Cold War

“USAF Airlift Taskforce Headquarters is reporting that they flew nearly 7,000 tons into Berlin yesterday. They’ll be making a public announcement about it later this morning,” the Station adjutant handed a notepad with the figures to Wing Commander Priestman.

Priestman scanned his notes and remarked “It says 6,978 tons of coal. Is that all they flew in?”

“Yes, sir. For this one day. They wanted to show what could be done.”

Priestman was not impressed. Berlin could not live by coal alone, yet a homogeneous cargo was easier to load and unload than a diverse one in which objects of different weights and dimensions had to be married together for an optimal aircraft load. “Well, let them boast,” he told the adjutant. “We have work to do. I’d like you—” He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on his desk, and he picked it up, “Priestman.”

“Sir,” his secretary was on the other end, “an American Air Force captain is here and would like to speak to you for a few moments.”

“Did he say what it was about?”

“These sweets drops, sir.”

“Ah. Right. Send him in.”

Stan opened the door to let the American in and slipped out himself. The newcomer was a handsome young man in a brown, US Army uniform adorned with wings. He came smartly to attention to salute the more senior RAF officer. Priestman returned the salute and then asked the captain to sit down, gesturing to the chair before his desk. “What can I do for you, captain?”

“Sir. My name’s Baronowsky, copilot to Lt. Gail Halvorsen. I suspect you’ve seen in the newspapers that we started dropping candy and chocolate to the kids who were standing around the perimeter fence at Tempelhof.”

“It’s been rather hard to overlook that piece of news, captain. I believe it’s been on every radio programme and in every newspaper not controlled by the Soviets for a couple of days,” Priestman remarked dryly.

Baronowsky looked embarrassed rather than puffed up about it, which made Priestman warm to him. “We didn’t do it for the publicity, sir,” Baronowsky underlined his expression. “In fact, we’d hoped to keep it secret because we were rather afraid General Tunner might not approve of it.” That candidness made Priestman laugh, and the ice was broken.

Grinning himself, Baronowsky explained, “Halvorsen had met some of the kids when he visited Berlin on his time off, and he just wanted to do something to make their lives a little better. We hadn’t planned to do it more than once, but somehow….” His words faded off.

“You’ve done a wonderful thing, captain,” Priestman told him sincerely. “We envy you having the resources to share like that.” It wasn’t the fact that Britain didn’t have enough chocolate to meet even domestic demand that saddened him. It was that the British chocolate shortage seemed like a poignant symbol of the British Empire, which could no longer shower largesse upon the poor of the world as America could.

“Yes, sir. I understand. I mean, I was in the UK during the war. I know how bad it was, and I know you still have rationing and shortages now.” His earnestness was touching, and Priestman sensed not a trace of smug superiority. Baronowsky continued, “I just came to explain that General Tunner wants to ramp up the operation a bit. When Halvorsen and I started, all we had were our own rations and handkerchiefs, but Tunner is going to turn over PX resources and allow any pilot who wants to to do the drops. The problem is, if a lot of pilots take part — and I think they will — we don’t want all the goodies landing in the same place.”

“I can see the sense in that,” Priestman conceded.

Baronowsky took an audible breath before concluding, “Tunner thinks we need to add a little flexibility into the approach pattern for those aircraft involved in what they’re now calling ‘Operation Little Vittles’. But of course we don’t want to interfere with RAF operations and certainly don’t want to do anything that would increase the risk of collisions, so we, uh, want to coordinate this with you.”

Priestman nodded. “Thank you. I assure you we would like to facilitate delivery of sweets to the children of Berlin. The person you need to talk to is the Senior Flying Control Officer at the Berlin Air Safety Centre, but since you’re here, why not go upstairs to the control tower and talk to Gatow’s Senior Flying Control Officer, Squadron Leader Garth? If you work things out with him, I’m sure he’ll be able to liaise with the Berlin Air Safety Centre for you. Would that work?”

“Yes, sir! Thank you!” Baronowsky sprang to his feet, looking happier than Priestman thought the situation warranted. He could only surmise that the American had expected ‘the Brits’ to be spoilsports in some way.

