Introduction
Whole-of-society operations are ones where not only the militaries of multiple nations jointly act, but also where civilian government agencies as well as individual civilians act in a coordinated manner to achieve some common objective. The goal of these types of operations can involve mutual defense but can also include humanitarian operations.
This paper discusses the Berlin Airlift, the largest humanitarian airlift in history. This airlift countered the starvation that would result from the Soviet Union’s blockade of all ground and waterway goods meant for West Berlin. The Airlift, conducted by the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force along with other nations and several civilian agencies, demonstrated the West’s ability to successfully respond to Soviet expansionism. It was also a proving ground for the capabilities of the USAF, which was established as a separate agency only nine months prior.
We begin with the events that led to the Berlin Blockade, then continue with the history of the Berlin Airlift. The quantitative accomplishments of the Combined Air Lift Task Force are examined. The role that federal agencies and civilians played in this whole-of-society operation are discussed. Finally, the consequences of the Berlin Airlift, which includes the establishment of NATO and the start of the Cold War, are described.
History
At the end of World War II, the Nazi government was replaced by the Allied Control Council, also called the Four Powers Council due to the membership of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. The Council partitioned Germany into four occupied zones: the US, British, French, and Soviet Zones.
The city of Berlin was also divided into four zones1. However, Berlin was located 100 miles inside Soviet territory. This was a problem for the Soviets: they did not want an island of capitalism within their communist utopia. During this time, food and fuel was delivered from the west by rail, road, and canals, in part funded by the Marshall Plan.
To get West Berlin to acquiesce to the Soviets, the Soviets destabilized the German economy by printing large amounts of Reichsmarks, thereby debasing the currency which led to inflation. This continued for two years and resulted in the average food intake of West Berliners being reduced to 900 calories per day.
The Soviets knew that France, the US, and the UK intended to unify their occupied zones into a single state. To counter this, the Soviet’s intentions were to convert East Germany into a puppet state that would also serve as a buffer between Russia and West Germany. In addition, the Soviets had been stripping natural resources and material wealth, including whole factories, from East Germany in an effort to “control the means of production,” and West Berlin was a great concentration of wealth the Soviets wanted to loot.
The West finally responded by introducing the Deutsche Mark, a stable form of currency that would eventually lead to the “Wirtschaftswunder”, the period of rapid economic development in West Germany that began in the 1950s.
Realizing that the Deutsche Mark was undermining their efforts to force West Berlin into submission, the Soviets left the Allied Control Council. Further, the Soviets implemented the Berlin Blockade - they cut-off every railway, roadway, and canal into the city on 24 June 1948, preventing economic aid from arriving. This was an effort to starve the city into joining the Soviets. In addition, the power stations that supplied West Berlin were shut down. It was estimated that the 2 million residents had only 30 days of food and 45 days of coal.
This left President Harry Truman three options: kinetic warfare with the Soviets, abandoning West Berlin, or delivering food and supplies by air. Truman said to his advisors: “we stay in Berlin, period.” The third option was thus pursued.
At the time, the United States had little experience in calculating the amount of food or supplies the West Berliners would require, so we approached the United Kingdom, which had decades of rationing experience. They responded that to get 1700 calories to each resident of Berlin, 1500 tons of food must be delivered daily. In addition, 2500 tons of coal and fuel would be needed per day. Thus, West Berlin would need 4000 tons of food and supplies per day.
On 26 June 1948, two days after the Berlin Blockade started, we started Operation Vittles2. Two days later, the Royal Air Force, began Operation Plane Fare which, in addition to British pilots, included pilots from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The combined operations became known as the Berlin Airlift.
Initially the operation was haphazard. During its first week, only 90 tons per day were delivered, and by the second week 1000 tons per day arrived.
To improve the operations, Major General William H. Tunner was placed in command by General Lucius D. Clay, the Military Governor of the US Zone. Tunner’s primary experience prior to the Berlin Airlift was the reorganization of “the Hump,” the operation that resupplied the Chinese war effort. His reorganization resulted in doubling the amount of material supplied and the number of hours flown 3.
Tunner’s plan for the Berlin Airlift began with establishing the Combined Air Lift Task Force to control both the American and RAF operations4. Tunner also increased the number of cargo planes and required one airplane to arrive every three minutes. Air traffic controllers had been stacking the aircraft at five different altitudes.
