Sunday musings: The countenance of the Chocolate Pilot

I study countenances.

I notice the warmth and light that certain people have in their very faces. Why some people and not others?

I can guess a few of the mechanics: a sense of worth, a desire to serve others, and a testimony of how both of these things fit into our maker's plan. From Alma 5:14 in the Book of Mormon: " ... Have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances?"

To my ongoing study of countenances I add another face to contemplate:

Col. Gail Halvorsen, (USAF, ret.), visited my children's elementary school Sept. 7 and recounted his experiences during the Berlin Airlift following World War II.

In 1948 Russia attempted to seize control of Berlin by blockading all ground access to the city. This left 2.2 million people without electricity, and with rapidly dwindling stores of food, heat and clothing.

Halvorsen, then a lieutenant, and other American and British pilots delivered supplies during the 15-month humanitarian mission. The planes flew three minutes apart, 24 hours a day. Seventy-nine people died in the mission.

One day between flights, Halvorsen visited with some of the German children along a fence. As a soldier he was used to children gathering around him and playfully begging for candy. All this group asked for, however, was "sweet freedom."

He wanted to leave them with something. Yet he reasoned that the measly two sticks of gum he had were not enough for all the children to share, so he put them back in his pocket and started to walk away.

Something stopped him.

I suspect that the strong conviction of his words, given decades later in our school cafeteria, nonetheless pale to how Halvorsen felt at the time. Whether you call it a conscience or the Holy Ghost, he told us, he followed that prompting. He watched the German children divide the gum into four pieces, then rip the wrapper into many more slivers to share, so that each child at least had a mint-scented scrap to savor.

The idea for candy bombs was born. Halvorsen promised the children he would drop candy to them the very next day. Look for the plane that wiggles its wings, he told them.

He attached candy bars to handkerchief parachutes and dropped them. He could have put himself in big trouble for doing this, but instead received the support of leaders at the base when they eventually found out. (Halvorsen tried to keep it secret.) He continued his candy bombing; as radio and news reports spread word of his cause, more and more Americans supplied candy.

Letters from children arrived at the Templehof air base addressed to the Chocolate Pilot or Uncle Wiggly Wings. One letter was from young Mercedes, whose chickens were so scared from the constant noise of relief planes that they could not lay eggs. But all would be OK if Halvorsen dropped candy at her house, she wrote him. Look out the plane window for the white chickens.

This is the basis for the book, Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot, written by Margot Theis Raven, illustrated by Gijsberg van Frankenhuyzen. And it was in reading this book that our school librarian first conceived the idea of asking Halvorsen to visit. I am so grateful for the librarian's 10-year labor of love to make it happen.

After Halvorsen spoke in the school assembly, everyone went outside to watch him get in a helicopter and drop candy parachutes. It was electric: watching Halvorsen wave, the parachutes plummet, the children cheer.

I am thrilled I got to meet Col. Halvorsen. I knew his story, having shared the Chocolate Pilot book with my children years ago, but this event provided a layer of meaning I'll never ever forget. Especially for seeing this joyous countenance up close.

I hope there are many students who will want to be like Halvorsen. Some, I'm sure, will want to be a pilot with grand adventures. Some will want to travel to other lands. Some will want to be famous. (Heck, I'd love to be so vibrant at age 91. Can you believe that's his actual WWII flight suit? )

All of the students, I hope, will want to be heroes. Halvorsen is a hero to me. He is a gracious man willing to share his story. He is unabashed about his testimony of the Holy Ghost. He also teaches that it's the little things, the little decisions, that sculpt the true heroes.

He's kept two sticks of gum in his pocket ever since.