An Army of Normal Folks - Gail Halvorsen: The Candy Bomber

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

For An Army of Normal Dead Folks, Larry Reed brings us the story of the pilot who dropped sweets & hope to the children of Berlin.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And one kid named Peter writes this adorable letter where he says, you guys keep dropping parachutes, but they don't land near me. I don't know how you guys ever won the war. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. That last part somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie's called Undefeated. Y'all, I believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks.

That's us, just you and me, deciding, hey, I can help. And that's exactly what Gayle Halverson did. During the Berlin blockade, Gayle became lovingly known as the Candy Bomber, even if he disappointed young Peter. I cannot wait for you to hear his story from real heroes author Larry Reed as we pay tribute to him for our special series, An Army of Normal Dead Folks,

right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli is based on my co-host Mark's best-selling book of the same title. And on this show, we call upon his years of research to help unpack the story behind the Godfather's birth from start to finish. This is really the first interview I've done in bed. We sift through innumerable accounts. I shoot 35 pages every month. Many of them conflicting,

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And that has given birth to my podcast, The Puzzler. Dressing. Dressing. Oh, French dressing. Exactly. Oh, that's good. French dressing exactly Now you can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears I thought to myself I bet I know what this is and now I definitely know what this is. This is so weird This is fun. Let's try this one

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serious, which warrants a serious conversation from a serious parental figure like yourself. Not the seriously know-it-all sports dad or the seriously smart podcaster. It requires a serious conversation that is best had by you. No, seriously, the best person to talk to your child about vaping is you. To start the conversation, visit TalkAboutVaping.org, brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. OK, two more to discuss. Chapter 30. I just love this guy, Gail Halvorson. Halvorson is my son. Yeah, this dude

is the candy bomber. Yep. Tell us about him. Okay, he just died by the way, a couple years ago. No kidding. Well over a hundred years of age. He actually- You know, all these heroes, if they weren't executed, seemed to have had pretty long lives too.

Yeah, I think that that may be God's way of saying, well done, thy good and faithful servant. You get a little extra time. That's it. Well, Gale Halverson, who died just a couple of years ago, he'd come down with COVID in 2020, but completely at like age 100 or close to it, completely recovered from it, died a couple of years later. Well, he was in the US Air Force after World War II. And this may tax the memory of Americans today because we kind of forgotten the Berlin blockade of 1948.

I have not forgotten. I studied that and it's important we don't forget that. Oh, absolutely. It was a horrific time. Think of Germany after 1945. Divided, occupied, demoralized, defeated, devastated. The Soviets have a zone, not only of Germany, but also a zone within the city of Berlin. East Berlin, West Berlin. The wall would not be built until 1961, but there were many efforts to keep people apart within the city of Berlin itself. But correct me if I'm wrong, even though there wasn't a wall, they were separated and guarded

by outposts, razor wire, chain link fence, all of that. Yes, but still there was a stream of people getting through that. And they were losing people like you wouldn't believe from east to west, trying to escape. That's eventually a reason they put the wall up because they just couldn't keep the human traffic on one side. Well, Stalin in the Soviet Union thought that Allied occupation of West Berlin was untenable, that he could gobble up all of the city of Berlin if he just put on the pressure. So overnight, he announced in 1947, I think it was, maybe, yeah, 47 or 48, that West Berlin was being blockaded. No traffic, no land or river traffic

would be allowed into West Berlin. He was going to starve them out, in effect. He thought the Western Allies would just give up and leave and leave all of Berlin to the Soviets. Well, he didn't bank on Harry Truman, who decided from the start, we're not going to let this stand. So Truman put together the Berlin Airlift, which involved thousands of mostly American but also British and French cargo planes on a daily basis. Unarmed and unescorted. That's right. Which was very important because the Soviets could never say it was some type of military invasion. So they couldn't shoot down these humanitarian planes because they were unarmed

and unescorted. It was a brilliant maneuver. Yeah, absolutely. Now they did harass them. But they wouldn't shoot them down to start yet another conflict. Yep. They would shine spotlights as a plane was landing. They would shine bright spotlights into the eyes of the crew in these planes to try to disorient them, things like that. But nonetheless, the Berlin airlift brought thousands upon thousands of cargo planes full of food, other essentials to get the West Berliners through this blockade, not knowing how long it might last. Well, one of the pilots was Gail Halverson from Utah. While

his plane was being unloaded in West Berlin, he wandered over to a fence where he saw some children had gathered on the other side. They all obviously were desperately poor in rags for the most part, but they were smiling and they wanted to say hello if they could and get maybe some candy from him. First time he did that, he had only two sticks of gum in his pocket. He broke them up into very small pieces and distributed them to the kids. When he ran out, the remaining kids just smelled the gum wrappers and just savor the aroma. That gave him an idea. He told the kids, I'll be back and watch for my plane.

