On Friday, January 22, John Travolta hosted the 13th Annual "Living
Legends of Aviation" Awards, and Harrison Ford presented the Aviation
Legacy Award.
Recognized during the night was Colonel Gail Halvorsen, better known as the "Candy Bomber," who was recently featured in Meet the Mormons.
On
the same stage with these impressive men was President Dieter F.
Uchtdorf, who had the honor of presenting Halvorsen with the Kitty Hawk
Children's Award for his lifelong positive impact on children.
On Friday, January 22, John Travolta hosted the 13th Annual "Living
Legends of Aviation" Awards, and Harrison Ford presented the Aviation
Legacy Award.
Recognized during the night was Colonel Gail Halvorsen, better known as the "Candy Bomber," who was recently featured in Meet the Mormons.
On
the same stage with these impressive men was President Dieter F.
Uchtdorf, who had the honor of presenting Halvorsen with the Kitty Hawk
Children's Award for his lifelong positive impact on children.
Later
that night, President Uchtdorf and Colonel Halvorsen had a photo
opportunity with Harrison Ford, and Uchtdorf teasingly said: "Our 95-year-old Candy Bomber looked almost the youngest between the Millennium Falcon pilot and me—a former airline captain."
In
the wake of World War II, Halvorsen, then a lieutenant and pilot for
the United States, was assigned to fly flour into West Berlin as part of
a war recovery effort. He recalls, “I was up against the fence in
Berlin, shooting movies of the airplanes coming overhead and landing.
The kids were on the other side of the barbed wire, 30 of them.”
But
unlike typical children who usually begged sweets off of American
soldiers, these were different. Instead of asking for sweets, they told
Halvorsen, “Don’t worry about us, even if we don’t have to have enough
to eat. Just don’t give up on us. Someday we’ll have enough to eat, but
if we lose our freedom, we’ll never get it back.”
As Halvorsen
bid farewell and stepped away, a prompting stopped him. He wanted to
give these remarkable children something more, but all he had in his
pockets were two sticks of gum. “I said to myself, If you try and give it to them, you’re gonna have a fight.” But it wasn’t Halvorsen who was choosing the way; he was being guided by the Spirit.
“The
reason I went back to the fence,” he shares, “was a prompting just
clear as a bell. I know it was the Holy Ghost and no other source. It
said, 'Go back to the fence.’ Just like it was typed up. It was clear
communication.”
Tearing the two sticks in half, Halvorsen passed
the gum through the fence. He was shocked to see the children simply
sharing the wrappers, smelling the peppermint and faces lighting up as
though the scent itself were magical.
“I just stood there
dumbfounded,” he remembers. “Boy, I said, for 30 cents I could give them
a whole pack. I said, well that’s kind of chinsy wouldn’t cost much
more for a candy bar.” But Halvorsen couldn’t return to the fence. He’d
already broken regulation being there the first time, but he thought of a
way he could deliver his chocolate ration to the kids: by dropping it
from his plane when he flew over the city to land in West Berlin.
The idea behind the Candy Bomber was born.
From
his first drop of a handful of candy bars tied to handkerchief
parachutes, Halvorsen’s simple idea exploded. After being caught on
film, his colonel learned of the mission, and with the approval of the
general, the mission grew to become an international effort with
American school children and candy companies donating time and candy to
the cause. In all, by the end of his time flying over Berlin, Halvorsen
had dropped 23 tons of candy from the sky over East Berlin parks,
including three tons dropped on Christmas Eve.
But there was
always more to it than just the candy. Halvorsen remembers one instance
when, 50 years after his candy-bombing mission, a man approached who
said, “I’m 60 years old, and 50 years ago, I was going to school in
Berlin. Classes were really low, and it was raining. Suddenly out of the
cloud and rain came a parachute. A fresh Hershey candy bar landed right
at my feet.” The man continued, “It took me a week to eat that candy
bar. I had it day and night. But the chocolate wasn’t important. The
important thing was that somebody in America knew our troubles. Somebody
cared. I can live on thin rations, but not without hope.”
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