Britain 'must not forget' Berlin airlift - By Andrew Gimson in Berlin
     FEARS are growing that the vital British role in the Berlin air-
 lift will be overlooked, with the Government paying far less atten-
 tion to it than the United States, as the 50th anniversary
 celebrations begin.
     President Clinton arrives in Berlin tomorrow and his presence in
 the once-divided city strengthens the impression that the airlift
 was an essentially American effort. Britain has decided to send
 George Robertson, the Defence Secretary, to Berlin in June. This has
 brought protests from war veterans and other interested parties.
     "It's a great pity," said Geoff Smith, of the British Berlin
 Airlift Association, which represents veterans. "It would have been
 nice if Tony Blair or John Prescott had come... sending the Defence
 Secretary is not equalling what the Americans are doing."
     A two-year campaign for a British commemorative stamp has failed,
 even though 39 of the 80 people killed during the airlift were serv-
 ing with the British, including 16 Britons, one South African and
 one Australian serviceman and 21 British civilian airmen. The
 Americans lost 31 air crew, and nine German civilians were killed.
     "People are very ignorant," said Mr Smith. "They've told us they
 are concentrating on the Millennium. They don't understand what the
 airlift was all about and by the time they do it will be too late."
     Helmut Trotnow, a German who heads the Allied Museum in Berlin,
 is astonished by the unwillingness of the British to make more of the
 airlift. He said: "You did 30 if not 40 per cent of it. There is good
 reason to be proud of what you did. But the British are very, very
 reluctant to share what they've done in the past and to tell future
 generations about it."
     It sometimes seems that the Germans, who have long provided help
 to the widows of Britons killed during the airlift and will this
 summer pay for hundreds of British veterans to visit Berlin, show a
 more acute understanding than the Government of the British contri-
 bution - as well as lasting gratitude "for feeding us at a time when
 you yourselves were introducing bread rationing in Britain", as a
 spokesman for the city of Berlin put it.
     Mr Clinton will arrive before the main celebrations. The airlift
 - the greatest feat of air supply in history and a crucial victory
 for the West at the start of the Cold War - began on June 24, 1948,
 when the Russians sealed off West Berlin in an attempt to starve the
 city into surrender. Mr Clinton will land in Berlin on the 49th anni-
 versary of the end of the Russian blockade on May 12, 1949 - an
 occasion the British authorities are treating as "a traditional,
 fairly short ceremony".
     British aircraft were the first to fly supplies to the city after
 the land corridors to West Berlin were sealed. At first the supplies
 were intended only for the British garrison, but Air Cdre Rex Waite,
 an RAF officer whose name is unknown today even to many specialists
 on the airlift, saw the Russian blockade coming and on his own
 initiative examined whether it would be feasible to supply the entire
 population of West Berlin, about 2,200,000 people, from the air.
     Aviation experts were almost uniformly sceptical about this idea.
 Capt Jack Bennett, the Pan Am pilot who played an outstanding role in
 the airlift, said last week that he repeatedly advised Gen Lucius
 Clay, the American commander, against attempting the airlift. He
 said: "I said, 'Look, General, you're setting a precedent. The
 Russians may never give up. Do you want to feed this city for the
 next millennium?' "
     Gen Sir Brian Robertson, the British Military Governor, was
 sceptical about Air Cdre Waite's calculations, but agreed to let him
 put the plan to Gen Clay. It was the answer to Gen Clay's prayers:
 for while his instinct was to send a land column to relieve Berlin,
 with orders to fight its way through if necessary, he knew that Wash-
 ington would reject an option which could lead to the outbreak of
 another world war. So Air Cdre Waite's plan was adopted, with Gen
 Clay providing decisive backing for it, and American planes deliver-
 ing much the largest tonnage of supplies to the city, including most
 of the coal.
     But to conclude from this that the RAF's contribution was insig-
 nificant would be a travesty of the truth. Pilots who had bombed
 Berlin a few years before now flew day and night to supply the city.
 British aircraft brought in nearly 45 per cent of the 538,000 tons
 of food which saved the people of West Berlin from starvation during
 the blockade. The British carried all the liquid fuel, so that by
 early 1949 every car in West Berlin was running on British-supplied
 petrol.
     British veterans have no desire to diminish the immense contri-
 bution made by the Americans, but simply wish the commemorations to
 reflect the help given not only by the RAF but by many other British
 servicemen and women, and by the Royal Australian Air Force, the
 South African Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force,
 along with civilian British aviation, including the young Freddie
 Laker.
     According to one British source, the Americans understood much
 better than the RAF the importance of publicity in 1948 and hired
 excellent photographers. One American pilot also had the idea of
 dropping sweets and chewing-gum to the children of Berlin on
 miniature parachutes. This caught the public imagination and
 encouraged ever larger crowds of children to wait each day for the
 drop.
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