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The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour
by: Andrei Cherny

List Price: $29.95

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.1550874
EAN: 9780399154966
ISBN: 0399154965
Label: Putnam Adult
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 640
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Studio: Putnam Adult
Sales Rank: 44307

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
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 In the tradition of the best narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and second-stringers who not only saved millions of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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Finally, a satisfying history
I've always had an interest in the Berlin Airlift, but never could find a really satisfying history.
The best read up until now was Leon Uris' "Armageddon".
Finally, the story gets told in a most impressive and readable book.

Andrei Cherny does a really great job of making the whole story readable and enjoyable. This will be the standard reference from now on.

With a perceptive take on host of personalities, Cherny brings them to life and gives a sort of life to forgotten hero's.
It's a crime that today, no one even knows the name of Bill Tunner, and while many have heard of "The Chocolate Flier" no one remembers the name of Gail Halvorsen.

A master work of a book on an absorbing story. Forget the overblown Cuban Missile Crisis, here's ... Read More

Rating:

- Saving Berlin
I wish I could share the enthusiasm of some of the other reviewers, because I will acknowledge the Candy Bombers has a lot of very fine points, but it is badly overwritten, with page after page devoted to events that could be covered in paragraphs. When one of the main characters returns home to marry his hometown sweet-heart, the author quotes the traditional wedding vows in full.

The book is strongest when it is in Berlin, and that is only about half the time. The rest of the time the author is setting the story in a larger context of post WWII Europe, or back in the states covering the 1948 presidential election, where Dewey was supposed to beat Truman. If the focus of your interest is just the Berlin Airlift, you can start reading this book on page 200.

But in ... Read More

Rating:

- Best book on the airlift
The Berlin Airlift is one of my favorite moments in history. I can remember my father telling me the story of the candy bombers when I was a little girl and I loved the idea of chocolate falling from the sky. This book is one of the most well written accounts of the airlift. I felt like I was an invisible witness to all that happened. I highly recommend this if you're looking for something good to read, it was very moving.

Rating:

- A time when America stood tall
Cherny has thoroughly and expertly captured a time in our history when America stood tall. His book is a well-researched and well-written narrative that captures the spirit of the post-WW II face-off between the two superpowers in defeated Berlin. But instead of being another place-and-date telling of events, Cherny populates this book with people who lived those events, who become so much more than names in history books. We see the personalities of the major and minor players of the crisis, and how those players shaped and were shaped by the history happening around them.

I found especially fascinating the attitudes of both the conquerors and the conquered as the occupation forces settled into Berlin. The hatred, distrust, and fear from both sides made the task facing the Allied ... Read More

Rating:

- The Candy Bombers
It was so good that I couldn't put it down. I was glad that I knew the ending!

Books : The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour