to load as the bigger c-54 so from
12:08 September 1948 c-54s became the primary
12:12 US airlift aircraft to maximize aircraft
12:15 use general tunner spread aircraft at
12:18 three minutes and 500 feet separation
12:22 from 4,000 to 6,000 feet maintenance was
12:24 stepped up to keep aircraft in the air
12:26 he also managed to squeeze in another
12:30 shift with a goal of 1440 landings in
12:33 Berlin daily the Allies lack manpower
12:35 and Berliners volunteered in large
12:38 numbers to unload aircraft many were
12:40 former Luftwaffe ground crew from world
12:44 war ii the record time for unloading 10
12:47 tons of coal from a c 54 was by a 12 man
12:51 german team in five minutes 45 seconds
12:54 by the end of August 1948 one and a half
12:56 thousand flights a day were delivering
12:58 four and a half thousand tons of cargo
13:02 enough to keep West Berliners alive from
13:07 January 1949 when 225 c-54s were working
13:10 the tonnage increased of 5,000 tons a
13:13 day at the same time some enterprising
13:15 pilots started dropping chocolate bars
13:18 attached little homemade parachutes to
13:20 German children as they flew into
13:23 Berlin's airports Operation little
13:26 vittles was a massive propaganda success
13:29 City Hall fell in the Soviet sector of
13:31 Berlin and the provisional Parliament
13:33 was disrupted by communist bully-boy
13:36 tactics SED members tried to take over
13:38 the entire parliament in september
13:40 pro-western Berliners took to the
13:42 streets to protest against the
13:44 communists actions five hundred thousand
13:46 people gathering in the British sector
13:49 outside the Reichstag ruin when the
13:51 crowd surged towards the Brandenburg
13:53 Gate and tore down the Soviet flag
13:56 Soviet military police opened fire
13:59 killing one person at this point British
14:01 military police intervened pushing the
14:04 Soviets away preventing a massacre
14:07 Berlin's Parliament convened instead at
14:09 a college in the British sector but was
14:12 boycotted by SED members he's Berlin
14:16 founded its own communist government as
14:19 winter 1948 approached the airlift faced
14:22 new challenges food tonnage remained the
14:24 same but more coal and fuel would be
14:26 required for heating bringing the daily
14:29 airlift total to six thousand tons the
14:31 British added large handley page
14:33 hastings aircraft to their flights in
14:36 november general tunne hired more X
14:39 Luftwaffe ground crews runways were
14:42 limited just to at Tempelhof and one at
14:45 RAF cuttle another runway was built at
14:48 Tempelhof aircraft approaching directly
14:51 over city apartment blocks the British
14:54 added another runway at gutta the French
14:56 couldn't help much they were heavily
14:59 involved in the first Indochina war in
15:01 Vietnam and Cambodia all they
15:03 contributed to the airlift was some old
15:04 Yonkers 50
15:06 two's captured from the Germans at the
15:08 end of World War two but they could
15:11 build and they constructed Tegel Airport
15:15 in under 90 days the US and British also
15:17 installed radar systems at their bases
15:21 in Berlin but November and December 1948
15:24 were very foggy over Europe many
15:26 aircrafts couldn't land at Berlin for
15:29 example on the 20th of November 42
15:32 aircraft flew into Berlin but only one
15:35 actually landed Berlin had only a week's
15:38 supply of coal left at this point where
15:40 the weather dramatically improved and
15:42 the tonnage delivered rose steadily
15:46 until over 196 thousand tons was
15:50 delivered in March 1949 the Soviets
15:52 blinked and ended the ground blockade on
15:55 the 12th of May 1949 her British truck
15:57 convoy was first into West Berlin
16:00 followed by a train general clay retired
16:03 and received a ticker-tape parade in New
16:06 York City flights continued until the
16:11 30th of September 1949 in 15 months of
16:13 frenetic activity planes and pilots from
16:15 the United States Great Britain
16:18 Australia Canada New Zealand South
16:21 Africa and France had kept West Berlin
16:25 alive 40 British 31 Americans and one
16:27 Australian were killed from the airlift
16:32 17 US and 8 RAF planes crashed though
16:35 the blockade was over divided Berlin was
16:37 to face many more crises during the Cold
16:40 War particularly when the Soviet Union
16:43 and East Germany conspired to imprison
16:44 East Berliners
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16:55 details in the description box [Music]
