His funeral received full military honors at Provo’s Provo City Cemetery. A KC-135R tanker aircraft flew over the ceremony. A military firing party rendered honors. The KC-135, a jet-powered refueling aircraft that had entered service long after Halvorsen’s most celebrated flights, represented the Air Force’s continuous link from the C-54s of 1948 to the present. His memorial service drew attendees who had known him from BYU, from the Air Force, from the candy bomber commemorations, and from the German-American communities that had maintained their own connections to his story.
In 2016, Halvorsen had co-founded the Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation Education Foundation, later renamed The Candy Bomber Foundation. The foundation’s work focused on aviation education, using the candy bomber story as a vehicle for teaching young people about aviation history and service. The foundation continued operating after his death.
In 2022, the Provo Vet Center, a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in his home city, was renamed in his honor. The rededication ceremony took place on November 21, 2022, nine months after his death.
## The Mechanics of the Drop
A note on the parachutes themselves, which became one of the most recognizable symbols of the operation.
The parachutes Halvorsen and other Little Vittles pilots used were not purpose-designed. They were, in the initial phase, handkerchiefs. A square piece of cotton cloth, about the size of a man’s handkerchief, could be tied at its four corners around a small bag of candy. The resulting package was crude but functional: when dropped from a low-flying transport aircraft, the fabric billowed enough to slow the candy’s descent and prevent serious injury on impact, though not all of the packages landed softly.