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8/4/2019 VOA Dynamic ENG
1/5
American History: How the Berlin Airlift Got Off the Ground
http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/us-history/American-History-How-the-Berlin-
Airlift-Got-Off-the-Ground-127488908.html
Vocabulary
Surrender (V): to stop fighting and admit defeatAdmit defeat: to accept that you have give up (b cuc), accept that you cannot do
something.
Vice = deputy (adj): the send one
Deputy minister: th trng, b ph
Great Depression: cuc i khng hong (1929-1933)
Expert (n): a person with special knowledge, skill or traning in sth
Embassy (n), Ex: US Embassy: i s qun M
US congress: Quc hi M, i hi
Communist Party of Vietnam Congress: i hi CSVN
Agency (n): a gov organization.
Obey (v): to act according to what you have been asked.
Refuse: t chi, to say that you will not accept
Fierce struggleCoal miners
Railroad workers
Strike: to refuse to continue working because of an argument with an employer. nh cng
Threaten
The Second World War ended with the surrender of Japan in August nineteen forty-five.
Americans looked to their new president, Harry Truman, to lead them into a new time of peace.
Truman was vice president until President Franklin Roosevelt died suddenly in the closing
months of the war.
Almost no one expected President Truman to be as strong a leader as Roosevelt had been. And,
at first, they were right. Truman had one problem after another during his first months in the
White House.
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Truman's first big problem was the economy. Almost two million Americans lost their jobs as
factories ended wartime production. Americans everywhere worried about what would happen
next. Only a few years before, the nation had suffered through the worst economic crisis in its
history. No one wanted to return to the closed banks, hungry children and other sad memories
of the Great Depression.
In some ways, the economy did better after the war than many experts had predicted. Many
Americans still had money that they saved during the war. And Congress passed a law designed
to help people keep their jobs. The situation could have been much worse than it was.
However, the economy could also have been better. Much better. Almost overnight, the price
of almost everything began to rise.
President Truman tried to stop the increases through a special price control agency that had
been created during the war. However, thousands of business people refused to follow the
government price control rules. Instead, they set their own prices for goods.
Store owners would tell government officials that they were obeying the price controls. But
often they charged whatever they wanted for the goods they sold.
Businesses were not the only ones who were refusing to obey government price controls.
Organized labor did the same thing.
President Truman had always been a friend of labor unions. But during the first months of his
administration, he became involved in a fierce struggle with coal miners and railroad workers.
The first sign of trouble came in September nineteen forty-five. A group of auto workers closed
down factories at the Ford Motor Company. Then, workers at General Motors went on strike.
Soon there were strikes everywhere -- the oil industry, the clothing industry, the electricalindustry and more.
The strikes made Truman angry. He believed the striking workers were threatening the
economy and security of the United States. He became even angrier when union
representatives came to the White House and refused to accept a compromise wage offer.
Truman ordered the Army to take over the railroads and the coal mines. Within a short time,
the striking coal miners returned to work. However, the president had less success with the
railroad workers. He became so angry with the unions representing them that he asked
Congress to give him the power to draft all striking railroad workers into the armed forces.
The rail strike finally ended. But millions of Americans lost faith in Truman's ability to lead the
country and to bring people together.
By late nineteen forty-six, most Americans believed that the man in the White House did not
know what he was doing. Truman seemed weak and unable to control events.
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Union members disliked him because of his strong opposition to the coal and rail strikes.
Farmers opposed Truman because of the administration's effort to keep meat prices low.
Conservatives did not trust the reforms that Truman promised in his speeches. And liberal
Democrats watched with concern as many of Franklin Roosevelt's old advisers left the
government because they could not work with Truman.
In November of nineteen forty-six, the people voted in congressional and state elections. The
results showed they were not satisfied with Truman and his Democratic Party. Republicans won
control of both houses of Congress for the first time in eighteen years. And Republicans were
elected governor in twenty-five states.
The election was a serious defeat for the Democrats -- but a disaster for Truman. Some
members of his party even called on him to resign. Few people gave Truman much chance of
winning the next presidential election in nineteen forty-eight.
However, Harry Truman began to change in the months that followed the nineteen forty-six
congressional elections. He became a stronger speaker. He showed more understanding of the
powers of the presidency. And in matters of foreign policy, he began to act more presidential.
This was especially so in Truman's reaction to Soviet aggression in Germany.
