Your Incredible Neighbors: THE MAN FOR THE MISSION

Green Valley resident remembers 1948 Berlin Airlift

June 24 will mark 60 years since the Berlin Airlift began, and former Retired Air Force Col. Bill Lafferty’s collection of memorabilia keeps the events of the era vivid in his mind.

On Saturday, The Legends resident spoke to a group of University of Illinois alumni at a Green Valley Illini Club luncheon.

After World War II, the Berlin Airlift was one of the first major crises of the Cold War. It began when the Russians blocked railroad and all surface access by the United States, England and France to the Western-occupied parts of Berlin, effectively cutting off deliveries of food and vital supplies.

Berlin had been divided into four sections, and because of the city’s location, the American, British and French Sectors were surrounded by the Soviet occupation zone.

The three Western powers established the Berlin Airlift to bypass the blockade; it also established their commitment to bring supplies to their zones.

Lafferty was 23 then and was the first in his Air Corps group to fly a Berlin Airlift mission.

“I’d recently sent my wife, two-year-old daughter and newborn son back to the U.S., to Champaign, Ill. Then, on the evening of June 26, 1948, I was ordered to make a second C-47 flight from Rhein-Main Air Base in western Germany into Berlin. Regulations at the time barred night air operations.”

After attempting to defy orders, a superior told Lafferty, “Never mind, you’re going.”

Recalling the event, Lafferty said, “Rhein-Main’s commander, Col. Walter Lee. said, ‘Get your fanny out to that plane and take it to Berlin as soon as it’s loaded.’ ”

He was about to fly one of the first missions of the Berlin Airlift and didn’t know it. Upon returning to Wiesbaden Air Base instead of Rhein-Main, Air Force Colonel and commander of the 60th Troop Carrier Group Bertram Harrison said, “Congratulations.”

Lafferty said, “What for?” and Harrison told him he’d just flown the first mission of the Berlin Airlift for the group.

Always wanting to fly, he enlisted in the Air Corps in December 1942. “If I didn’t enlist I would’ve been drafted by the Army.”

From that first flight until the end of Berlin Airlift, Lafferty flew a total of 198 missions. “That was by no means high… the Airlift ended on May 12, 1949, when the Russians folded their tent, but we continued until the end of September in case the Russians changed their mind.”

He vividly recalled making a humanitarian call in 1946 while his wife was still in Germany. “We had received a virtual Care Package of food and clothing from friends in Champaign, asking if we would deliver it to family in Munich… fraternizing with the Germans was forbidden… but we delivered the package.

“I was in uniform; I remember vividly the fear on the faces of the couple when they opened the door.” Aware of the dangers, Lafferty said he delivered the package because it was the humane thing to do.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight he shared these thoughts about the Berlin Airlift. “We had just won WWII; the hope was there for a world of peace. That turned bad immediately.

“We preserved a way of life for these people that they would not have had otherwise.”

His memorabilia-filled den includes a model of the B-36—the last operational airplane he flew, a painting of German women building the second runway at Tempelhof Air Base in the American Zone and a memento caricature of himself given when he served at the Pentagon with the International Negotiations Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1971 to 1974.

He also has a Hummel figurine of the Airlift Memorial outside of Templehof Air Base in Berlin. The inscription reads: “In commemoration of the Berlin Airlift—a heroic effort to keep a city free—June 26, 1948 - September 30, 1949.

As with any war, numbers are surreal. By the end of the greatest humanitarian airlift in history, American and British pilots had flown 92 million miles on 277,000 flights in the western sectors of Germany to Berlin delivering close to 2.3 million tons of supplies.

Of 32,900 American troops involved, 31 military men died in the airlift. Of his personal involvement, Lafferty said, “I didn’t do anything unusual. I was just one of the first to fly in the airlift by happenstance.”

Ellen Sussman is a freelance writer in Green Valley. Contact her at ellen2414@cox.net.