The Berlin Airlift grew from 268 to 12,940 tons a day

The Berlin Airlift began on 26 June 1948, when the United States launched Operation Vittles two days after Soviet forces cut the road, rail and water routes into West Berlin, and within ten months it had grown from a few hundred tons a day to a record 12,940 short tons in 24 hours.

Sources give different start dates, and each is right about something. Washington’s operation began on 26 June; Britain’s Operation Plainfare followed, by the State Department’s account, two days later. Berlin’s AlliiertenMuseum dates the first goods for the civilian population to 28 June, when American and British aircraft landed 268 short tons at Tempelhof and Gatow. The target was to keep about two million people in the western sectors supplied, on top of the Allied garrisons.

Date	Flights	Short tons flown in
28 June 1948	first day	268
12 August 1948	707	4,724
26 February 1949	902	8,000+
16 April 1949	1,398	12,940+

The August day was the first time the airlift beat its 4,500-ton daily minimum. Coal, not food, made up a large share of the tonnage. To handle the traffic, some 19,000 workers built a third airport at Tegel in the French sector in about three months, finishing it in November 1948.

The April record, the “Easter Parade”, worked out to one loaded plane landing every 62 seconds across the city. The State Department’s often-quoted figure of a landing every 45 seconds refers to Tempelhof at the operation’s height, so the numbers measure slightly different things.

The Soviets lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949, but flights carried on for four more months to build up reserves. The cost was paid in crashes: the museum counts at least 78 dead in air accidents, while the memorial unveiled in 1951 commemorates 76 aircrew and civilians.