Truman wanted to rebuild Germany, as well as the other war-torn countries of Western
Europe. As we heard last week, his administration worked closely with western European
leaders to rescue their broken economies through the Marshall Plan.
But the Soviets did not want to see Germany rebuild, at least not so quickly. At first, they
flooded Germany with extra German currency in an effort to destroy its value. They walked out
of economic conferences. And, finally, in early nineteen forty-eight, they blocked all the roadsto West Berlin. West Berlin was in communist East Germany, but not under communist control
as was East Berlin.
After the war, the Allies had divided Germany in half. West Germany had a democratic
government. East Germany was communist, under Soviet control.
The Soviet actions in Berlin were a direct threat to the west. Truman had three difficult choices.
If he did nothing, the world would think the United States was weak and unable to stop Soviet
aggression. If he fought the blockade with force, he might start a third world war.
But there was another choice.
The Allies proposed the idea of flying tons of food, fuel and other supplies into West Berlin. Not
just once, but every day, as long as the Russians continued their blockade.
It would be a difficult job. West Berlin was home to two and a half million people. No one had
ever before tried to supply so large a city by air. Planes would have to take off every three and a
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half minutes, day and night, to supply the people with enough food, medicine, clothing, and
badly needed coal.
The operation involved American C-47 and larger C-54 transport planes, along with British
Lancaster, York, and Hastings aircraft.
On June twenty-sixth, the first C-47s landed at Tempelhof Airport the beginning of the great
operation that was to come. Plans called for the operation to last just a few weeks.
The planes landed in the blockaded city and local volunteers provided support on the ground.
Former mechanics of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, joined Americans in servicing the
aircraft. More than twenty thousand Berliners worked day and night to build an additional
landing field for the American and British planes. It became Tegel, now Berlins major airport.
As part of the supply effort, the British Royal Air Force even landed Sunderland Flying Boats on
a Berlin lake.
Brigadier General Joseph Smith was appointed task force commander of the American part of
the airlift. General Smith called the mission Operation Vittles, using an American slang term
for food.
Operation Vittles also led to Operation Little Vittles for the dropping of chocolates and
other treats to children. The pilots who did this became known as Candy Bombers.
Appreciative German children called them Die Schokoladen Flieger the chocolate pilots.
GAIL HALVORSEN: They wanted to know which airplane I was in. I said, you can tell my
airplane Ill wiggle the wings and youll know its me Watch just that airplane. They saidThats good. Wunderbar [wonderful].
I came back the next day and I put little parachutes for the Kaugummi [chewing gum] and the
Schokoladen [chocolates], so they could see it and so it wouldnt hit them hard in the head,
slow it down. And so I wiggled the wings and they waved their hands, and I pushed it out of the
airplane. And thats how it started.
(Sound courtesy of Ralf Gruender)
It was theidea of Gail Halvorsen, a pilot in the United States Air Force. Lieutenant Halvorsen
became known as Mister Wiggly Wings. From his plane, he would drop chewing gum and
chocolates attached to tiny parachutes made from handkerchiefs.
Soon, many of the Airlift pilots were dropping candy from their planes, including into Soviet-
controlled areas that they flew over. Americans back home supplied the handkerchiefs and the
US chocolate industry supplied the treats.
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Years later, in Berlin, Gail Halvorsen told German interviewer Ralf Gruender how he got the
idea.
GAIL HALVORSEN: I dropped chocolate because of gratitude. I met thirty children at the fence
at Tempelhof, and not one put out their hand and said give me more than flour, give me more
than coal, give me chocolate. They had no chocolate. They had no gum. But they would not be
a beggar. They were so grateful for flour and I said wow, they were thankful. And when peopleare thankful, good things happen.
It soon became clear to the Soviets that the Berlin Airlift would succeed. In May of nineteen
forty-nine, almost one year after they had started their blockade, they ended it.
The crisis in Berlin changed the way many Americans saw their president. Harry Truman no
longer seemed so weak or unsure of himself. Instead, he was acting as a leader who could take
an active part in world affairs.
Truman's popularity increased. However, most Americans did not expect him to win the
election in nineteen forty-eight. Almost everyone believed that the Republican candidate, New
York Governor Thomas Dewey, would capture the office.
The election campaign that year turned out to be one of the most exciting and surprising in the
history of the nation. That will be our story next week.
You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at
voaspecialenglish.com. And you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.
Im Steve Ember, inviting you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION --
American history in VOA Special English.