Berlin Airlift

Thank you for bringing back memories of that time in my childhood when the droning of U.S. planes meant survival to us citizens locked into Berlin (June 28). As children we watched those planes overhead with hearts pounding, hoping to catch a "shmoo." Yes, you heard right, one of the magical animals out of Li'l Abner cartoons that could change into anything one would wish it to be. For those lucky ones who caught a shmoo, it represented a trade-in for a CARE package. I never did catch this white, ghost-shaped balloon, but had fun looking for them.

On Saturday, Germany will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest and grimmest construction projects in history — the building of the Berlin Wall. Photographs of the wall, which overnight brutally severed streets, rail lines and families, have been on display in front of Berlin government buildings for several months. On Saturday, the memorial events will last all day and include a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the victims of the former communist East German government. The 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, in 2009, attracted a lot more attention in the U.S. It was a victory we like to claim, especially triumphalist conservatives.

Tempelhof Airport, which played a key role in the Berlin airlift after World War II, will close to passengers Oct. 31, 2008, Germany's top administrative court confirmed. The court threw out a bid by airlines to prevent Tempelhof's closure as part of plans to expand Schoenefeld Airport, a former military airport on the city's outskirts, into Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. Several airline companies that use the centrally located Tempelhof Airport tried to block the closure.

REGINALD LEVY Pilot was hailed as a hero in '72 hijacking Reginald Levy, 88, a pilot praised for his cool-headed bravery during a 1972 hijacking by Palestinian militants, died of a suspected heart attack or blood clot Aug. 1 in Dover, England, his family said. Levy was a pilot for Belgian airline Sabena when he took off from Brussels bound for Tel Aviv on May 8, 1972 — his 50th birthday — with 90 passengers onboard. Mid-journey, the Boeing 707 was hijacked by four armed members of the group Black September, who ordered Levy to land at Israel's Lod — now Ben Gurion — airport and threatened to blow up the plane if Israel did not release more than 300 Palestinian prisoners.

A grass-roots campaign to save Tempelhof Airport, the epicenter of the Berlin airlift of 1948-49, fizzled after supporters failed to win enough votes in a citywide referendum. Voters endorsed, 3 to 2, a measure to prevent the closure of the Cold War landmark. But election officials said they could not certify the results because turnout was too low. Only 22% of registered voters cast ballots in favor of the measure, short of the 25% required. Berlin lawmakers had previously decreed that the historic site must close in October to make way for a planned international airport on the southeast edge of the city.

Jack O. Bennett, an American civilian pilot credited with making the first flight of the Berlin Airlift, has died. He was 86. Bennett died Aug. 26, his family announced Sunday in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. They did not provide details. A guest student at the Technical University in Berlin before World War II, Bennett--who had started flying at age 14--returned to Germany after the war to work in Frankfurt for American Overseas Airlines, which flew to and from West Berlin.

Tom Key, who was the first president of the Pacific Symphony and served on its board for 19 years while watching it grow into California's third-largest orchestra, has died. He was 81. Key, who was also a successful real estate broker and a Navy pilot who flew 200 missions in the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, died Tuesday at his home in Fullerton from corticobasal degeneration, a rare brain disorder.

The U.S Air Force unit that managed the Berlin Airlift furled its flags Friday in a ceremony that featured the "candy-bomber" and the little girl who complained that the roar of the planes kept her chickens from laying eggs. Retired Col. Gail S. Halvorsen started the practice of dropping chewing gum and chocolates as his C-47 transport was about to land at Tempelhof Airport, carrying food and fuel to West Berlin during the 1948-49 Berlin Blockade.

President Clinton on Thursday honored the extraordinary relationship America had with the free half of the old divided Germany and then drew attention to the new U.S. role in helping to reunify one of Western Europe's largest nations. Starting his day at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, Clinton celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift and the nearly 280,000 flights made by Allied planes--mostly American--to provide food and fuel in defiance of a Soviet blockade.

In the cockpit of an Air Force transport passing Riyadh at 37,000 feet, the Cars play on the intercom as pilot Robert Thomas explains the mysterious ribbons of light streaming into the desert darkness from the Saudi capital. "The Saudis don't worry about wasting energy--all their highways are lit up," says Thomas, a 28-year-old captain from Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. "It's actually easier to find your way around up here at night. In the daylight, it's all brown and hazy."

Daring Young Men The Heroism and Triumph of The Berlin Airlift: June 1948-May 1949 Richard Reeves Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $28

Jeanne M. Holm, who played a pivotal role in opening up the military to women and who was the first female general in the Air Force and the first woman in any military branch to become a two-star general, has died. She was 88. Holm died of pneumonia Feb. 15 at a hospital in Annapolis, Md., said Wilma Vaught, president of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation. Holm lived in Edgewater, Md. "She truly was a legend in our lifetime," said Vaught, a retired Air Force one-star general.

Well before the new U.S. Embassy here officially opened in a soggy (outdoor and uncovered) Fourth of July celebration that featured hors d'oeuvres from McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts, German critics had roundly savaged the building as an architectural disaster. Last May, the daily Suddeutsche Zeitung called it "Ft. Knox at the Brandenburg Gate." Der Tagesspiegel pronounced it a "triumph of banality."

Tempelhof Airport: An article in Sunday's Section A about a referendum on plans to close Berlin's historic Tempelhof Airport, site of the Berlin airlift, stated that Orville Wright gave a flight demonstration at the location in 1903. The demonstration was in 1909.

A grass-roots campaign to save Tempelhof Airport, the epicenter of the Berlin airlift of 1948-49, fizzled after supporters failed to win enough votes in a citywide referendum. Voters endorsed, 3 to 2, a measure to prevent the closure of the Cold War landmark. But election officials said they could not certify the results because turnout was too low. Only 22% of registered voters cast ballots in favor of the measure, short of the 25% required. Berlin lawmakers had previously decreed that the historic site must close in October to make way for a planned international airport on the southeast edge of the city.

Tempelhof Airport, which played a key role in the Berlin airlift after World War II, will close to passengers Oct. 31, 2008, Germany's top administrative court confirmed. The court threw out a bid by airlines to prevent Tempelhof's closure as part of plans to expand Schoenefeld Airport, a former military airport on the city's outskirts, into Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. Several airline companies that use the centrally located Tempelhof Airport tried to block the closure.

Even the Americans, who did it, didn't think it could be done. With grit and guts, they carried off the greatest humanitarian air rescue in history, an unambiguous triumph over Josef Stalin at the cruel start of the Cold War. Even now, 50 years later, it seems impossible that 2 million West Berliners could be provided food and medicine, shoes and coal, everything, by planes. From the sky came salvation.

Tempelhof Airport: An article in Sunday's Section A about a referendum on plans to close Berlin's historic Tempelhof Airport, site of the Berlin airlift, stated that Orville Wright gave a flight demonstration at the location in 1903. The demonstration was in 1909.

Tom Key, who was the first president of the Pacific Symphony and served on its board for 19 years while watching it grow into California's third-largest orchestra, has died. He was 81. Key, who was also a successful real estate broker and a Navy pilot who flew 200 missions in the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, died Tuesday at his home in Fullerton from corticobasal degeneration, a rare brain disorder.