Easter Parade

General Tunner motivated the men of the Berlin Airlift through competition. Borrowing from his experience in World War II, he fixed a day to challenge his men with delivering a tremendous surplus of material to Berlin. General Tunner chose the 24 hours of Easter as his day of maximum effort.

Describing the day, Tunner said:

“I shuttled back and forth between Berlin and the basis, applying a needle here, a pat on the back there. At Celle… the boys were carrying on their constant feud with Fassberg …. The base was 12 percent ahead of its quota.

[When I arrived at Fassberg, one of the men] came up to me with a big grin. He was running 10 percent ahead of the quota, he told me proudly. ‘That’s fine,’ I said, ‘but of course, its not up to what they’re doing over at Celle. They’re really on the ball over there.’ The man turned and went back to the flightline to crack the whip.”