candy bombers the untold story of the Berlin Airlift and America's finest hour Hardback - 2008

by Andrei Cherny

The masterfully told story of the unlikely menwho came together to make the Berlin Airliftone of the great military and humanitariansuccesses of American history.

On the sixtieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, AndreiCherny tells a remarkable story with profound implicationsfor the world today. In the tradition of thebest narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassifieddocuments, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primaryinterviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffsand second-stringers who not only saved millions of desperatepeople from a dire threat but changed how the world viewed theUnited States, and set in motion the chain of events that wouldultimately lead to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and toAmerica's victory in the Cold War.

On June 24, 1948, intent on furthering its domination ofEurope, the Soviet Union cut off all access to West Berlin, preparedto starve the city into submission unless the Americansabandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered the Allies', andmost of America's top officials considered the situation hopeless.But not all of them.

Harry Truman, an accidental president, derided by his ownparty; Lucius Clay, a frustrated general, denied a combat commandand relegated to the home front; Bill Tunner, a logisticsexpert downsized to a desk job in a corner of the Pentagon;James Forrestal, a secretary of defense beginning to mentallyunravel; Hal Halvorsen, a lovesick pilot who had served far fromthe conflict, flying transport missions in the backwater of a globalwar together these unlikely men improvised and stumbledtheir way into a uniquely American combination of military andmoral force unprecedented in its time.

This is the forgotten foundation tale of America in the modernworld, the story of when Americans learned, for the firsttime, how to act at the summit of world power a masterful andexciting work of historical narrative, and one with strong resonancefor our time.