AT12:30P.M.ONJUNE28.1948. President HarryTrumanstrodepur- BY RICHARD HARRIS posefully into the Cabinet Room of the White House and greeted Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, and Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett with a curt nod. Characteristically; he got di-

rectly to the point. "Let's get one thing straight right now," he said, "We are staying in Berlin. Period!"

Truman was reacting to the latest crisis in the escalating Cold War. In an attempt to

force their former allies out of West Berlin, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had blocked access to the city. The situation had unfolded five days earlier with an announcement in West Berlin newspapers. "Berlin, June 23," it read, "Transport Division of the Soviet Military Ad-

In 1948 the Soviet Union attempted to starve the Western-held sectors of Berlin into submission. In response, Britain and the United States resolved to keep the city supplied by air-a feat many thought would

ministration is compelled to halt all passenger and freight prove impossible. traffic to and from Berlin tomorrow at 0600 hours because of technical difficulties." A second message declared, "Water traffic will be suspended. Coal shipments from the Soviet zone are halted. The Soviet authorities have also ordered the central switching stations to stop the supply of electric pow-er to the Western sectors. Shortage of coal to operate the plants is the reason." The Soviets further announced that food brought into the city from East Germany would be dis-tributed to the USSR-controlled eastern sector of the city

48 AMERICAN HISTORY JUNE 1998

Three years after World War II ended, Berlin was still feeling its effects. More than 10,000 laborers-6,000 of them women-worked to clean up West Berlin, including these "rubble women" (above) who worked in the dty~ British sector They borrowed their coats each morningfrom the British mili-tary government and returned them at the end of the work day. Two days after the Soviets began their blockade, the U.S. Military Air Transport Service unsignia at left) began supply-ing West Berlin residents with food. \Vhen the blockade ended 11 months later, a group of celebrating West Berliners waved to a US airplane approaching Tempelhof airfield (right).

!

-------~ ------ -~----

Uke Germany itself, the city of Berlin was di-vided into Jour zones-each administered by one of the victorious Allies (map). General Llui.us Clay initiated the airlift shortly after the Soviets began the blockade. At right, Clay and the American Ambassador to Germany, Robert Murphy, drive to a meeting on the cri-sis. When General William H. Tunner (top, left) anived in Germany to take command of the Berlin Airlift, he called it a "real cowboy operation" but soon turned it into an efficient machine. Tunner worried that the airlift's first commander, General Curtis E. LeMay (top, right), would feel insulted that he was being replaced, but LeMay accepted the change without question.

only. West Berlin was now isolated 110 miles inside hostile territory

Lieutenant General Lucius Clay, United States Military Governor of Germany and Commander of the United States Forces in Europe, strongly believed that West Berlin had to be held by the Western Al-lies at all costs to "hold Europe against Communism." He decided to begin a lim-ited airlift into the city. Clay's staff in Berlin were divided in their support for it, but the general held firm. When asked later how the War Department had responded to his decision, Clay replied, "I never asked .... [W]e didn't have to start fight-50 AMERICAN HISTORY JUNE 1998

ing to get through the air, so I never asked permission."

Three days before Truman's cabinet meeting, Clay called Lieutenant General Curtis Emerson LeMay, Commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe, at his headquarters in Wiesbaden, Ger-many. Clay asked LeMay if his men could supply the needs of the U .5. occupation force in Berlin, and possibly the entire population of West Berlin as well, by car-rying coal and food to the city. LeMay was silent for a moment, then replied, 'The air force can deliver anything."

Despite his bravado, LeMay was painfully aware that the USAF was ill-prepared to carry out any kind of opera-tion. At the height of World War II's air war in 1945, the U.S. had routinely sent l ,000 bombers against targets, but by

z June 1948 there were less than 1,000 z ~ planes in the entire air force. LeMay had a -~ki"fi~ ~ mere 102 beat-up C-47 transport planes,

~ each capable of carrying just three tons of ~ supplies. The United States did have a !5 larger transport in the four-engine C-54,

with a 10-ton capacity, but there were only two of them in Europe at that time.

