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Air Force Featured Stories

  • ‘Candy Bomber’ passes away at 101

    Starting his career in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942, Halvorsen served as a pilot until his retirement in 1974, after accumulating more than 8,000 flying hours and 31 years of military service. He was also known as the "Candy Bomber."

  • Royal Air Force Museum American Foundation honors Berlin Airlift veterans

    The Royal Air Force Museum American Foundation celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of Berlin Airlift at their annual “Spirit of the Battle of Britain” banquet last month to honor these veterans for their contributions to the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom.

  • Chance encounter at A/TA reveals impact of Berlin ‘candy bomber’

    As a special guest speaker and attendee at the 51st annual Airlift/Tanker Association Conference in Orlando, Florida, Oct. 23-26, Air Force 1st Lt. Gail Halvorsen shared his personal memories flying many of the Berlin Airlift’s 278,000 flights into the blockaded city between June 1948 and September

  • 'Candy Bomber' delivered chocolate, hope to Berlin

    Seventy years ago, with Adolf Hitler’s crumbled Third Reich still fresh in their memories and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union having a choke hold on their future, Berlin’s children were starving.

  • Sweet lessons: 70th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift

    The end of World War II brought on a new, different conflict - a cold war. An immediate battleground became the divided country of Germany. The Allies divided the defeated Germany with the French, British and Americans taking the western half of the nation spreading the ideals of democracy, and the

  • Candy Bomber drops in 65 years after Berlin Airlift

    It was 1948, World War II was over and the Cold War had begun. For many German families, living conditions were tough and food was scarce. But for the children of Berlin, there was a glimmer of hope, and it came from the sky. Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Gail Halvorsen, a C-47 pilot stationed in Germany