<text id=00he1310><title>Lifting the Siege</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Lifting the Siege</hdr><body>
<p>Perhaps the message had begun to penetrate. Berlin was not going to be taken by siege and starvation. In fact, rations actually had been increased during the airlift. Berliners had coal for the winter, milk for their children, medicines for the afflicted, and food for all. The Russians backed down on 9 May 1949, the USSR military governor announced that the blockade would be lifted at one minute past midnight on 12 May.
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<p>The airlift continued after, to augment the stocks carried in once again by rail and road, and just in case the Russians changed their minds. The phase-out was gradual until the official ending on 30 September.
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<p>In terms of the times, the statistics were impressive. The aircraft of the USAF and RAF, together with about three dozen civilian charter planes out of England, had brought almost one ton for every Berliner in the beleaguered city. With the exception of one 15-hour period in November 1948, the month of the 'great fog', the airlift had been a round-the-clock operation seven days a week. In mid-April 1949, the 'Easter Parade' delivered almost 13,000 tons of supplies in 1,398 flights, a record day for the airlift, The original delivery goal of 4,500 tons daily was raised, and met, to 5,620 tons daily in October 1948.
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<p>From 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949, the total amount of supplies delivered was 2,325,000 tons, with 1,783,000 tons hauled by the USAF and the remainder by the RAF and the civilian aircraft.
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<p>It was, and remains, a major achievement of air power. One nagging question lingers: What if the Russians had tried to interfere with the corridor traffic? They did use harassment, sometimes buzzing the transports, often flying alongside and then peeling off with a flourish. But nothing worse than that.
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<p>Did the USAF hold air superiority over Germany and the corridor routes then? Only implicitly, in the strength of the B-29s in England and the fighters in Germany. It may be argued that the potential of the atomic bomb monopoly was too powerful a deterrent for the Russian military to have made any serious attempt to interfere in the air.
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<p>That monopoly proved to be short-lived. It was lost forever sometime in the weeks just before the end of the airlift. President Truman made the ominous announcement on 23 September 1949: there was evidence that the Russians had recently exploded an atomic bomb.
