THE NATIONS: After Six Months

The day after Christmas, the great Berlin airlift was six months old. By then, it had carried 700,000 tons of supplies to besieged Berlin. That meant an average of 3,800 tons in an average of 550 flights a day (one-third by Britain’s R.A.F.). Last week, Air Secretary Symington said that in 1949, when new planes are put into operation, the daily total can be doubled. So far, 17 Americans and seven Britons have been killed in airlift accidents.

A grudging tribute came from Friedrich Ebert, Communist mayor of Berlin’s Soviet sector. “They seem to have no lack of planes and pilots and gasoline,” he said. “I live in Potsdam and hear the damned things roaring over the house all night.”