As a result of three aircraft crashes on 13 August (called “Black Friday”), Tanner introduced several changes5: first, instrument flight rules were to be used at all times, regardless of visibility conditions. Second, the altitude stacking plan was modified. Third, airplanes would have only one chance to land in Berlin – if they missed that opportunity they were to return to their air base. Fourth, he implemented rigorous airplane inspection and maintenance schedules. He also replaced the C-47 airplanes, which could carry 3.5 tons of cargo, with C-54s, which could carry 10 tons of cargo.
On 12 August, the airlift exceeded its goal, delivering with 1500 daily flights delivering 4500 tons of supply. Operations would continue to improve.
The Soviets attempted to interfere with the Berlin Airlift in several ways. Early in the operation, they flew fighter aircraft to harass the cargo planes by air-to-air fire and buzzing. During the night, Soviet forces on the ground shined bright lights at the pilots to obscure their vision6.
On 6 September, the Soviet Unity Party of Germany (SED) attempted a coup d’état to control all of Berlin. Elections that December resulted in a West-Berlin-only city government which included no members of the SED.
As Winter 1948 approached, it was clear that the Berlin Airlift would last longer than expected. While the amount of needed food would remain the same (1500 tons per day), the needed amount of coal and fuel would increase to 4500 tons per day, raising the total from 4000 to 6000 tons per day. In anticipation of this, the airport runways were improved as were the radar systems. On 31 December 1948, the goal of 6000 tons per day was met.
For Easter 1949, Tunner wanted to set a new record, and 13000 tons of coal was delivered. As a result of this “stretch goal,” daily tonnage increased7.
Following these successes, the Soviets realized that their blockade was futile, and the blockade was ended on 12 May 1949, and cargo trains resumed shipping goods into the city the same day. This marks the official end of the Berlin Airlift, but flights continued until 30 September 1949 in order to build up a surplus of goods should the Soviets go back on their word.
Tunner summarizes the accomplishments of the Combined Airlift Task Force as follows8: “A total of 2,231,600 tons of supplies were flown into Berlin between 26 June 1948 and 1 August 1949. This represents an average if 5,579 tons daily throughout the blockade.” These supplies were delivered by over 278,000 flights. The end result was that West Belin remained under control of the Western allies.
Joint Operations
The Berlin Airlift began as two separate operations, Operation Vittles of the US and Operation Plane Fare of the UK. Operation Plane Fare included not only RAF pilots, but also service members from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The two operations were combined when Tunner established the Combined Air Lift Task Force. This would lead to coordinated flights, aircraft inspections and maintenance, as well as combined logistic functions. As will be discussed in the “Civil Society Participation” section, the civilians of West Germany and West Berlin were also involved.
The intention of the Berlin Blockade was to starve the residents of West Berlin into submission. As this became obvious, Western attitudes against the Soviets hardened. The use of starvation as a means of control and warfare was nothing new for Soviet Russia, as demonstrated by their history of famine among their own people as well as the Holodomor, the man-made famine that led to the death of approximately 5 million Ukrainians in 1932-1933. Both these events were sugared-over by the New Your Times, but they could not hide the effects of (and the allied response to) the Berlin Blockade.
Thus, it was during the Blockade and the Airlift that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization9 was created on 4 April 1949 to contain and provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The Berlin Blockade proved just how evil the Soviets could be, and the Berlin Airlift proved that western nations could defeat this evil.
Involvement of Intelligence Agencies
In addition to the Department of Defense, several federal agencies were involved in intelligence operations that preceded the Berlin Airlift.
The CIA warned President Truman10, in a 22 December 1947 Intelligence Memorandum, that the Soviets would force the Western Allies to exit Berlin through “obstructionism and harassment.” Similar reports dated 26 and 30 December from the State Department confirmed the CIA’s report. The CIA also supplied information about the successful overthrow by Czech Communist Party of the coalition government in Prague in February, and the failed 19 March Communist takeover in Helsinki.
