## Who Else Did This
The historical record of Operation Little Vittles tends to center on Halvorsen because he started it and because he became the public face of it over the subsequent decades. But the operation involved many other people, and the story is incomplete without them.
Halvorsen’s copilot and flight engineer participated from the beginning. They contributed their own candy rations to the first drops. Their names appear in some accounts but are not consistently documented across the sources available from this period.
Captain Lawrence Caskey took over the operational leadership of Little Vittles when Halvorsen returned to the United States in January 1949 and continued the drops through the end of the blockade. Caskey’s role is less celebrated than Halvorsen’s but was essential to completing the operation.
Mary Connors organized the domestic handkerchief supply chain, a logistical contribution without which the operation could not have scaled. She was a college student coordinating with the National Confectioners’ Association and processing donations from across the country. Her name appears in the historical record consistently enough to establish her role, though detailed biographical information about her is less available than information about Halvorsen.
The National Confectioners’ Association provided the institutional candy supply that replaced what pilots’ personal rations could not sustain. Without industry backing, the operation would have remained a minor private effort.
British aircrews were part of Operation Plainfare, the British component of the Berlin Airlift, and some British pilots participated in drop activities inspired by Halvorsen’s example. The documentation of British participation in the candy drops specifically is thinner than the documentation of American participation.