The Soviets had insisted in 1945 that the Western Allies feed the parts of the city they occupied; consequently LeMay knew that to keep West Berlin alive, his fleet would have to fly in approximately 641 tons of flour, 106 tons of meat, 105 tons of cereals, 51 tons of sugar, 10 tons of coffee, 20 tons of milk, and 900 tons of potatoes every day.

THE SEEDS OF THE Berlin crisis had been sown more than three years earlier, in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference on the Crimean Peninsula. In atten-dance were the "Big Three"-U.S. Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the USSR. The Allied leaders decided that following the defeat of the Nazis, Germany would be divided and administered by American, British, French, and Soviet forces. Final details of the arrangement were clarified five months later at the Potsdam Con-ference in Germany.

Germany's historic capital, Berlin, was given special status in post-war Europe. Although the ruined city lay deep with-in the Soviet zone, it was divided into four sectors. The USSR took control of East Berlin, while the Americans, British, and French controlled West Berlin. Stalin initially promised the Western Allies free and unhindered ac-cess to their zones but then refused to al-low any Western troops to enter the city for two months after the Soviets accept-ed its surrender on May 2, 1945.

During that time the Soviets, who had already installed Communist-backed governments in most of the eastern Eu-ropean countries they had liberated dur-ing the war, solidified their position in Berlin by installing German Commu-nists in key city government jobs. They controlled the newspapers and radio and created a centralized banking system un-der Communist supervision. Finally on July 1, 1945, the Soviets permitted the Western Allied occupation forces to as-~ sume their duties in the city. ~ It was an uneasy partnership. By the 1E end of 194 7, the Soviets were showing

~ signs that they wanted their wartime 0 . ~ colleagues out of Berhn. They placed i more and more obstructions in the way

~ of freight and passenger services in and JUNE 1998 AMERICAN HISTORY 51

out of West Berlin. They cut off water supplies due to "technical difficulties," and closed roads for "repairs." On March 5, 1948, General Clay sent a warning message to Washington. "Al-though I have felt and held that war was unlikely for at least 10 years," he wrote, "within the last few weeks I have felt a subtle change in the Soviet attitude which gives me a feeling that it may come with a dramatic suddenness." Al-though Clay had nothing concrete tore-port, his comments caused Secretary of State George Marshall to declare that the situation was "very, very serious."

On June 1, the United States joined with Britain, France, and other western European countries in a plan to unify their occupation zones in Germany and create a West German state.

The unification, however, couldn't be completed without a revival of the econ-omy, which had been reduced to a pre-dominantly black-market system. On June 18, the Western Allies announced that a new form of currency, the West German deutschmark, would replace the

A group of Douglas C-4 ls waits in the unload- ~ ing line at Berlins Tempelhof airfield in the it American zone (right). The C-47s were the 9

"' mainstay of the USAFs "Operation Vittles" ~ during the first two months of the airlift, but ~ they were withdrawn at the end of September ~

tion of the Marshall Plan-which pro-vided American aid to Western Europe to help its post -war recovery-provoked the Soviet leader into closing off West Berlin.

On June 25, the United States and

Britain, little realizing the magnitude of the task ahead, began supplying food and medical supplies to the more than two million residents of West Berlin, mainly women, children, and old men. LeMay threw every transport plane that

could fly into the airlift. On that first day, the 60th and 6lst Troop Carrier Squadrons flew 80 tons of supplies from the U.S. air base at Wiesbaden into Berlin's Tempelhof airfield in the Ameri-can sector of the city.

The Douglas C-4 7 Skytrain. The milrtary version of the Commercial DC-3, the C-47 flew under the colors of most of the Allied forces in every the-ater of World War II. Wingspan: 95 feet. Length: 64 feet, 6 inches. Height I 6 feet, I I inches. Payload: 3 tons. The Douglas C-54 Skymaster. Derived from the DC-4, the four-engine Skymaster added a much-needed boost to the airlift. Wingspan: I 17 feet, 6 inches. Length: 93 feet, I I inches. Height 27 feet, 6 inches. Payload: I 0 tons. The Douglas C-7 4 Globemaster. Wingspan: 173 feet, 3 inches. Length: 124 feet, 2 inches. Height 43 feet, 9 inches. Payload: 25 tons.

