Helpful Score: 3
I love history. But so many history books are as dry as the subject often is taught in schools, just dates and events, what happened and where.
This book is different.
This book is about a major event in the late 1940s where we not only came close to losing Europe to Communism, but also came close to war with the Soviet Bloc.
And this book is about people: the German people, and their resolve in the face of desperation; President Truman's determination not to be pushed around, even when his high-level advisers suggested he back down; and about the American and British airmen, who flew in from all over the world to eventually supply Berlin by air with more tonnage than was originally being supplied by trains and trucks!
And this book is about one man in particular. The flier who spent the war flying transports and never seeing the combat he joined up for. Yet, this one man did more to guarantee freedom dropping candy, than he ever would have done dropping bombs during four years of war.
There were times while reading this book that I actually cried. For example, when the flier who began dropping the candy was months later standing by waiting for his plane to be unloaded, he turns to find a German mother and her little girl standing behind him, and then the little girl gives him a worn, hand-sewn "teddy bear," and the mother explains that she had made the little bear to help her daughter feel safer in the bomb shelters when the Allies were bombing Berlin during the war, and that the little girl now wanted to give the bear to one of the pilots so he too would be safe. How could you not shed a tear?
If they made this book into a movie, people would claim that Hollywood glamorized the events and the people. But this is the way it actually happened. This is one of those books that make you feel proud to be an American, but also lets you understand how the German people were able to resist the Allies for so long.
I've read thousands of books in my life. This is one that I shall always remember.
And just in case you are wondering, this book is NOT on my PBS bookshelf. My copy is worth too much to me to trade for a book credit.
This book is different.
This book is about a major event in the late 1940s where we not only came close to losing Europe to Communism, but also came close to war with the Soviet Bloc.
And this book is about people: the German people, and their resolve in the face of desperation; President Truman's determination not to be pushed around, even when his high-level advisers suggested he back down; and about the American and British airmen, who flew in from all over the world to eventually supply Berlin by air with more tonnage than was originally being supplied by trains and trucks!
And this book is about one man in particular. The flier who spent the war flying transports and never seeing the combat he joined up for. Yet, this one man did more to guarantee freedom dropping candy, than he ever would have done dropping bombs during four years of war.
There were times while reading this book that I actually cried. For example, when the flier who began dropping the candy was months later standing by waiting for his plane to be unloaded, he turns to find a German mother and her little girl standing behind him, and then the little girl gives him a worn, hand-sewn "teddy bear," and the mother explains that she had made the little bear to help her daughter feel safer in the bomb shelters when the Allies were bombing Berlin during the war, and that the little girl now wanted to give the bear to one of the pilots so he too would be safe. How could you not shed a tear?
If they made this book into a movie, people would claim that Hollywood glamorized the events and the people. But this is the way it actually happened. This is one of those books that make you feel proud to be an American, but also lets you understand how the German people were able to resist the Allies for so long.
I've read thousands of books in my life. This is one that I shall always remember.
And just in case you are wondering, this book is NOT on my PBS bookshelf. My copy is worth too much to me to trade for a book credit.
