Halvorsen is the primary source for the details of this encounter. He recounted it consistently over decades, in published interviews, oral histories, and public appearances. The documented evidence for the specific content of the conversation is his later recollection, not a contemporaneous record. This is worth noting not to cast doubt on the event, which was real and well-attested, but because readers of a story this frequently retold should understand what kind of evidence underlies it.
What is documented is the result: Halvorsen made the drops, the drops produced letters addressed to him at Tempelhof, the letters attracted official attention, and the official attention led to something far larger.
## Handkerchiefs and Hershey Bars
Halvorsen’s initial candy drops were improvised and entirely unauthorized.
After the encounter at the fence, he returned to his crew. He and his copilot and his flight engineer pooled their candy rations. The military rations included Hershey bars, Mounds bars, Baby Ruth bars, and Wrigley’s gum. They had a limited supply, but it was enough to assemble a small package for the first drop.
The parachutes were handkerchiefs. Halvorsen tied the candy to his and his crewmates’ handkerchiefs, twisted the cloth into something like a rudimentary chute, and rigged them to be deployed through the aircraft’s flare chute, the tube used to eject signal flares. On approach to Tempelhof, when he could see the children gathered at the fence, he wiggled the aircraft’s wings as promised, then pushed the candy-laden handkerchiefs through the chute.
The drops worked. Letters from Berlin children began arriving at Tempelhof base operations addressed to “Onkel Wackelflügel,” German for “Uncle Wiggly Wings.” A child named Peter Zimmermann wrote that his parachute landed in a gap in a hedge. A girl named Mercedes Simon wrote about catching a parachute and sharing the candy with her sister. The letters were specific about where the drops had landed, what had been in them, and how the candy had been divided.