JUNE 1998 AMERICAN HISTORY 53

Theoretically, Britain and the United States could keep West Berlin supplied with food by air for several months, pro-viding the flight crews flew 24 hours a day, no aircraft broke down, and the weather remained bright and sunnr To survive the crisis, however, the city would also need a wide range of domes-tic goods for industry and public ser-vices. The single most important com-modity was coal. When the blockade began, the city had only a 45-day supply

The airlifts first months were some-what disorganized. One of LeMays many difficulties was finding pilots. To give the regular pilots a brief rest, he utilized avia-tors who had been on desk duty since the war's end. But even aided by the "desk jockeys," the regular crews worked in-credible hours. Captain Hugo Krenk of the 60th Troop Carrier Wing was typical: he flew 160 hours that first month. Lieu-tenant Robert Miller, the flight surgeon for the 60th, noted that his fliers were strung out from too much strong coffee and tor-tured by plugged ears. But no one quit.

During World War II the combat fliers generally held the men who flew the

54 AMERICAN HISTORY JUNE l998

transport planes in disdain. The hot-shot "fighter jocks" and the daring bomber pilots considered the "truck dri-vers" of the Military Air Transport Ser-vice less than true aviators. Neverthe-less, throughout the Berlin Airlift the "truck drivers" came through, flying in weather that would have kept other pi-lots on the ground.

The delivery of coal presented extra risks for the fliers. The coal dust trickled from sacks, penetrating every nook and cranny of the airplane, irritating eyes and noses. It eroded electrical contacts and fouled hydraulic systems. Cabin floors were sometimes covered with an-kle-deep layers of the dust.

Another problem was a critical short-age of airplane parts. "We didn't have enough parts in Europe to rebuild the ass end of a Piper Cub," a disgusted opera-tions officer recalled. During the first two weeks of the airlift, maintenance crews used up a six-month supply of wind-shield wipers. Tires and engines were scarce, and fuel shortages threatened to ground the operation.

Initially LeMay believed the airlift

would last no more than 60 days. How-ever, by the middle of july it was clear that the Soviets had no intention of lift-ing the blockade. LeMay knew he would have to increase the tonnage of supplies being dropped. For the capital to survive the coming winter, he would need more than the 102 C-4 7s, and the 35 larger C-54s that had recently been added to the fleet. He would have to get his hands on every C-54 the air force could spare.

On july 20, 1948, General Clay flew to Washington to report to President Truman on the Berlin situation. At a meeting on july 22, Clay, the president, cabinet members, the joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council considered their options, including changing tactics and supplying the city by armed convoys. Despite the risk of weakening American air strength else-where in the world, Truman decided to send 75 more C-54s to Germany. They came from as far away as Panama, Hawaii, and Alaska. One squadron from Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas re-ceived its orders to head for Europe the day after returning from a two-year de-

"' ffi I ,_ 0 "' "' z

~-"' "'

"' "' I' ,_ 0 "' "' z 5: 0 "' "'

German worl~crs prepare to unload the first bag of coal delivered to Tegel ailfield (oppo-site). Thanhs to the efforts of five US pilots who conceived "Operation Santa Claus," the children [!{West Berlin received thousands of Ch1istmas gifts from communities in the United States (top, left). Ground crews load fresh milh for the babies of West Berlin at Rhein-Main (above). Some of the older chil-dren were evacuated from Berlin for health reasons. At left, they board a C-4 7 bound for the B1itish sector of Gennany US pilot Lt. Gail Halvorsen (bottom, left) started "Opera-tion Little Vittles," in which air crews dropped candy and gum to the children of the city

ployment in the Philippines. On the recommendation of General

Albert C. Wedemeyer, Director of Plans and Operations of the Army General Staff, Major General William H. Tunner arrived in Wiesbaden on July 29 to offi-cially take command of the U.S. airlift, and \Vi thin three months, with the agree-ment of the British, was named com-mander-in-chief of the Combined Airlift Force. General LeMay was an experi-enced combat commander, but he knew little about this type of operation. Tun-ner, on the other hand, had commanded the largest airlift in history. From 194 2 until the end of the war he had been in charge of the airlift across "The Hump" of the Himalayas, transporting every-

]llNE 1998 AMERICAN HISTORY 55

thing from mules to bullets in support of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese Army.

