Navy Fliers in the Berlin Airlift

By Zac Cunningham
School Programs Educator

In the late 1940s, Germany was the front line in the new global Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The U.S., Great Britain, and France occupied the country’s west while the Soviet Union occupied its east. One hundred miles inside the Soviet-controlled east, the city of Berlin was similarly split. Divided Germany and Berlin became battlegrounds where military power was used first to deny and then to provide civilians the necessities of life.

Aerial view of World War II destruction in Berlin around the Brandenburg Gate (Wikipedia)

In 1948, the Western Powers took steps to transform their occupation zones into a new German state. The Soviets responded by blocking roads, railways, and canals into Berlin’s western zones, cutting off electricity, food, and coal supplies to the 2.5 million residents in that half of the city.[1]

American, British, and French occupation authorities launched an airlift of supplies into West Berlin codenamed “Operation Vittles.” Initially, the Allies had to airlift 3,500 tons of supplies per day. With the need for coal in winter, that increased to 4,500 tons daily. Over the next several weeks, the U.S. Air Force poured hundreds of C-54 Skymaster and C-47 Dakota transport aircraft into Europe for the airlift.[2]

U.S. Naval Aviation became involved during a late summer and autumn push to stockpile winter supplies in Berlin. Naval Air Transport Squadrons Six (VR-6) based in Guam and Eight (VR-8) based in Hawaii received orders to join the airlift at the end of October. VR-8 layover crews and personnel were collected from Johnston Atoll, Kwajalein, and Guam. VR-6 fliers winged their way back across the Pacific from Shanghai, Tokyo, and Manila.[3]

Just two days after receiving orders, both squadrons converged on California’s Moffett Field for inspections, repairs, and winterization. After radars were installed at Florida’s Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the 24 Douglas R5D Skymasters of VR-6 and VR-8 departed for Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany.[4]

At Rhein-Main, VR-6 located its home on the base’s outskirts in a Quonset hut for operations, engineering, and administration and another for supply while “perforated steel plating hard stands became the squadron’s parking ramps.” Comforts were minimal. VR-8 ground personnel reported facing unreliable electricity, no fresh water, an outhouse for a head, and living quarters 10 miles away by bus.[5]

Left: Rhein-Main Air Base (US Army); Right: Ground crew warm their hands between engine checks (NHHC)

Nevertheless, the squadrons immediately began their mission “to establish and maintain the highest possible efficiency of personnel and equipment to allow a maximum lift of supplies to the blockaded city of Berlin.” Late on November 9, the same day he and his plane arrived in Germany, Lieutenant Richard Gerszeuski flew VR-8’s first mission from Frankfurt, over the Soviet-occupied east, to West Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport. Lieutenant Joseph L. Norris made VR-6’s first flight on November 12. This was 75 years ago this month.[6]

Navy fliers in the Berlin Airlift (NHHC)

The ad hoc nature of the airlift’s early days was demonstrated on December 19 when loading crews mistakenly put an extra 5,730 pounds of flour—nearly three tons more than normal—on a VR-6 plane. Through strained, the aircraft managed to fly all 26,730 pounds to Berlin. Such a mistake was understandable since “loads of flour, coal, and other supplies were started aboard [planes] at Rhein/Main before the engines were cut.” As the airlift settled into a routine, however, loading and unloading improved. On March 10, a Tempelhof ground crew, which was often made up of civilian Berliners and displaced persons, unloaded a VR-6 aircraft in a record six minutes. While on the ground in Berlin, a mobile snack bar kept flight crews near their planes ready to depart as fast as they were emptied.[7]

Airman Apprentice Robert H. Davidson is shown checking the lashings on the load of flour in his R5D and then directing the unloading of the flour at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport (NHHC)

The airlift’s dangers quickly became apparent to the Navy’s fliers. That winter’s weather was infamously poor, requiring constant use of instrument-only flying and ground-controlled approaches. The danger was particularly acute when landing at Tempelhof, where planes approached one runway between two rows of six-story apartment buildings. Visibility was so poor when the Navy’s squadrons started flying that it was three weeks before crews saw the apartment blocks they were flying between. Aviation Machinist Mate 3rd Class Louis Marconi exclaimed, “My God! I just saw someone’s house go by!”[8]

