On June 24, 1948, the former Soviet Union blocked all land andwater routes through East Germany to Berlin. A gigantic airlift wasorganized using American and British planes to bring food,clothing, and other supplies to the more than 2 million people inWest Berlin. The Americans had two types of planes available, theC-47 Skytrain and the C-54 Skymaster. The carrying capacity was 3.5tons for a C-47 and 10 tons for a C-54. To break the Sovietblockade, the Western Allies had to maximize carrying capacity, butthe Americans were limited by the following restrictions:
- No more than 44 planes could be used per day
- Each C-47 required 4 crew members per flight and the crewrequirement for the C-54 was 5. The total number of personnelavailable per day could not exceed 200.
- The American's only had 32 C-54's Available.
