Halverson, Gail
(US Air Force pilot) , speaking English:
- "The last paragraph was the best. She wrote the following: If you see the white chickens, drop the parachutes. I do not care if you scare them or not. So I was looking for the white chickens and dropped a lot of parachutes for her."
Wild, Mercedes
(inhabitant of Berlin, then 6 years old) , speaking German:
- "I wrote him a letter to drop me a parachute since he was flying above our house every day. I said that he could easily recognize our house from the white chickens..."
Kulpok, Alexander
(eyewitness, at the time 9 years old) , speaking German:
- "We as children were standing at Tempelhof Airport and raced for the „sweet parachutes”."
Halverson, Gail
(US Air Force pilot) , speaking English:
- "These Berliner children knew exactly that I, as an American, should have things that they did not have. They were so grateful that they had something to eat that they did not want to beg for things like chocolate or gum. I wanted to give something to them."
Kulpok, Alexander
(eyewitness, at the time 9 years old) , speaking German:
- "The dried potato tasted terrible and nobody knew exactly how to prepare it.
So we preferred the potato-powder but what could we eat it with?
Egg-powder. Yes we mixed it with dried-milk and we ate a kind of scrambled egg or omelet."
Halverson, Gail
(US Air Force pilot) , speaking English:
- "Although the skies above Berlin were clear I could not see the city on my first flight. Everything was like a landscape on the Moon. I was thinking where do those 2 million people live? I wanted to know what kind of people they were."
Reuter, Edzard
(The son of the major) , speaking English:
- "General Clay wanted to know if he could count on the support of the Berliners, if they would take the risk of the air bridge. My father replied that General Clay should just organize the air bridge and he could fully trust the Berliners."
Stange, Giesela
(eyewitness in Berlin) , speaking German:
- "We had the feeling that something would happen. What would it be? A war? Who was on which side? As a matter of fact, we were helpless."
Bennet, Jack O.
(civilian pilot, Raisin Bombers) , speaking English:
- "General Clay called the flights an air bridge. I laughed and asked what exactly he meant because there is nothing like an air bridge. He said: Now there is.
Why weren’t they flying their own planes, I asked. Clay answered: we do not have any.... so you and your pilots have to fly until ours arrive and President Truman approves the operation.
This way, I started my first “air bridge’ on 23rd June at 8 p.m."
Stange, Giesela
(eyewitness in Berlin) , speaking German:
- "Everybody was touched by his speech and it motivated us to hold on and not give up."
Kulpok, Alexander
(eyewitness, at the time 9 years old) , speaking German:
- "I remember very well when one evening my mother arrived home with real fresh bread and a pound of butter. A bread and butter sandwich – what a delight."