He said, I'll wiggle the wings. That's how he became known to the West Berlin children as Uncle Wiggly Wings. He said, I'll wiggle my wings before I drop you some candy by parachutes. And so he and some of his men would tie chocolate bars and other candies to homemade parachutes like a handkerchief, make a parachute out of it. And when they were bringing the cargo loads of stuff into West Berlin, before they'd land, they would throw out all these parachutes with candy for these kids. And other Air Forcemen thought, this is a great idea, I'm going to do it too. Well, Gail Halverson never went to his superior officer to get authorization for this.

He just did it. He just did it. And so the others were as well. And then he got called in, and he thought he might even be court-martialed. But his commanding officer called him in to commend him. And he said, let's make this a magnificent campaign. Let's let the world know that we're doing this. Well, in the end, over the next several months, thousands of American families sewed together, crewed little parachutes. Candy companies in America and Britain donated more than 20 tons of candy that the Air Force dropped. And they're great stories. Gail Halverson wrote a book about it. He produced some of the letters that kids in

West Berlin wrote. Once they learned of him, they'd send letters to the airport hoping that it would get to Mr. Halverson. And one kid named Peter writes this adorable letter where he says, you guys keep dropping parachutes, but they don't land near me. I don't know how you guys ever won the war. And he gave directions, he says, next time you come to West Berlin, look for the house right next to the bridge, turn right and drop it there. I mean, just incredible correspondence. But this turned out to be one of the many reasons why after the Berlin blockade was lifted by Stalin and it came to an end, there was such great love for Americans by West Berliners. They came to our rescue.

They even dropped candy by parachutes. See that's the part that really struck me is just a small thing by just an average guy. There were thousands of pilots that... Think of the enormous goodwill it created. And candidly, we could have diplomats all over the place. This is maybe one of the greatest foreign affairs successes there is. Because those kids become adults.

Yep. And they remember Americans as the ones who tried to put a smile on their face. That's right. Ordinary people helping ordinary people. This isn't president to president. It's ordinary person to ordinary person. That's it.

And I remember in this chapter a line, clean this up for me because I'm about to butcher it, but don't forget about us, freedom, something. What was the comment there? Something to the effect that freedom is indivisible, that when someone loses it we all lose something and that we're all in this together. That was the kind of sentiment. Don't forget us. We are as interested in freedom as you are. Right. And just a little candy bar being dropped gave those children hope that they weren't forgotten. Yep, exactly. Gail Halverson, the candy bomber, maybe he should have

been our ambassador to Germany or something because he probably created more goodwill than anything else our government could have ever done. Absolutely, and in his book by the way there are many stories of what happened in subsequent years as he grew older and as the kids grew up. There were many occasions when he would go back to Berlin to be celebrated by some event. And children who were then adults came up to thank him and they were telling him stories about how, you know, where they got their first candy bar by parachute, that kind of thing. So there were a lot of wonderful reunions in later years and that just cemented

the relationship between ordinary Germans and ordinary Americans. As a result of this man. Yep. Thank you for joining us for this special series, An Army of Normal Dead Folks. If Gayle Halverson or other episodes have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by acting heroically in our time, buying Larry Reed's book, Real Heroes, where the story came from, or if you have story ideas for this series,

please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at billatnormalfolks.us, and I promise you you I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the army at normal folks dot us. Consider becoming a premium member there.

Any and all of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. Tickets are on sale now y'all for our 2025 iHeart Country Festival presented by Capital One happening Saturday, May 3rd at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Don't miss your chance to see Brooks and Don, Thomas Rhett, Rascal Flatts, Coles Wendell, Sam Hunt, Megan Maroney, Bailey Zimmerman, Nate Smith. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. Dressing. Dressing. Dressing.

Oh, French dressing. Exactly. Oh, that's good. I'm AJ Jacobs and my current obsession is puzzles. And that has given birth to my podcast, The Puzzler. Something about Mary Poppins? Exactly. This is fun.

You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to The Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. This season explores women from the 19th century to now. Women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists, lawyers, writers, and more. This podcast tells more than just the brutal, gory details of horrific acts. I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can find. Because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice,

and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains, or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seale.

And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. This podcast is based on my co-host, Mark Seale's bestselling book of the same title. Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Cobola, Robert Evans, James Kahn, Talia Shire, and many others.

Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.