Halvorsen’s own totals: more than 30 trips back to Berlin, three in 2009 alone. The fiftieth anniversary tour of 71 days in a restored C-54 in 1998. Candy drops re-enacted in Berlin on multiple occasions, in Sarajevo during Operation Provide Promise in 1994, and proposed for other conflicts. Awards from the United States and Germany spanning 65 years, from the 1949 Cheney Award to the 2014 Congressional Gold Medal. Schools named after him in Berlin and at Rhein-Main Air Base. A foundation he co-founded in 2016.
One more number: two sticks of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, broken into four pieces, passed through a barbed-wire fence on a summer afternoon in 1948. By any arithmetic, the ratio of that input to what followed is remarkable. It is also, Halvorsen consistently said, the wrong way to understand what happened. The two sticks of gum did not create the story. The children did, by being exactly who they were when he walked over to the fence and listened.
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**Slug:** gail-halvorsen-candy-bomber-berlin-airlift-operation-little-vittles-uncle-wiggly-wings-tempelhof-1948
**Meta description:** In 1948, Gail Halvorsen broke two sticks of gum and passed them to children at a Berlin fence. The spontaneous promise he made became Operation Little Vittles.
**Category:** Military History / Humanitarian Airlift
**Short title / thumbnail hook:** The Candy Bomber of Berlin
**Tracking ID:** BM-CANDIDATE-090