Berlin, Tuesday, July 13 Four squadrons of C-54’s are on their way from Panama, Alaska and Hawaii. These are the military versions of the DC-3, which we’ve grown to really love over the last decade because of its unparalleled luxury – the first civilian aircraft (except for the Zeppelin dirigible which has stopped flying) with toilets aboard, so that instead of having to wait as much as five hours for a refueling stop, we could get some relief. And the first aircraft – except for the Zeppelin – in which a tall man like me can stand in the aisle without bending. And the first – except for the Zeppelin – on which there’s a kitchen that can prepare real food. And think of the speed! Only fifteen hours from New York to Los Angeles, with only two refueling stops – you can never get tired of the cow girls at the Nebraska stop bringing on board huge helpings of steak and ribs! But the military C-54’s that will begin flying supplies into Tempelhof don’t have the fittings. Each can carry up to 19,600 pounds three times more than the C-47, and whereas the C-47 is difficult to unload because of the single wheel at the tail, the C-54 is better adapted for loading and unloading, and this has been taking time – not to mention having to plug each aircraft into position and then stack it over Berlin – in these very foggy, overcast, and rainy days in July! Prof. Harrington is recording that as of July 11, 45 of these aircraft, with 1250 crew members and mechanics for round-the-clock missions are on the tarmac at the Rhein-Main airport near Frankfurt. Because these have served as troop carriers and have been provided by MATS, the new Military Air Transport Service and not the U.S. Air Force, the Soviets – and the increasingly panicked Berliners – will surely propagandize that they will be used for evacuation. We must fight that rumor as long as we can, even though part of my job is to organize the evacuation of at least key politicians when that does happen. The British are stepping up the plate, too, delivering 38 more Dakotas two weeks ago (equivalent to our C-47’s) and now 40 Yorks (their C-54 equivalent). It’s still said to be pretty chaotic at the loading, for both the American and the British ground personnel; the Berliners on the other end are mustered into teams that quickly unload the cargo, sweep the floor for the floor dust or coal dust, give sandwiches and hot coffee to the flight crew, who are required to stay with their airplane, and then jump to the next aircraft that team sees taxiing in. By sending so many aircraft, the British are suspending all crew training at home, so they’re clearly gambling the operation will not last long. Still the question is, who will blink first, the Soviets or the Anglo-Americans. It will be only a matter of weeks or a few months, if the air supply can manage to make it to winter, when the weather will definitely put a stop to it, that the RAF’s dilemma will have to be faced – either restart training by withdrawing aircraft and crews from the air supply and watch tonnage plummet, or watch all their crews face erosion from lack of replacements. The U.S. dilemma is less the number of aircraft, since we can still take them from domestic civilian airlines stateside, but the risk for Strategic Air Command to base so many of our aircraft in Germany or Berlin, very easy targets of a surprise Soviet attack that would disable its two biggest competitors on the Continent. We in the Western Allied Sectors of Berlin aren’t as unlucky as the Western Sectors of Vienna, because there are only very small air fields there, and that city couldn’t be supplied by air. Knowing this, however, the Viennese stockpiled far more supplies than the Berliners, who are far greater in numbers, and for a longer period. But we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop in Austria, and then we’ll be in a fine muddle, probably losing Vienna pretty quickly and demoralizing and panicking the Berliners even more. Glad I’m not there, since the Western Garrisons in Berlin are getting plenty of supplies, and our commissaries don’t have significant shortages of anything. I understand the French are even getting planeloads of wine. But, for all its vastness (the terminal building used to be the largest building in the world, before the Pentagon was built, with seven levels below ground for aircraft production, and an above ground semi-circle a half-mile long), Tempelhof is still the sticking point. For starters, it was a grass and dirt field until the Americans in 1946 laid 6100 feet of 55-lb. pierced steel plates. For the limited traffic to support the Western Garrisons, it was fine these last two or so years, but now ten ton loads are landing every few minutes, bending and dislodging the steel plates. Having cleared the apartment house on the approach by 20-100 feet at best (the joke is that the buildings have skid marks on the roof!), the pilots face a runway that’s coming apart behind them and facing a sea of mud beyond the runway. These last couple weeks, the rain has been making the steel surfaces slippery, and I know the pilots are crackeling the crockery in their mouth. A new runway – Berlin’s first concrete runway – is providentially just about to open for full time flights in at the end of this week, but the issue THERE is that it’s close to the Western border of Berlin, and on the far side of Lake Havel without good transportation routes into the city proper. The French have been using a military parade ground in what used to be the Tegel Forest (what trees weren’t cut down for fuel during the bombing of the city 1943-1945 or in the terrible winters of 1956-46 and 1946-47 are being cut down now for additional fuel for cooking or heating water, for those that can afford either of those past luxuries), but even laying a pierced steel plate runway flounders on the inability to get enough such plates by air, because they would take the place of food, which is getting increasingly spotty, even though the actual caloric rations are holding out. (Indeed, I’m hearing complaints from some British that their families in the U.K., who are still under rationing for a lot of basic foodstuffs, have it worse off than the Berliners, which may be true now but certainly won’t be in weeks or the autumn at best. BOB
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 04:04:49 +0000
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