Written by Todd DePastino All he did was give candy to children. But in doing so, Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen inadvertently launched one of the greatest diplomatic missions of the Cold War. A Douglas C-54 Skymaster dropping candy over Berlin (Museum of USAF) In November 2020, we welcomed the 100-year-old Berlin Airlift hero
Written by Todd DePastino March is Women's History Month, something that would not have been possible during the Cold War, when Women's Day, March 8, was a Communist holiday with radical associations. On our VBC trip to Vietnam in 2018, we checked into our hotel at Halong Bay on March 8. As each woman in
Written by Jim McStay An aerial view of Diego Garcia island, 2013 (USN) In 1973, Navy SeaBees on the tiny island of Diego Garcia faced a crisis. They were hot, dry, and thirsty. One Navy P-3 Orion pilot, Jim McStay, came to their rescue. In 1973, I was a Navy pilot who
Sixty years ago, a U–2 spy plane spotted Intermediate Range and Medium Range Ballistic Missiles on Cuba, triggering an international crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. This is the story as it unfolded over thirteen days in October 1962. Todd DePastino Nuclear Warhead Bunker Under Construction San Cristobal
October 22, 1962 started out like a normal day aboard the USS Canberra (CAG-2), an old heavy cruiser in port at Norfolk. But then word came from President John F. Kennedy himself that we were to head south toward Cuba to blockade the island. It was the culmination of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a
Efforts are underway to fly Great Britain's only Douglas C-54 Skymaster to Germany in 2024 for the 75th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. The Skymaster, serial number 56498, flew in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War before being struck from the list of military aircraft in 1972. Now, the British
