The Berlin airlift

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"In the early hours of June 24, 1948 an order from Joseph Stalin halted all road and rail traffic in to and out of the Allied sector of Berlin. Stalin also cut off all electricity to the city. Western Berlin was now comparable to an island surrounded by a sea of red, which was the Russian occupied zone of Germany. The only route into Berlin was by means of three twenty-mile-wide air corridors across the Soviet zone of Germany." "Thus the wartime allies of Britain, France and the USA realized that the only option open to them was to supply the beleaguered West Berlin by air transport and so started one of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century. A mixed fleet of aircraft plodded their endless path to and from the city. DC 3s, Avro Yorks and many ex-WWII bombers were dragged out of retirement to save the city - as were the pilots who flew them."--Jacket