In July 1948, during the Berlin Airlift, American pilot Gail Halvorsen met about 30 hungry kids at the barbed wire fence at Tempelhof airfield. All he had in his pocket were two sticks of gum, so he broke them in half and passed them through the fence. The kids who got gum tore up the wrappers and shared the strips so the others could at least smell them. Halvorsen was so moved that he promised to drop candy the next day and told them they’d know his plane because he would wiggle the wings. He started tying candy and gum to makeshift parachutes, and the idea grew into Operation Little Vittles. He lived to be 101, still known around the world as the Candy Bomber.