As soon as a C-54 anived in Gennany, maintenance crews swarmed aboard to get the big plane ready for its new duty. They removed long-range navigational equipment and troop seats in order to fit more supplies in the aircraft. When the plane was ready, a 10-ton trailer truck

The U.S. Army hired17,000 Gennan labor-ers, 40 percent of them women, to help con-struct Tegel airfield in the French zone of Berlin (below). The airfield opened with a ceremony on November 18, 1948 (bottom). The French supervised cargo operations and ci vi! ian labm; while the Americans controlled flying operations.

backed up to the cargo door, and a l4-man crew of displaced persons--Serbs, Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Poles--commanded by an American cor-poral quickly loaded cheese, dehydrated vegetables, boneless meat, or whatever else was being shipped that clay.

Three aerial conidors led to and from Berlin. The British followed the northern conidor from their seven Royal Air Force bases in Germany to Gatow airfield in the British sector of Berlin. The Americans flew the southern corridor from USAF bases at Wiesbaden and Rhein-Main to Berlin's Tempelhof airfield in the Ameri-can zone. The central corridor was re-served for both American and British planes returning to their home bases. In theory, it was possible for an aircraft to take off every three minutes, but loading

delays, servicing needs, and the frequent poor \isibility made that schedule impos-sible to maintain. Takeoffs were soon re-duced to one every 15 minutes. To avoid mid-air collisions on the return trip through the central corridor, the Ameri-can planes flew at between 5,000 and 10,000 feet, while the British planes flew at 4,500 feet and below

The flight from Wiesbaden or Rhein-Main to Berlin took about 90 minutes. While in western airspace, the pilots had navigational beacons to guide them. "At Ascaffenburg we'd tum 33 degrees north toward the Fulda beacon," Lieutenant Victor Wiebeck from Adrian, Michigan, later recalled. "At Fulda we received the report of the plane in front of us, so we had to adjust our speed accordingly." Sev-en minutes after passing the Fulda bea-con the planes crossed the inter-German border and were over Soviet tenitory. For the next 40 minutes there were no bea-cons. The pilots were now on their own.

ONE OF THE GREAT mysteries surrounding the Berlin Airlift is why the Soviets never seriously tried to stop it. They may have

z simply believed it was doomed to failure ~ anyway. The only airlift that the Russians t had \vitnessed was the pathetic German

""_ .. _.,..:--..,c,.- ~ attempt to resupply their trapped forces g at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942. Field

~ Marshal Hermann Goring had assured

Hitler that the Gem1an anny could be supplied by air V>ith 300 tons of supplies a day. Ultimately they delivered barely 90 tons a day and lost 300 planes.

Although the Soviets didn't try to stop the Berlin Airlift, they did interfere. On July 6, 1948, their fighters buzzed trans-port planes in the air corridors. Later they conducted anti-aircraft exercises on the edge of the corridors. Several rounds burst inside the Allies' air space without hitting any aircraft. General Tunner re-called that the Soviets "were putting up barrage balloons and towing gunnery targets in front of our planes. I told my pilots to fly on. They did, refusing to be intimidated ...

The Soviets weren't the only threat. On Friday, August 13-''Black Friday, as it came to be known-rain fell on

1o offset the coed shortage, \Vest Berlin resi-dents bumcd cmything they could find. The Jwuscwifc at top left is using a kitchen knife to st1ip lxulzfmm Ll tree.for use in starting a .fire for home coohing. TI1c women at top 1ight are

mobn,~ crsotz wol, a combination o.f coal dust. sawdust, nncl a tar-lihe substance. On l\lor I, 19-19. people guthered around a mo-bile louclspcuhCI Iabove) Lo hear the official unnow1ccmmt that the Soviets were lifting the bloclwdc in fhc days.

Berlin in a torrential downpour. The air traffic controllers couldn't see the run-way, and radar, which could penetrate clouds. fog. and darkness, was virtually useless in heavy rain. A C-54 overshot the runway at Tempelhof airfield and burst into Dames as the crew scrambled

i. j ji

was the temporary availability of a single new plane, the C-74, a four-engine giant capable of carrying 25 tons and reserved for heavy-weight cargo. On September 18 it flew for 20 hours and transported 150 tons of supplies. Unfortunately, the air force had only 11 C-7 4s. Six of those were in the process of being modified, and the remaining five shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean car-rying engines, parts, and other heavy equipment for the airlift.