The fog, rain, and snow caused casualties. On November 15, VR-6 Lieutenant Commander Stephen Lukacik’s plane overran Tempelhof’s runway, crashed, and caught fire. The flames seriously burned Air Force Captain Armand I. Grenadier, a check pilot. Chief Aviation Machinist Mate Sidney D. Pointer, also seriously burned, saved Grenadier’s life. Pointer received a letter of commendation from General Lucius D. Clay, commander of U.S. forces in Europe. Lukacik received similar commendation. Co-pilot Lieutenant William O. Kuencer was also burned and broke his hand.[9]

A month later, just after midnight on December 11, VR-6 suffered a death. Aviation Machinist Mate 3rd Class Harry R. Crite was killed on the return flight from Berlin when the plane “struck terrain extending above 1,000 feet” and slid 1,100 feet through an apple orchard. Trees crumpled the nose, severed parts of the wings and horizontal stabilizers, and broke the plane in two. Pilots Lieutenant Joseph L. Norris and Ensign George H. Blackwood plus Air Force 1st Lieutenant Kenneth Sanger were seriously injured. Army hostess Dianna D. Day and Air Force 1st Lieutenant Frank J. Heffernan were uninjured.[10]

The Navy’s airlift crews tried to make themselves at home in West Germany. Far from the coast, these flying Sailors found they were novelties to many Germans. In one instance, VR-8’s Lieutenant Commander Eugene L. Lowrance was sightseeing in Frankfurt when he overheard two West Germans, unfamiliar with his aviation greens, worry that he was a “Russkie.” To ease their minds, he showed them his U.S. Navy id card.[11]

On December 22, VR-6 and VR-8 personnel threw a Christmas party for children at an orphanage near Frankfurt. They brought the kids “a truckload of clothing, food, candy, and toys” and enjoyed “a Christmas play presented by the 70 children.” Another group “assembled food which they had purchased and any candy and nuts they could scrounge from the [Bachelor Officers’ Quarters] into nine Christmas packages” delivered to “destitute German families.”[12]

The same day as the holiday party, Lieutenant Margaret Carver became VR-8’s personnel officer. Among the first women to join the regular Navy after the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act passed six months earlier, Carver was the first female Navy officer to serve in Europe. VR-8 also had the airlift’s only all-enlisted plane crew, Chief Aviation Pilot Wesley T. Christiensen, Aviation Pilot First Class Joseph A. Popp, and Chief Aviation Machinist Mate Ira Fox.[13]

Lieutenant Margaret E. Carver became VR-8's personnel officer on December 22, 1948, becoming the first women Navy officer stationed in Europe (NHHC)

The Navy’s squadrons quickly became the best in the airlift. During 24 hours on December 16, VR-8 set a single day sortie record when it made 51 flights in a day.[14] “By the end of December [1948],” Naval Aviation News summarized:

VR-8 under Cdr. James O. Vosseller, was leading all squadrons in the Airlift in every measurable phase of air transport operation. It won first honors in aircraft utilization, total cargo carried, payload efficiency and tons per plane. For several weeks, VR-6, commanded by Cdr. Harry P. Badger, was engaged in a spirited battle for second honors with the two top Air Force units. By the end of February [1949,] it forged to the front, equalling [sic] and frequently exceeding VR-8 in operational accomplishments. Performance records unparalleled in the history of air transport were established by the Navy planes and crews in April when the two squadrons flew 8,234 hours in delivering 23,550 tons of food and coal.[15]

VR-6 matched VR-8’s 24 hour record on April 12, 1949, and then broke it with 60 flights on April 18. Meanwhile, VR-8 continued to lead the airlift force in efficiency every month from December to May.[16]

Two R5Ds of VR-8 sandwich an Air Force C-54 as they await their turn for takeoff from Rhein-Main Air Base in January 1949 (USNI)

On May 12, 1949, the Soviet authorities in East Germany lifted their blockade. The airlift continued during the summer months to stockpile a surplus in case the Soviets reinstituted the cordon. July 1949 marked the final month of VR-6 and VR-8’s participation with both squadrons ending operations on the 31st. VR-6 took up its new home base at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts while VR-8 returned to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.[17]

The Cold War was the 20th century’s third world war, a total war in which the main belligerents pursued whole of society mobilizations to compete globally, not in direct combat, but in political, diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural realms. Divided Germany and Berlin became battlegrounds in this global war where military power was used first to deny and then to provide civilians the necessities of life. Air Transport Squadrons Six and Eight of the United States Navy were called from halfway around the world to serve in this struggle. They excelled in that service as did the Berlin Airlift itself, achieving not a military victory but a political, diplomatic, and economic victory that bolstered the U.S. anti-Soviet alliance and helped give birth to a free and democratic West Germany.



