The Candy Bomber's Parachutes

In 1948, three years after Allied bombs had reduced Berlin to rubble, a young American pilot named Gail Halvorsen stood at the Tempelhof Airport fence. On the other side, German children watched the cargo planes with wide eyes — not with fear, as they once had, but with hope. The same skies that had rained destruction now carried flour, milk, and coal to keep them alive during the Soviet blockade.…