Berlin, 1948.
A 7-year-old girl named Mercedes Simon sits down to write a letter.
The city around her lies in ruins.
2 million people face starvation.
Soviet forces have blockaded all roads and railways into West Berlin.
But Mercedes isn’t writing about hunger or fear.
She’s writing to complain about an American pilot.
His cargo planes fly over her house constantly, scaring her family’s chickens.
And during the blockade, when eggs are more valuable than gold, those chickens have stopped laying.
Dear chocolate uncle, she writes, “Your planes scare our chickens.
Please drop candy by the garden with the white chickens.” The pilot, Lieutenant Gail Halverson, writes back, “He encloses sticks of chewing gum in a lollipop.” 24 years later, in 1972, they met face to face, and their friendship would last until Halverson’s death in 2022 at age 101.
This is how a child’s letter and a pilot’s kindness became one of history’s most enduring friendships.
June 24th, 1948.
Soviet forces cut off all ground access to West Berlin.
No trucks, no trains, nothing moves on land into the city.
Over 2 million civilians, men, women, and children face starvation.
Berlin had been divided after Germany’s defeat in 1945.
The Western Allies, America, Britain, and France, controlled West Berlin.
The Soviets controlled East Berlin and all surrounding territory.
When the Western Allies introduced a new currency in their zones, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin responded by blockading West Berlin completely.
The goal was simple.
Starve the Western Allies out of Berlin or force them to abandon the city.
President Harry Truman refused both options.
On June 26th, 1948, the Berlin Airlift began.
American and British cargo planes would supply the entire city by air.
food, fuel, medicine, everything West Berlin needed to survive would be flown in.
The task seemed impossible.
Berlin needed approximately 4,500 tons of supplies daily just to sustain basic existence.
In June 1948, Allied aircraft managed only 90 tons per day.
By July, they reached 1,000 tons daily, still far short.
Pilots flew around the clock.
Planes landed at Templehof Airport every few minutes.
The operation was massive, dangerous, and utterly unprecedented.
At least 78 American, British, and German crew members would die in accidents during the 15-month operation.
Among the pilots was 27-year-old First Lieutenant Gail Seymour Halverson from Utah.
Gail Halverson was born October 10th, 1920 in Salt Lake City.
The son of Sugarbeat farmers, he grew up in Idaho and Utah during the depression.
His family struggled, luxuries were rare, and candy was special.
In fall 1941, Halverson earned his private pilots lessons through a scholarship program.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked in December, he joined the Civil Air Patrol, then the Army Air Forces.
He served as a transport pilot during the war, flying supplies in the South Atlantic.
After the war, he stayed in what became the United States Air Force.
In July 1948, he volunteered for the Berlin Airlift.
He flew a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, a 4engine cargo aircraft carrying food, coal, and medicine into besieged Berlin.
One July afternoon, Halverson had time between flights.
He walked to the end of Templehof’s runway, where a barbed wire fence separated the airfield from a residential area.
On the other side of the fence stood about 30 German children, watching the planes land.
Helverson approached them.
They didn’t beg.
They didn’t ask for anything.
That struck him.
These children were starving, yet they stood quietly, just grateful that food was arriving.
Halverson reached into his pocket.
He had two sticks of Wrigley’s double mint gum.
He broke them into pieces and passed them through the fence.
The children who received gum tore off strips of the wrapper and shared them with others who hadn’t gotten any.
They smelled the wrapper paper like it was treasure.
That moment changed everything for Halverson.
These were German children, former enemies, and they were grateful for rapper paper.
He promised them he’d return the next day and drop candy from his plane.
One child asked, “How will we know it’s your plane? All the planes look the same.” Halverson thought for a moment.
“I’ll wiggle the wings,” he said.
The next day, July 1948, Halverson tied two chocolate bars to a handkerchief parachute and dropped them over Templehof during his approach.
He wiggled his wings as promised.
Word spread immediately.
The children told their friends.
Within days, dozens of children waited by the fence.
Halverson kept dropping candy, attaching parachutes made from handkerchiefs.
Other pilots in his unit noticed and asked to join.
They donated their own candy rations.
Halverson kept the operation secret from his commanding officers.
Technically, he was violating regulations by dropping unauthorized items.
But after 3 weeks, a newspaper ran a story.
His commanding officer called him in.
Halverson expected discipline.
Instead, his commander said, “You started something.
Now we’re going to run with it.” The operation was officially named Little Vitts, a play on Operation Vitals, the Airlift’s code name.
Halverson became its face.
Letters poured in from American children sending candy.
Candy companies donated thousands of pounds.
Other pilots joined the drops.
By the time the airlift ended in May 1949, pilots had dropped over 23 tons of candy to Berlin’s children.
German children gave Halverson nicknames.
Uncle Wiggly Wings for his wing dipping signal.
Among the thousands of children watching those planes was 7-year-old Mercedes Simon.
Mercedes Simon lived with her family in Berlin’s Friedenau district.
Her father had been a Luftwaffer pilot who went missing during the war, likely killed.
Her mother struggled to support the family.
They kept chickens in their small garden.
Those chickens and their eggs were critical to survival during the blockade.
Mercedes heard about the American pilot dropping candy.
She saw the handkerchief parachutes drifting down near the airport, but none landed in her yard, so she wrote him a letter.
Dear chocolate uncle, your planes fly over Freeden now every day.
Please drop a parachute over the garden with the white chickens.
They’ve stopped laying.
When you see the white chickens, drop it there.
