Precision Operation

Said Major General William H. Tunner: "We look upon the airlift not as an end in itself. It is an exercise in the technique of using big airplanes in a manner hitherto unknown."

Tunner is operational boss of the great three-pronged "bridge to Berlin". Last week as the lift entered its 16th week, Tunner mused: "The trouble with all airplanes is that they spend too much time on the ground."

Keeping his planes in the air more of the time than experts thought possible a few months ago, Tunner looks on the lift as a precision operation, not as an adventure or a political demonstration. VIPs alighting at Berlin's Tempelhof airdrome are disappointed to see only a dozen planes on the ground. Tunner is proud of it. He has cut the time needed for unloading, checking, briefing and refueling to 30 minutes. The crews do not usually go into the operations office; it comes to them: a meteorologist and an operations officer in a jeep, a portable snack bar with a couple of German girls to sell coffee, cocoa, sandwiches.

"Like a Boid." Tunner's men show little evidence that they know they are engaged in one of the most dramatic military operations in history--and one of the most significant. The atmosphere of the airlift is tense, but not excited. TIME Correspondent Alfred Wright took a typical trip on the airlift on Oct. 1. His report:

Captain Edward Hensch of Houston, Tex. was scheduled for a 2 p.m. take-off from Frankfurt's Rhein-Main airport on his second round to Berlin that day. He stopped in the operations room to collect his copilot, 1st Lieut. William Baker of Los Angeles. Baker was holding, somewhat awkwardly, a bunch of flowers he had received that morning from a grateful family at Tempelhof airdrome. The Germans are always turning up with flowers and the airmen are always embarrassed (but pleased too). More painful than the actual donation is the necessity of carrying the flowers into the operations room. There is always some arch clown to say: "Getting married?"

Out on the field they climbed into a C-54, one of three waiting in a queue. They checked over the plane, took a look at the cargo--flour and condensed soup.

Hensch tried the ropes, which were taut against the nine tons of cargo filling a ridiculously small part of the enormous interior. The two pilots went into the cockpit and started to warm up the engines. "They had a pretty good lunch in there today," said Baker to Hensch. "It was fish, but it was good." They had a little informal conversation with the control tower. (British pilots are still lost in wonder at the informality of U.S. communications. One British pilot walks around Berlin shaking his head and telling everybody he overheard a U.S. airman on the strip say to his control tower, "Just give me the woid and I'll make like a boid.") Through the earphones came an efficient voice from the control tower. "2623, you are cleared for take-off." Down the runway went the plane. The voice said: "2623, airborne at zero three [2:03 p.m.]. Your altitude is 6,000."

Every other plane flies at 6,000 feet on the south corridor inbound to Berlin. The planes ahead and behind it are at 5,000 feet with four minutes' flying time between them and the planes on the higher level.

A Rat's Fur Walrus. From the U.S. airports Rhein-Main and Wiesbaden the planes head for Darmstadt. Then they turn northeast for Aschaffenburg and then pick up the Fulda radio range. After Fulda they can fly either on the northeast leg of the Fulda radio range or the southwest Leg of the Tempelhof range. In the Russian zone, just past Eisenach, Hensch's plane flew over one of the Red army training grounds. There were tank tracks through the fields and vehicles lined up next to the forest. Said Hensch: "I'd like to come over here with 20,000 pounds of rotten tomatoes some day instead of this load."

The big engines growled on and Baker, with nothing to do, took a box from the ledge above the instrument panel. He unwrapped it--more presents from grateful Germans: a little porcelain snail, some flowers, and a toy walrus made out of rat's fur. There was a note addressed: An unseren Blokade Flieger. Hensch could not read it, but he said: "Wait till my wife gets ahold of that. She'll start sending them food packages. She's always sending these Germans presents."

Fifteen minutes out of Berlin we passed a big Russian airfield. Did the Russians bother them much? "They come up and take a look at you," said Hensch, "and maybe do a couple of slow rolls to show off like any fighter pilot, but they don't mean any harm."

What the Russians Sent. Hensch's plane came over the crumpled heart of Berlin to circle back for its landing under the careful coaching of G.C.A., the radar control for helping planes on to the ground when weather closes in. (Even on good days G.C.A. stays in action to keep the operators and the pilots in practice.

Just before the beginning of the Tempelhof runway there was a graveyard crowded with several thousand kids waving at us. These were the expectant beneficiaries of operation "Little Vittles," started by Lieut. Gale S. Halverson, who dropped candy and gum to kids in little parachutes made of handkerchiefs. The town of Mobile, Ala., where Halverson used to be stationed, had taken up a collection, including 50 pounds of handkerchiefs, for "Little Vittles."

Hensch and Baker walked around the plane to look at a spot where they had collided with a bird above the clouds. They found no scar. Baker walked over to make his routine report to intelligence officers. Hensch called after him: "Better tell them the Russians sent a bird after us."

Like any suburban commuter, Hensch found his wife waiting in a car by the field. He gave her the flowers, the porcelain snail, the rat's fur walrus and the note. She translated it haltingly. It said: "On the 100th day of the blockade God lives with you flyers. Health, happiness and skill for all of you and a quick return to the old days, and the joyous end of the blockade."

What Might Be the Answer. Out of 700 such flights every 24 hours--many of them much tougher than that--the airlift is built. It sounds easy, but few dreamed that 2,500,000 (more people than live in Philadelphia) could be fed for months, perhaps indefinitely, by air.

The triumph of organization and improvisation that made it possible is what Tunner means by "using airplanes in a manner hitherto unknown." For strategists the airlift has a meaning far beyond its immediate goal of feeding blockaded Berlin. The U.S. Army has never fought a major foreign campaign more than 300 miles from salt water. Suppose it had to fight in the heart of a continent? An airlift like Berlin's might be the answer.

U.S. airmen have considered this possibility since the China Hump operation and the airborne Burma jungle campaign. Perhaps Russian strategists, who have consistently underestimated air power, are beginning to get the point.

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