Notes:
[1] “The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949,” Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/berlin-airlift [accessed June 27, 2023].
[2] Milestones; Jeffery G. Barlow, “The U.S. Navy’s Participation in the Berlin Airlift,” Naval History and Heritage Command, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/us-navys-participation-in-the-berlin-airlift.html [accessed June 27, 2023].
[3] Barlow; Lieutenant Maurice B. Jackson, “History of Air Transport Squadron Six for period 30 October 1948 to 31, January 1949,” U.S. Department of the Navy, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/squadron-history-reports/vr-6/vr-6-historical-report-30-oct-1948-31-jan-1949.html [accessed June 27, 2023], 4; “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” Naval Aviation News, March 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-naval-aviation-news/navy-wings-over-berlin.html [accessed October 31, 2023], 2.
[4] Barlow; Jackson, 31 January 1949, 5; “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 2-3.
[5] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 5; “Berlin Airlift Rugged,” Naval Aviation News, June 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-naval-aviation-news/berlin-airlift-rugged.html [accessed November 2, 2023].
[6] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 1, 3; “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 3.
[7] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 2,6; Lieutenant Maurice B. Jackson, “History of the Military Air Transport Squadron Six from 1 March 1949 to 31 March 1949,” U.S. Department of the Navy, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/squadron-history-reports/vr-6/vr-6-historical-report-1-mar-31-mar-1949.html [accessed November 3, 2023], 3; “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 3.
[8] “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 3; “Berlin Airlift Rugged.”
[9] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 6, 8.
[10] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 4, 6.
[11] “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 3.
[12] Jackson, 31 January 1949, 7; “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 4.
[13] “Navy Wings Over Berlin,” 4; James L. Leuci, Navy Women in Ships: A Deployment to Equality, 1942-1982, Hampton Roads Naval Museum, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/museums/hrnm/Education/Women%20in%20Ships%201978%2020160207.pdf [accessed October 31, 2023], 5; Captain Daniel W. Christensen, “Navy Air in the Berlin Airlift,” Naval Aviation News, January-February 1996, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-naval-aviation-news/navy-air-in-the-berlin-airlift.html [accessed November 8, 2023], 36.
[14] “Navy Squadrons Lead Pack,” Naval Aviation News, May 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-naval-aviation-news/navy-squadrons-lead-pack.html [accessed November 2, 2023].
[15] “Navy Wins Airlift Honors,” Naval Aviation News, November 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-naval-aviation-news/navy-wins-airlift-honors.html [accessed November 3, 2023].
[16] “Navy Squadrons Lead Pack;” “2 Navy Air Transport Squadrons Flying Record Loads to Berlin Airlift,” All Hands, August 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-all-hands/2-navy-air-transport-squadrons-fly-record-loads-into-berlin-via-airlift.html [accessed November 2, 2023].
[17] Lieutenant Maurice B. Jackson, “History of Military Air Transport Squadron Six for period 1 May 1949 to 31 May 1949,” U.S. Department of the Navy, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/squadron-history-reports/vr-6/vr-6-historical-report-1-may-31-may-1949.html [accessed October 31, 2023], 4; “Historical Report for period 1 July 1949 to 31 December 1949,” U.S. Department of the Navy, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/squadron-history-reports/vr-6/vr-6-semi-annual-report-1-jul-31-dec-1949.html [accessed November 3, 2023], 2; “History of Air Transport Squadron Eight, 1 July 1949 through 31 December 1949,” U.S. Department of the Navy, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/squadron-history-reports/vr-8/vr-8-air-transport-squadron-8.html [accessed November 8, 2023], 3; “Airlift Over, MATS Resumes World-Wide Schedules,” All Hands, December 1949, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/cold-war/naval-aviation-s-involvement-in-the-berlin-airlift/articles-on-the-berlin-airlift/articles-published-in-all-hands/airlift-over-mats-resumes-world-wide-schedules.html [accessed November 3, 2023].