U.S. Girl Passenger Describes The Berlin Air Lift

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14927, 15 March 1949, Page 5

U.S. Girl Passenger Describes The Berlin Air Lift

, Impressions Gained On Routine Flight

Ground-Controlled LandingIn Fog

I really had not expected to be a hitchhiker. But the fog was so thick in Frankfurt, the capital of the American Zone in western Germany, that nothing flew for nearly three days. Commercial planes were still grounded when the Berlin blockade-busters began taking off again, writes Alma DeLuce in the Christian Science Monitor. The wood around the Rhein-Main airport looked like a setting for “The Snow Maiden.” The C-54’s were zooming off into the mist like trams passing a street corner. One every four or five minutes.

Changed into overalls, I climbed up an eight-foot ladder and into my plane. Flight Engineer L. E. Eichenlaub, of Mt. Vernon, Washington, took my hat-box and week-end bag up past the dusty piles of flour sacks to the crew compartment. I sat on the lower bunk in what the crew call their bedroom, just behind the radio controls.- It was strewn with parachutes and other gear. "No seat belts here,” said Engineer Eichenlaub, “just hold on.” Before I knew it, we were in the air. Dense fog streamed past the porthole window. Then sunshine came pouring in. We were up 500 feet and it was quite clear. Lieutenant G. W. Kimmons was flying on a beam. He made it seem easy. Ho said he was a long way from homo in Akron, Ohio, and even further from his last navy assignment—flying between Honolulu and Guam.

He and his copilot, Ensign W. A, Nomber, of Gary, Neb., and his engineer had come over together in a transferred Pacific squadron. They were the first navy crew to cross the Atlantic to join the airlift. They had one night out in Paris, but mostly for two months they had been contending with Germany’s cold and fog. Their squadron had 12 planes and had set a record of 40 flights to Berlin in 24 hours. I asked if we were sure of being able to land at Tempelhof field in Berlin, because weather reports from there hadn’t been too reassuring and we would arrive after dark. The young pilot grinned. “They tell us that if the ceiling is less than 500 feet, the landing is done at a pilot’s own discretion,” he said. “My own limit is 400 feet. As far as I’m concerned, there are alwavs three VIPs abroad—me, mv copilot and my engineer. We’re all very important persons. If it’s less than 400, we’ll go over to Fassberg in the British Zone. That flour back there is worth only a minimum ri°k.”

Over Fulda, I was given a chance to broadcast our identification and position si'gnal to a ground station. “It makes a nice change to hear a woman’s voice on our communications system,” Lieutenant Kimmons said.

I’d barely concluded the signal with “Roger!” when a baritone voice came through my earphones. “Hey Babe, when did you leave California?”

I thought thi's proved the system has remarkable clarity, at least for California accents. The sun had set before we neared Berlin after 100 minutes in the air. Any other city might have danced with lights. But most of Berlin was dark. Airlift coal is precious here and electricity is skimped.

Templehof’s GCA—ground control for approach—started directing us vccallv. We circled according to instructions. A steady stream of precise information came over the radio—altitude, speed, time, headings, and rate of descent. Landing in misty darkness, even by GCA. impressed me as akin to driving blindfolded a heavy truck at top speed down a sheer mountain grade. We rushed downward at two strings of white, yellow, and red lights, marking the Tempelhof runway. I was standing up clinging tightly to a metal railing, and it was more exciting than a roller-coaster dip. Once GCA made a correction in our descent: “Level off! You’re 60 feet too low.”

The pilot pulled the nose up for hist a moment. GCA okayed it. Then we plunged downward again. He touched the runway without the slightest perceptible jar. The copilot strained at the brakes to shorten our run. We curved off to a side strip in the wake of a yellow jeep marked “Follow me.” The engineer pushed open the rear door. An army truck swarming with German workmen plus a couple of military police backed up in a drizzling rain. Another load of flour from Opera tion Vittles was through the Russian blockade.