By the first week of October, the fran-tic pace that marked the early days of the airlift had subsided. In its place was an orderly assembly-line operation. When U.S. aircraft from the Wiesbaden airfield were in the corridor, planes from Rhein-Main were being loaded. Thanks to engineers brought in by Tunner to de-velop more efficient systems, crews be-gan reducing tum-around time. At Tem-pelhof, planes were met by "follow-me" vehicles that led pilots to their unload-ing area. "When we parked at Tempel-hof I'd shut down the portside engine and leave the starboard idling," recalled former airlift pilot james HilL "A 10-ton truck would back up to the plane and in

15 minutes we'd be empty. The ground crew would pull the chocks, close the door and we'd taxi out. I'd start the oth-er engine while we were moving into takeoff position. Our ground time was less than 20 minutes."

As winter approached, ground crews needed to find a way to keep aircraft from icing over while they sat at Tempel-hof, Rhein-Main, and Wiesbaden air-fields. The deicers available in 1948 were totally inadequate for the task at hand. It took an unknown sergeant to find a so-lution. The air force had several of its new jet engines in storage at Tempelhof. "Why not put an engine in the back of a truck and heat the wings with the jet ex-haust?" the sergeant reasoned. The idea worked-just one of the many examples of American ingenuity that helped make the airlift a success.

The weather in Germany during No-vember 1948 was terrible, and December wasn't much better. The Soviet Union as-sumed the harsh winter conditions would prove too much for the Americans and the British. The airlift, however, kept going. Each morning, Berlin's citizens awoke to the reassuring sound of Tun-

ners pilots overhead. On New Year's Day 1949, the food ration in West Berlin was at an even higher level than before the blockade.

Even so, life was becoming increasing-ly difficult for the Berliners. Before letting the Western Allies enter the city in 1945, the Soviets had dismantled the largest power plant in the western sectors, mak-ing West Berlin's residents dependent on the USSR for electricity. Now, in order to conserve the coal and power necessary to run the smaller power plants, stringent electricity cuts were essentiaL By mid-winter the scarcity of power was causing widespread unemployment, and with lit-tle coal available for heating homes and public places, it was difficult for Berliners to keep warm. People found it hard to live ordinary lives under such extraordi-nary circumstances. While few fatalities from exposure were reported, pneumo-nia and other cold-related illnesses did cause some deaths.

FLYING THE BLOCKADE was deadly serious business, but it did have its lighter side. When the airlift began, the U.S. enter-prise was given the name "Operation

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Vittles," but a 2 7 -year-old pilot from Gar-land, Utah, started an operation of his ow-n. His name was Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen, but the children of West Berlin knew him as Ocr Schokoladen-flieger (The Chocolate Flier). On one of his many missions to Berlin, Halvorsen got an idea after he saw a crowd of chil-dren standing on the rubble at the end of the runway at Tempelhof. The following day, Halvorsen$ crew chief dropped can-dy and chewing gum to the children in makeshift parachutes. That day "Opera-tion Little Vittles" was born.

Other pilots in Halvorsen's squadron followed his lead, and the word quickly spread to other squadrons. When the press heard about Little Vittles, Halvorsen became a celebrity. Soon Girl Scouts in the United States were collecting candy to contribute to the operation. In the early spring of 1949, air crews made a massive candy drop to the children of Berlin. Just three years earlier many of these same children had run in terror at the sound of approaching aircraft, but now they eager-ly awaited the arrival of the planes, flown by some of the men who had once pounded their city into rubble.

People in the United States got in-volved in other ways, sending an aver-age of 600 CARE packages a day to the residents of West Berlin. Stanford Uni-versity students sent 15 tons of food to students of West Berlin colleges, and the National Institute of Diaper Services of America donated 12,000 diapers a week to West Berlin mothers. Relief agencies throughout the world supplemented government supplies. Humanitarian groups such as the International Red Cross, Mormons, Mennonites, Seventh-day Adventists, Society of Friends, Swedish Red Cross, and UNICEF were

~mong the most active contributors. The media made it sound as though

the Berlin Airlift was almost entirely an American operation, but the British de-livered nearly a third of the total tonnage throughout the campaign. The French didn't have any aircraft of their own at the time, but they contributed to the suc-cess of the airlift in a most unusual way.

