Civil Air Patrol Volunteer | January - February 2006
Members of Civil Air Patrol's Mississippi Wing reenacted retired Air Force Col. Gail Halvorsen's "Operation Little Vittles" on Oct. 31 in Waveland, Miss. A newscrew with ABC- TV's Good Morning America was there to cover the story live. The event took place at Bay-Waveland Elementary School, the state's last remaining tent school set up after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast area on Aug. 31. During the reenactment, a Mississippi Wing aircraft flew over a football field next to the school and dropped chocolate coated cookies tied to parachutes from an elevation of about 1,000 feet to more than 100 children waiting anxiously below on the field's sidelines. In addition, the children had a chance to meet Halvorsen, who flew from his home in Utah to Mississippi to take part in this special event. Halvorsen was a C-54 Skymaster pilot in Germany during the Berlin Airlift. He began dropping candy tied to parachutes to children he befriended near Germany's Tempelhof Airdrome in 1948. As the crowds of children near the airdrome grew and their safety became a concern, Halvorsen started dropping candy throughout the city of Berlin to children spotted on the ground. By February 1949, the colonel and his squadron mates had dropped more than 250,000 candy parachutes during what became known in U.S. military history as "Operation Little Vittles." After the Bay-Waveland drop, the aircraft flew to Reeves Elementary School in Long Beach, Miss., and made another candy drop into a large open field next to the school where more than 400 students were waiting below. The reenactment was organized by the Long Grove Confectionery Co. in Buffalo Grove, 111., to offer Halloween treats to Gulf Coast children who no longer had neighborhoods for trick or treating. A hero for today's generation, Halvorsen lives outside Salt Lake City, Utah. After World War II, he continued to make candy drops to children all over the world, including refugee camps in Bosnia and Kosovo.Two fifth-grade classes from Fairview Elementary School in Mount Prospect created the parachutes and attached the candy for the drop.
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