“Good, then I’ll ask my adjutant to escort you up.” The wing commander stood and came around the desk to lead him out. In the doorway, he called over to Stan to take the American up to the tower. Offering his hand to Baronowsky, he ended with, “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain. Keep up the good work.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Before Priestman could disappear into his office again, Sergeant Andrews gestured to the phone she was holding and mouthed at him “Group Captain Bagshot.” With the foreboding he felt every time the Group Captain called, Priestman returned to his desk and took the call.

“Have you seen the American tonnage claims?” Bagshot barked into the phone without pleasantries or introduction.

“Yes, I have.”

“And do you know what we flew in yesterday?”

“2,246 tonnes.” Priestman had the figures in front of him on his desk.

Bagshot snorted. “That’s less than a third of what the Americans flew! It makes us look like bumbling idiots — the tail on the dog! What are we doing wrong?”

“I don’t think you can say we’re doing anything wrong, sir. The RAF is roughly one-fifth the size of the USAF, yet we flew one-third of the sorties. The difference in tonnage is because they have a larger fleet of four-engine aircraft. Furthermore, yesterday’s figures are distorted because they flew their C-74 in and out of Gatow six times; something they do not intend to do regularly.”

“Aircraft alone can’t explain the difference,” Bagshot snapped irritably. “The Americans must be loading and off-loading more efficiently.”

“Yesterday they hauled only coal, which is faster to load and unload than the heterogeneous cargoes we handled.”

“Why don’t we take more coal?” Bagshot growled.

“As you know, sir, the Berlin City government determines what they need, and they have a long list of items other than coal.”

“You don’t seem to understand!” Bagshot barked. “If the Colonials out-perform us by margins like these, they will have a very strong case for taking over the whole operation!”

So that was what had upset him, Priestman registered. Bagshot had learned that Tunner wanted to take over the entire Airlift and elbow the RAF Group Captain out of the way. Priestman’s feelings about such a development were ambivalent. On the whole, he deplored America’s rise at Britain’s expense, and specifically, he resented Tunner’s almost-inhuman focus on ‘efficiency’. Yet there was no question that Tunner was more competent than Bagshot, and if he had to choose between the two, he would take Tunner. Given that Bagshot did not want to hear that, Priestman opted to remain silent.

“This is insufferable!” Bagshot concluded and slammed the phone down.

Wonderful, Priestman thought. The conversation left a sour taste in his mouth, and he needed to get away from his desk for a moment. He decided to go and see how Graham was getting on with the subterranean fuel storage tanks. Passing through the anteroom he noticed that the inbox on Sergeant Andrew’s desk was overflowing. “Good heavens! What is all that mail?” Priestman asked in alarm. Mail usually meant work, but this mail looked surprisingly unofficial in old, tattered, even dirty envelopes and addressed by hand rather than typewriter.

“Sorry, sir. I normally pass this on to Translation before you notice.”

“But what is it?”

“Just your fan mail, sir,” she admitted with a smile.

“I’m still not following you.”

“They are thank-you letters from the population.”

“Thank you letters?”

“For the Airlift. There are also some gifts.” She pointed to a cardboard box in the corner of the room. Priestman went to look inside. He was astonished to discover a cuckoo clock, a lace tablecloth, a somewhat tatty stuffed fox, and a fine set of deer antlers among other things. They appeared to be family heirlooms. They were certainly things that might have brought a pretty penny on the black market. To give them away to the occupiers instead was a touching gesture.

“Since when have these gifts been arriving?” Priestman asked Andrews.

“I think the first item came a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned it to you, but you said you didn’t have time to deal with it and asked the Translation Department to draft and send thank you notes in your name.”

“Yes, now I remember. But I had no idea the gifts had grown to these proportions.” He stared at them a moment more and then decided. “Find a time on my calendar when I can talk to whoever in the Translation Department has been handling the gifts and letters. Tell them I’d like a summary of what is being said in the notes and that I’d also like to see their standard reply. I may want to personalise our response more. I’ve been neglecting public relations for too long and that is going to change.”

“Yes, sir!” Her wide smile indicated her approval.

Priestman was less pleased with himself. Since the Blockade started, he’d been focusing too much on his immediate job and had lost sight of the bigger picture. Taking time to show some appreciation for gifts and thank you notes might not be much, but then nor were a handful of chocolate bars dropped on handkerchief parachutes. Sometimes, however, little things mattered out of all proportion to their objective value. It was time to pay more attention to the Berliners.