The Rosinenbomber: A Sweet Story from the Berlin Airlift

My project is about the Candy Bomber, also known in German as the “Rosinenbomber.” Berliners first used this nickname for the planes in the Airlift because they brought raisins and dried fruit as part of the food supplies. Later, when Gail Halvorsen started dropping candy, the name became even more popular with kids.

It started with a U.S. pilot named Gail Halvorsen, who German kids called “Onkel Wackelflügel,” which means “Uncle Wiggly Wings.” He was a pilot during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. One day he was filming planes at Tempelhof Airport and saw a group of German kids watching from behind the fence. They were polite and didn’t ask for anything, even though they didn’t have much.

Halvorsen gave them the only thing he had: two sticks of gum. The kids broke the gum into tiny pieces so everyone could have some. The ones who didn’t get gum smelled the wrappers and passed them around. This moment really affected him, and he promised to drop candy for them the next day. He told them he’d wiggle his wings so they’d know which plane was his.

This started “Operation Little Vittles.” At first it was just Halvorsen, but soon other pilots joined in. Kids in the U.S. donated candy, companies sent chocolate, and Scouts made thousands of tiny parachutes. By the end, they had dropped 23 tons of candy on more than 250,000 parachutes. Berlin kids wrote thousands of thank‑you letters, including funny ones like “Please drop the candy near the white house with the chickens. But don’t hit the chickens..”

The candy wasn’t just candy, it gave kids hope during a time when Berlin was divided and struggling. It helped build trust between Berliners and the Allied pilots. For my project, I built a parachute with a Hershey bar to show how the Candy Bomber delivered treats to the children.

“This is my model of a candy parachute from Operation Little Vittles. Pilots tied chocolate bars to small parachutes like this and dropped them over Berlin in 1948. The parachutes helped the candy float down safely so kids could catch it.”