HELLO REAPER, HELLO GOD, I’M YOUR CA-CA-CA-CA-CA-CA-CANDY BOMBER
The lady who co-wrote “Lollipop” wasn’t a DDP pick (or a QO, as it stands), so this obit will have to satisfy deadpoolers’ sweet tooths…
A few years after WWII, the Soviet blockade of land routes to West Berlin forced the Western Allies to embark on “Operation Vittles”, best known today as the Berlin Airlift. Utah-born Gail Halvorsen was among the numerous military pilots who flew over Berlin and dropped necessities from his plane to keep West Berliners afloat. Halvorsen was moved by the gratitude of a few dozen starving children, whose minds were on hope rather than luxury, and offered them a few sticks of gum. He promised he’d return with more candy the next day, and his follow-up trip saw him drop handkerchief parachutes with gum and chocolate attached. The efforts snowballed from there with his discrete escapade now fully approved as “Operation Little Vittles” and fulfilled by other pilots, and by the time the blockade ended, the mission delivered over 21 tons of candy. German kids who worried about survival felt like Homer in the Land of Chocolate, and Halvorsen earned nicknames such as the “Berlin Candy Bomber” and “Uncle Wiggly Wings” (based off a signal his plane would make to let the kids know which one was his).
After the blockade and airlift ended, Halvorsen continued working as a pilot. He was involved in various space-related projects throughout the 50s, and in 1970 he became commander of the same squadron he was part of during “Little Vittles”. He would reenact his candy drops for decades to come, both in the US and in war-torn countries in need of a lift from whatever the US was doing to them. True to his Utah roots, he also spent time as a Mormon missionary alongside his wife, which had to have been a low-stakes Russian roulette for those wondering if he was visiting their place to spread sweets or Mormon gospel!
Halvorsen was diagnosed with COVID shortly after his late 2020 centennial, but recovered and lasted over a year more. His death has now come aged 101, with Berliners mourning a man who was a beacon of hope during a crucial hour. Three teams waited graciously at the airport for the wiggly-winged angel to drop four points from the heavens.
Gail Halvorsen
10 October 1920 – 16 February 2022, aged 101
3 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀 4 POINTS)