Cold War

Virginia had drawn Kathleen into a conversation so successfully that Kathleen was surprised when they reached Tempelhof. American Skymasters were swooping down at them, and the roar of their engines was deafening. Their wheels and flaps were down as they passed directly overhead, and one could see the oil stains on the wings and the bolts holding the fuselage together.

“Oh, look!” Virginia exclaimed. “There’s a group of German children over there. They must be hoping for a sweet drop! Let’s go and talk to them. Come on!” she ordered her photographer as she flung the car door open and made a beeline for the German boys and girls, Hope and Kathleen forgotten. Kathleen took a disgruntled Hope by the hand and followed.

At the sight of three adults approaching from a car with Allied plates, the children grew still and solemn. They probably feared being chased away.

“Sprechen Sie Englisch?” Virginia asked.

“A little,” one girl answered.

“Are you waiting for sweets to be dropped from an aeroplane?”

They all nodded energetically.

“From one of those?” Hope asked, pointing upwards as her mother hushed her.

Virginia asked the German girl, “Have you caught any sweets before?”

All the children nodded vigorously, and one of the younger children said something with a giggle that the older girl translated. “It is the first chewing gum any of us have ever had.”

“Gum’s bad for your teeth!” Hope informed them. Kathleen put her finger to her lips, harvesting a frown and a stamped foot as she demanded, “Why can’t I say anything?”

“Because Miss Cox wants to hear what the German children have to say.”

“Were you here yesterday and the day before?” Virginia asked the Germans.

They nodded solemnly.

“But no sweets were dropped?”

They shook their heads.

“But you still come every day?”

“It isn’t just the sweets. Every plane brings food or coal or other things we need,” the eldest girl explained. “We watched the planes before the sweets were dropped, too. As long as the planes come, my mother says, we won’t have to submit to the Ivans.”

Good answer, Kathleen thought, and she glanced up just in time to see a USAF Skymaster that was almost on top of them start to rock back and forth. Pilots often did that to “wave” to girlfriends or parents, but the wild reaction of the children took her by surprise. They started jumping up and down and waving with both hands, their high-pitched voices delivering ear-splitting, cacophonic yells of glee. Hope instinctively joined in without even knowing what it was all about.

The next thing Kathleen knew, tiny parachutes were opening over their heads with chocolate bars and packages of gum hanging from them. The children’s shouts of joy reached a fever pitch, almost blotting out Virginia’s furious screams; her photographer had left his camera in the car.

It was too late for a photo. The last of the parachutes with two Babe Ruths swaying from some strings was floating down towards outstretched little hands. Kathleen held Hope back just in time. Hope stamped her foot again and whined, “Why can’t I have some?”

“Because we have sweets rations. These children don’t,” Kathleen told her firmly. “I’ll give you some chocolate when we get back to Gatow.”

Returning her attention to the German children, Kathleen was astonished to see that rather than tearing open the wrappers and eating whatever they could capture, the children first pooled their treasures and then shared them out with scrupulous fairness. In the end, there were three chocolate bars too many. Earnest discussion followed in German before these were handed to three children, who stowed them away in a pocket, evidently for absent siblings. This gesture more than anything struck a chord in Kathleen. She turned to look at the tail of the receding Skymaster.

Did the young men in that aircraft have any idea how happy they had just made these children? Could Americans who had never known shortages, rationing or hunger grasp what a chocolate bar meant to children like these?

They must. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go to so much trouble to make little parachutes from their cotton handkerchiefs and attach candy to them. Again, she looked towards the Skymaster that had concluded its rollout and was turning off the runway. She squinted, trying to read the tail fin.

The USAF used tail fin numbers to identify themselves to the tower. If she could make out the number, then if it ever came to Gatow she would recognise it and could try to talk to the pilots. She knew the crews changed, but she’d at least have a chance of meeting the young men who’d gone to so much trouble to bring happiness to children they didn’t know.

But the Skymaster was too far away. She would never have any way of knowing who had come up with this idea of dropping candy to the children of Berlin. Yet, most likely he had once dropped bombs on them. The thought moved her to unexpected tears. Ken had loved making Hope laugh and smile. She was sure he would have loved to take part in something like this — if only he’d lived to be here. She felt him beside her, smiling.