Watch YMovies. To children living in the rubble of post-war Germany, it was candy from heaven. Some saw it as a sign that somebody in America cared about them. To Colonel Gail “Hal” Halvorsen, who became known worldwide as the Candy Bomber, the Berlin Airlift was healing balm on the wounds of war. He and his fellow American pilots dropped more than two million tons of supplies and 23 tons of candy to German citizens and children during the Berlin Airlift.