Role of the US Treasury
The Nazi Party left Germany’s economy in ruins, and World War II itself did nothing to improve the situation. To destabilize what would later be called West Germany (as well as West Berlin), the Soviets devalued the German Reichsmark. After two years of this, the Germans were resorting to barter. Further, JCS 1067 directed the US military occupation government to “take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany.” Starvation and disease were to be prevented least civil unrest would endanger occupation forces11. The US Treasury supplied officials (who would be called “Morgenthau Boys” after Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury under the Roosevelt Administration) to the occupation government to enforce JCS 1067 as strictly as possible.
The Western Allies were concerned about this (as well as the looting of East Germany), fearing that this would be a repeat of the inflation and other conditions that led to World War I. This led to the Currency Reform of June 1948, where the Reichsmark was replaced by the Deutsche Mark. This prevented the hyperinflation caused by the printing of the Reichsmark, and the Soviets responded with the Berlin Blockade.
Civil Society Participation
Survivors of the German blitzkrieg of London donated care packages to the Airlift, but civil society participated in the Berlin Airlift in other ways.
During the Airlift, a pilot by the name of Gail Halvorsen parachuted a small package of candy to the children watching his aircraft before landing. This continued for three weeks, one drop per week. When Tunner learned of this, he ordered this expanded into “Operation Little Vittles,” officially beginning on 22 September 1948. News of this reached the United States, and children and candymakers began collecting and donating candy for the operation. Halvorsen became a public face for the Berlin Airlift and earned him the name “the Candy Bomber.” Operation Little Vittles continued until the Berlin Blockade was lifted. Over 23 tons of candy were dropped.
Maintenance and inspection of the aircraft were major undertakings, and former RAF and Luftwaffe12 engineers volunteered to work on airplanes while they were in West Germany or in West Berlin. The airports were improved using civilian volunteers, and their labor resulted in the runways’ Marsden Mats (pierced steel planking) being maintained by dumping sand on them between landings. At one airport, civilian labor constructed an airport runway.
Finally, the unloading of the aircraft was performed by civilians, the record being the unloading of 10 tons of coal by a twelve-man team in 5 minutes and 45 seconds.
Role of the Entertainment Industry
Selling the Berlin Airlift to the American public fell to the US Air Force13. They were not only involved Halvorsen’s actions, but also produced an Oscar-nominated documentary about the operation. Later, in 1950, the USAF supported the production of the 20tth Century Fox movie entitled “The Big Lift.”
Conclusion
The Berlin Airlift was a whole-of-society operation in that the armed forces of multiple nations, multiple civilian agencies, and individual citizens cooperated to achieve a common goal: to prevent the starvation of West Berlin as a result of the Soviet blockade.
The consequences of the Berlin Airlift were numerous: the Berlin Blockade demonstrated to the West the steps the Soviets would take to oppress whole nations; it was an early event in the Cold War; and it led to the creation of NATO. The whole affair proved to communist sympathizers just how evil the Soviet Union was, and just how effective the West can be in countering the Soviets.
Whole-of-Society operations leads one to think of the steps taken by the federal government during World War I and World War II, which resulted in the creation of a garrison state. The Berlin Airlift proved that this wasn’t necessarily the case: whole-of-society operations could be effective without curtailing individual freedom.
Footnotes
- Miller, R. To Save a City.
- Ibid.
- Tunner, Over the Hump.
- Tunner, “A Report on the Airlift Berlin Mission.”
- Ibid.
- Air Force Historical Support Division, “1949 – The Berlin Airlift.”
- Tunner, W. “A Report on the Airlift Berlin Mission.”
- Ibid.
- NATO. “The Berlin Airlift” Especially the transcript of the 1962 NATO Documentary titled “Background to Berlin.”
- CIA History Staff, On the Front Lines of the Cold War. Chapter II directly available from https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/b25274f2d807c2a6e7aef7579a022335/On-the-Front-Lines-of-the-Cold-War-2-Part2-web.pdf
- JCS 1067, section 5.
- Miller, R. “Tunner and the Luftwaffe Connection with the Berlin Airlift.”
- O’Connell, K. “The Berlin Airlift’s Lesson for Today’s Humanitarian Crisis.”
Bibliography
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Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS 1067: US Directive to General Eisenhower on the Military Rule of Germany. 17 October 1945. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/JCS_1067
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