Passage IV

"Operation Vittles"

The following paragraphs may or may not be in the most logical order. Each paragraph is numbered in brackets, and question 59 will ask you to choose where Paragraph 4 should most logically be placed.

[1]

It was 1948. A humanitarian and political drama of lasting importance was about to unfold under the homely name "Operation Vittles." (48)

[2]

Since the end of World War II three years earlier, the victorious Allies had divided defeated Germany into four sectors. The United States, Great Britain, and France had combined their portions into West Germany, while the Soviet Union had installed a separate government in East Germany.

[3]

Berlin-the capital of Germany, was similarly divided into four sectors. However, the city's location deep inside East Germany gave a strategic advantage to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who wanted control over the entire city, not just the one Soviet sector. Stalin planned to use a tactic of warfare dating back to medieval times. He cut off all ground access into West Berlin—the part of the city he did not already control. Threatening to starve the 2.5 million residents of West Berlin he thought, might force the other three countries to cede the whole city to him.

[4]

Stalin's siege might have been successful in an era of castles and knights. But this was the aeronautical age, and Stalin's antagonists on ground transportation did not have to rely to move food and supplies into West Berlin. What resulted from this siege was one of the largest humanitarian efforts to date pilots who had bombed Berlin relentless during the war were now called upon to deliver food—"vittles"—as part of the Berlin Airlift. (57) "Operation Vittles" needed to operate around the clock, with a C-54 aircraft landing in Berlin every three minutes to keep the residents from starving. About 3,500 tons of food, medical supplies, and fuel arrived at Tempelhof Airfield daily.

[5]

The Soviets tried to thwart the operation by bugging and harassing pilots with blinding spotlights, near misses by Soviet planes, and radio interference. These tactics failed. After fifteen months, Stalin relented, the roads to West Berlin were reopened, and "Operation Vittles" came to a successful conclusion.