Berlin Blockade continent for weeks. All too often, aircraft would make the entire flight and then be unable to land in Berlin. On 20 November 1948, 42 aircraft departed for Berlin, but only one landed there. At one point, the city had only a week's supply of coal left. However, the weather eventually improved, and more than 171,000 tons were delivered in January 1949, 152,000 tons in February, and 196,223 tons in March. By April 1949, airlift operations were running smoothly and Tunner wanted to shake up his command to discourage complacency. He believed in the spirit of competition between units and,
Sixteen Tons Another line came from their father, a coal miner, who would say: "I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store." A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the "Billboard" charts, while another version by Frankie Laine 1956 was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition. On March 25, 2015, Ford's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. The sole authorship of "Sixteen Tons" is attributed to Merle Travis on all recordings beginning with Travis's own 1946 record and is