The Berlin Airlift by Barry Turner

Author:Barry Turner [Barry Turner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785782558
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Published: 2017-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

There was as much disruption in the air as on the ground, as Frank Somers experienced.

We were flying into Berlin three times a day, and on at least one occasion we were buzzed by Russian aircraft who tried to force us down. A squadron of Russian fighters – LA5s. There were about ten of them. It was frightening. We had nowhere to land – the weather was very bad. But they broke off their engagement and we carried on as if nothing had happened.

Soviet fighters straying into the air corridor induced extra caution into the Airlift. Pilots were told to stay well within the designated air lanes and fly higher than 5,000 feet. This was not enough for the Soviet representatives at the Air Safety Centre who protested against the ‘rupture of traffic regulations’ by American planes. Since the rules of the air over Berlin were almost entirely an American initiative, this took some swallowing.

A few counter-hits helped to raise Anglo-American morale. US Colonel Frank Howley was quick to find ways of needling his Russian opposite number. When he discovered that Sokolovsky’s house was serviced by a gas main from the west, he switched off the power. Compelled to find alternative accommodation, Sokolovsky had to bear another indignity when, citing a boundary violation, Howley confiscated his removal van.

With other tricks up his sleeve, the American commander would have played a rougher game had he been allowed. Instead, Russian soldiers caught on night-time foraging expeditions, stealing anything they could carry, were merely sent back to their own lines. Anglo-American forces had to be more careful. Investigating a hold-up of traffic at Wittenberg in mid-July, John Sims was arrested as a spy and thrown into a damp cell. He was there for three days. ‘A Russian major did everything he could to humiliate me in front of some Russian soldiers.’ A long statement, in Russian, was read out to him. Did he agree to it? Sims had not understood a word but he nodded assent. After that, a fellow officer was allowed in to see him and he was escorted back to the British sector.

Germans who worked with the British and Americans were given even less consideration. Policemen who strayed over the Russian boundary were liable to be arrested and beaten up. Some of them were never accounted for. Potsdamerplatz, where the American, British and Soviet sectors met, was not a place to hang around, particularly at night.

The make or break for the Airlift was the delivery of coal, the essential source of commercial and domestic power. As with every other aspect of the Airlift, there was no scarcity of pundits ready to declare, without fear of contradiction, that it could not be done. Carrying significant quantities of coal by air was a fantasy that even Jules Verne would have scorned. But Clay was ready to give it a try. There are various accounts of his telephone conversation with LeMay but they agree on substance. Clay came quickly to the point.

‘Have you any planes there that can carry coal?’

‘Carry what?’ asked LeMay.

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