British and American pilots had com-plained about a tall transmission tower on the approach to the newly built Tegel airstrip in West Berlin, which had be-come fully operational on November 18, 1948. The tower belonged to the Berlin

radio station and 1.-vas in the French zone of the city The station itself was in the British zone. but the Soviets had been su-pervising its operation since their arrival in the city.

General Jean Ganeval, the French commander in West Berlin, had t\vi.ce re-quested that the city council in the east-ern sector remove the tower, but he had been ignored. On December 16, General Ganeval called his American and British counterparts to a mysterious meeting in his office. When the officers arrived, the French general locked the door behind them and served the bewildered men a round of drinks. Suddenly a loud explo-sion rattled the \Vindows. The Allied offt-cers rushed to the windows just in time to see the tower tumble to the ground. Ganeval smiled and proposed a toast. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will have no more problems with the tower."

THE BITTER v\1NTER months passed, bring-ing better weather. The Western Allies now had 300 C-54s and 150 assorted British aircraft, and it was becoming ap-parent that the airlift was beating the blockade. The Americans were now fly-ing into Tegel airfield in the French zone and Gatow in the British zone, as well as Tempelhof in their own zone. By the end ofjanuary 1949, the airlift was bringing almost 6,000 tons of supplies into West Berlin every day, and by the first week of April the tonnage had increased to 7,000.

The airlift was now providing more than just the basic necessities. Berliners could obtain a few luxury items and building supplies that just a few months before could not have been found. In April the airlift brought in 5,000 tons of machinery to get the main power plant back into operation.

With the mission going well, Tunner decided that on Easter Sunday his flyers would perform "an all-out effon of some kind-a goal that was attainable yet would require the utmost of every man." He determined that the air force would shoot for a one-day total of 10,000 tons-3,000 more than had ever been hauled before. The British joined in on this one-day special delivery of coal, food, and machinery-American pilots delivered 10,904 tons of supplies, while British pilots transponed 2,036 tons.

The Soviets finally admitted defeat. Several factors contributed to their deci-

sion, including the April4, 1949, signing of the Nonh Atlantic Treaty by the Unit-ed States, Canada, and 12 European na-tions, which stated that an armed attack against one or more of the member na-tions in Europe or Nonh America would be considered an attack against them all; the Western Allies' counter-blockade, which included depriving East Berlin of the one million tons of coal and 30,000 tons of steel that it had been receiving each month from the Ruhr in western Germany prior to the blockade; the West-em embargo placed on exports from the Eastern bloc; and General Tunners great 12,940-ton aerial "Easter parade."

At one minute after midnight on May 12, 1949, the autobahn was reopened. Soon afterwards the first convoy of trucks loaded with supplies rolled into West Berlin. It was met by delighted cit-izens who danced in the streets. In the days that followed, residents celebrated at home by eating non-rationed food and flicking switches as they marveled at the sight of their lights flashing on and off at any time of the day or night.

The airlift, however, didn't stop. The blockade had shown that the Western powers couldn't trust the Soviets. Gen-eral Clay continued the drops until he had built up a cushion of 300,000 tons of supplies, just in case. May turned out to be the airlifts biggest month.

On September 30, 1949, the Berlin Airlift officially ended. During the airlifts 15 months, the Allies had flown 276,926 sanies and carried 2,323,067 tons of supplies into the city. The cost to the United States was $233,887,624. There was a human toll as well-48 Allied fly-ers had died, and 17 American and 7 British planes were lost. Lives were lost on the ground also, bringing the total number of dead to 79-31 Americans, 39 Britons, and 9 Germans.

Many had thought it impossible, but the Berlin Airlift was an undeniable suc-cess, and it taught the Allies valuable lessons about the logistics of air power. Its greatest accomplishment, however, was proving that the Western Allies would stand firm against the Soviet Union and the spread of communism. *

Richard Hanis is a freelance \\'liter who spe-cializes in militmy affairs and history His work has appeared in armed forces joumals and popular magazines.