American Military History, Volume 2

The deterioration in military readiness through mid-1950 proceed- ed in the face of a worsening trend in international events, especially from mid-1948 forward. In Germany, in further protest against West- ern attempts to establish a national government and in particular against efforts to institute currency reforms in Berlin, the USSR in June 1948 moved to force the Americans, British, and French out of the capital by blockading the road and rail lines through the Soviet occupation zone over which troops and supplies from the West reached the Allied sectors of the city.

Although General Lucius D. Clay, the American military governor, preferred to test Soviet resolve with an armed convoy, at the suggestion of his British counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, he countered with an airlift. The U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, with some help from the British and U.S. Navies, loaded, flew in, and distributed food, fuel, and other necessities to keep the Allied sectors of Berlin sup- plied. The success of the airlift and a telling counterblockade, which shut off shipments of goods to the Soviet sector from West Germany, finally moved the Soviets to lift the blockade in May 1949.