Berlin Airlift: first skirmish of the Cold War

Sixty years ago today, 32 planes took off for Berlin with a cargo of milk, flour and medicine. The Berlin airlift, one of the first big battles of will at the start of the Cold War, had begun.

In 1948, when Stalin's Soviet Union blockaded Berlin, they cut the city off from the parts of Germany controlled by the Americans, British and French. The purpose of this siege was to wrest control of the entire city. West Berlin was left with little more than one month's supply of food and fuel. General Lucius Clay, military governor of US-controlled Germany, warned: "People are going to be cold and people are going to be hungry."

With all land routes blocked off, warming and feeding the two million Berliners became a gargantuan task that could only be accomplished by flying cargo into Tempelhof and Gatow airports. Every day, British

and American planes needed to provide 1,534 tons of food and 3,475 tons of coal and gasoline. In winter even more was needed. Military commanders had initially planned for a three-week mission, but they would ultimately need 278,228 flights over more than a year. At one stage, planes were taking off every three minutes, all day long.

Air controllers had to position planes 500ft away from each other in a crowded sky. Pilots had no time to spare between landing and take off; a crew of 12 set a record when they unloaded ten tons of coal in under six minutes. The prettiest girls in Berlin were sent to boost pilots' morale and hand them drinks through their cockpit windows. Soon after their countries had been at war with each other, French engineers and local German women worked together to construct a