Happy Birthday

At noon sharp one day this week a lumbering C-82, also known as the "Flying Boxcar," flew into Berlin's Tempelhof airfield, carrying five tons of steel wool and textiles. The American crew had some coffee, got a weather briefing for the return flight to Wiesbaden. Exactly a year before, the first wave of C-47s ("Gooney birds," to U.S. airmen) .had flown a cargo of milk, flour and medicine into Tempelhof. Since then, in 235,314 flights, the airlift had carried 1,943,655.9 tons of supplies into besieged Berlin.

"So we flew the birthday flight," said Pilot Michael Seeley of Bakersfield, Calif. "Why doesn't somebody tell us these things?"

The formal Geburtstagsfeier took place the day before, when some 4,000 Berliners solemnly gathered around Tempelhof. The huge square in front of the airport was renamed "Platz der Luitbruecke" (Airbridge Square). Berlin's Mayor Ernst Reuter told the crowd that they were in a fight which would not end until "all our people are free." He remembered how, when General Lucius Clay first told him that the U.S. would supply Berlin by air, he had remarked to the general's aide: "It's wonderful to hear Clay's determination, but I don't believe it can be done." Said the aide: "I don't believe it, either."

Berlin's life last week was slowly returning to normal. Trucks which had been rolling into the city from the West since the Russians lifted their blockade had brought enough supplies, in addition to the air shipments, to lower food prices drastically. This week it looked as if rail service would resume, too. The Berlin rail strike, which had tied up trains in & out of the city for over a month after the Russians had lifted the blockade, was over.

The Russians had agreed to pay the strikers 60% of their wages in West marks; now the Western powers agreed to convert the remaining 40% into West marks out of West Berlin tax receipts. They also obtained a Russian promise that there would be no reprisals against strikers. Many still feared Russian revenge. Said one engineer: "Give me two

American MPs, one on each side, and I'll have faith in the Russians."

This week, on the day the rail strike was to end, the Western commandants would get together with the Russians to try to work out a solid agreement on trade and traffic between the West zones and Berlin. Meanwhile, the steady day & night roar of the planes--which had brought terror to Berlin during the war and defiant hope during the peace--would continue as before. The U.S. announced that Operation Vittles would be carried on indefinitely; it was too important a weapon to be dismantled.

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