Talk about your non-fiction books that read like a novel. I could not put this book down and I stayed up too late a couple of nights because I just lost track of time.

I'm a child of the 70's but my parents were born in the 20's and my father was a Navy fighter pilot in WWII, but his orders were for the Pacific. All this to say I grew up with no direct stories of the European half of the war, had only vague knowledge of the Berlin blockade, and had never heard of Halvorsen and his Candy Bombs. Seeing a BL friend's review of this book, I was immediately sold and eager to learn more about it all.

Cherny does a great job of it. The narrative he pieces together is interesting and moving. I won't strictly call it academic: he has a very comprehensive Notes section at the back with citations and sources (no footnotes though) but I can't say the book is academically objective. The author's voice and his admiration for all of these men is evident. The Republican party takes a beating, too. I'm fine with all of this - I also admire what the allies accomplished and I'm way too far removed from any of these events to have any emotional bias; someone older, who lived closer to these events and the political parties of the times might not feel like being so objective, however.

Politics aside, I'd have to be inhuman not to be profoundly moved by the events of '48-'49 and the devastation of post-war Berlin. Both the horrific and the sublime. And I loved how, of all the heroes in this tale, not a single one of them was ever considered more than adequate by the people above them before or during the Berlin crisis. Only in hindsight was it really appreciated that these handful of men changed the world.

I didn't 5-star the book because it's long. There are bios at the beginning of all the major (American) players that I didn't appreciate as much as I probably should have and it was fully 300 pages before anything was said about candy. Still, those first 300 pages were interesting and they kept me going until the candy started dropping and the events of that year completely sucked me in. I think I enjoyed this book all the more because I was coming into it fresh - I didn't know exactly what happened next, and it added an element of suspense that those who are more educated about that time and place might not experience.

If you find yourself like me - woefully let down by your schooling in history - and want to learn more about the aftermath of WWII, I recommend this book. It's one I'd like to find in hardcover for my library shelves.


[PopSugar 2015 Challenge: A book with more than 500 pages.] ( )

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The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour by Andrei Cherny is a non-fiction account of one of America’s greatest and successful humanitarian missions. Mr. Cherny is an author, lawyer, and businessman.

The book follows, mostly, four people: Harry Truman, Lucius Clay, Bill Tunner, and Hal Halvorsen. Through their eyes the author attempts to tell a complete story of the Berlin Airlift.

Harry S Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, knows there must be a response for the Soviet forces blocking all roads and rail travel to West Berlin. But Mr. Truman also has to be careful not to start World War III.



General Lucius Clay of the US Army, a frustrated soldier who is doing his duty even though he never got his choice assignment. General Clay actually started the Berlin Airlift as an act of defiance against the Soviets before getting permission from President Truman to proceed.


Air Force General William H. “Bill” Tunner was an expert in large-scale military airlift operations. A workaholic who thrived on statistics and order, General Tunner was the perfect man to orchestrate the precision needed for such an operation.

Colonel Gail Seymour “Hal” Halvorsen is the pilot that started, unofficially, to drop candy from his bomber to the children of Berlin. Mr. Halvorsen thought he would be court martiaed if found out, to his surprise the strict General Tunner not only approved, but made him the face of the airlift.

The Berlin Airlift is a defining moment of the Cold War, the operation showed the people of Berlin, looked upon as enemies of America that we stand behind them. The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour by Andrei Cherny shows how the official airlift, as well as the unofficial act of dropping candy bars, shifted the views of Berliners to prefer democracy over communism.

The airlift was instrumental because if showed the Germans that Americans do care about them, and that the US used all its might to help instead of destroy. Dropping candy is, in my opinion, what makes American great, a humanitarian operation done purely for altruistic reasons.

I have heard of the Berlin Airlift, but never realized all the moving pieces around it. I’m not talking about the military logistics per say, but all the events and persons which were involved. The airlift happened in the middle of a presidential election, while the Soviets were trying, forcefully, to show the superiority of their economic system, while America prevailed through showing they simply cared.

The true power of the story comes through the quirks of history, which only can be told with hindsight of decades in the rear-view mirror. If events did not fell in place as they did, if people, who held firmly to their beliefs, did not step up to the challenge, history would look a lot different, and maybe the “Cold War”, would have become an armed conflict.

Even though the goal of the book is academic (I believe), the author tries to write a narrative which is interesting, informative, accurate, and moving. The research is comprehensive, but the story doesn’t get lost in the details.

Even though this is a very lengthy book, I was glad to have read it. As always, I like the behind the scenes look which takes places in the offices of power, and it always amazes me how decisions were made and how thing could have easily gone wrong. More than that though, the book made me appreciate how little act of kindness can grow to change attitudes and nations for decades. ( )

Just so good! I have never read a lot of history because it often comes across as boring and lifeless. Hal Halvorsen, as well as Clay and Tunner, put a human face on the Berlin Airlift for me. I learned so much about that period that I didn't know, and it was incredibly entertaining at the same time. Some larger than life personalities in this book for sure! And the more I read about Harry Truman, the more I like him. His steady hand through this period likely prevented WWIII. ( )

The title doesn't do the book justice, it's a very good and comprehensive narrative history which starts at the end of WW2 and covers the partition of Berlin and Germany, as well as the politics at home leading up to the 1948 presidential election and the conflicts, both political and physical, that lead to the blockage of Berlin and the subsequent airlift. Highly recommended. ( )

The masterfully told story of the unlikely men who came together to make the Berlin Airlift one of the great military and humanitarian successes of American history.
On the sixtieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, Andrei Cherny tells a remarkable story with profound implications for the world today. In the tradition of the best narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and second-stringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat but changed how the world viewed the United States, and set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and to America's victory in the Cold War.
On June 24, 1948, intent on furthering its domination of Europe, the Soviet Union cut off all access to West Berlin, prepared to starve the city into submission unless the Americans abandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered the Allies', and most of America's top officials considered the situation hopeless. But not all of them.

Harry Truman, an accidental president, derided by his own party; Lucius Clay, a frustrated general, denied a combat command and relegated to the home front; Bill Tunner, a logistics expert downsized to a desk job in a corner of the Pentagon; James Forrestal, a secretary of defense beginning to mentally unravel; Hal Halvorsen, a lovesick pilot who had served far from the conflict, flying transport missions in the backwater of a global war—together these unlikely men improvised and stumbled their way into a uniquely American combination of military and moral force unprecedented in its time.
This is the forgotten foundation tale of America in the modern world, the story of when Americans learned, for the first time, how to act at the summit of world power—a masterful and exciting work of historical narrative, and one with strong resonance for our time.