She included her address.
Leaden Ali 20 Friedau, Berlin.
Weeks passed.
Then an envelope arrived.
Inside was a letter from Lieutenant Gail Halverson.
He’d written back, and he’d enclosed sticks of chewing gum and a lollipop.
For Mercedes, the gesture meant everything.
Her father was gone.
Her city was destroyed.
Food was scarce.
And an American pilot, a stranger, a former enemy, had taken time to write her and send candy.
She later said, “Most of the children in school did not have a father because of the war.
Colonel Gail Halverson was a symbol of a father in my school.
She kept that letter.
For the next 74 years, Mercedes Simon Wild would preserve Halverson’s first letter in its original envelope.
The airlift continued through a harsh German winter.
Planes landed every 3 minutes at peak operations.
More than 277,000 flights delivered over 2.3 million tons of supplies.
On May 12th, 1949, the Soviets ended the blockade.
They’d failed.
West Berlin had survived.
Little after Halverson left Berlin, he continued his Air Force career, eventually earning the rank of colonel.
He married Alter Jolly in 1949.
They had five children.
Mercedes grew up.
She married Peter Wild.
They built a life in Berlin, but neither forgot that letter from 1948.
In 1972, Gail Halverson returned to Berlin.
He’d been promoted to colonel and was now commander of Templehof Central Airport, the same airfield where he dropped candy 24 years earlier.
Mercedes Wild and her husband Peter learned that the chocolate pilot had returned.
They invited him to dinner.
They were among dozens of Berliners who remembered Halverson and wanted to thank him.
When Halverson arrived at their home, Mercedes brought out something she’d kept safe for 24 years.
The original letter he’d written her in 1948, still in its envelope, along with the first candy parachute she’d received.
Halverson looked at the letter.
He remembered a 7-year-old girl.
White chickens freed now.
In that moment, as Mercedes later described it, we touched this connection.
The letter became a bridge between 1948 and 1972 between a desperate child and a compassionate pilot, between two people who’d never met but had always been connected.
That dinner began a friendship that would span 50 years.
The Halverson and Wild families became close.
Halverson visited Mercedes and Peter whenever he returned to Berlin.
Mercedes visited Halverson in Utah.
They spoke on the phone regularly.
They attended each other’s family events, birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations.
Mercedes became what she called Germany’s friendship ambassador.
She appeared with Halverson at countless events, air shows, school visits, military ceremonies, anniversary commemorations.
Whenever Halverson came to Berlin, Mercedes was there.
In 2009, Halverson returned to Berlin for the 60th anniversary.
Now 88 years old, he moved more slowly, but his warmth remained.
Mercedes, then 68, stood beside him as always.
They visited schools together.
Children performed the chocolate pilot song for him.
Halverson wept, remembering the children at the fence 61 years earlier.
In 2019, for the 70th anniversary, Halverson returned again at age 98.
He was frail but determined.
A baseball field at Templehof was renamed Gail S.
Halverson Park in his honor.
Tens of thousands attended the celebration.
Mercedes brought him on stage.
She read from the children’s book Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot, which told their story.
She said, “He became a father figure for me.
Our families have a special bond, and he’s the best ambassador we could have for German American friendship.” Halvosen told the crowd, “The heroes of the Berlin Airlift were not the pilots.
The heroes were the Germans, the parents and children on the ground.
They were the stalwarts of the confrontation with the Soviet Union.
After the ceremony, Halverson, now 98 years old, needing assistance to walk, stood at Templehoff and distributed candy to children.
Just like 1948, Gail Halverson’s wife, Ala, died in 1999.
He remarried Lorraine Pace.
He continued traveling to Berlin for anniversary events.
Even in his late 90s, he attended commemorations.
In 2020, Halverson contracted COVID 19 at age 100.
He recovered on February 16th, 2022.
Gail Halverson died at Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, Utah.
He was 101 years old.
The cause was respiratory failure.
Most of his children surrounded him.
News of his death spread internationally.
The German embassy in Washington issued a statement.
Berlin’s candy bomber has passed at 101 years old.
Thank you for your kindness, Colonel.
Berlin’s mayor, Franciscaca Gy, said Halverson’s deeply human act has never been forgotten.
Mercedes Wild mourned the loss of the man she’d called her chocolate uncle for 74 years.
The father figure who’d sent Candy to a frightened child in 1948.
The friend who’d been part of her life for half a century.
Halverson was buried with full military honors at Provo City Cemetery.
A KC 135 from the Utah Air National Guard flew over.
An honor guard fired a salute.
Mercedes Wild, now 81, preserves their story.
She still has the first letter Halverson wrote her.
She still speaks at schools and events about the candy bomber and what his kindness meant, not just to her, but to an entire generation of Berlin children who learned that former enemies could become friends.
Halverson dropped 23 tons of candy during the airlift.
But the weight of what he gave can’t be measured in tons.
He gave hope.
He gave dignity.
He showed German children that Americans saw them as children, not as enemies.
And one of those children, Mercedes Wild, carried that memory for 74 years.
She became the living connection between 1948’s desperate Berlin and modern Germany’s friendship with America.
As Halverson once said, “It’s not the plane, it’s not the candy, it’s the spirit of people who just don’t give up.” That spirit, Halverson’s refusal to see enemy children, just children, is what Mercedes Wild has preserved and shared for over seven decades.
Their friendship was never about war or politics.
It was about one simple truth.
Small acts of kindness can change the world, one child at a time.
