Air cargo the area surrounding the city and thus land access. As this access was closed, in the so-called Berlin blockade, an airlift remained the only option to get increasingly urgent deliveries of food, coal, and other supplies to West Berlin. Over 330 days to 12 May 1949 a total of 2.26 million tons of cargo were airlifted to Berlin, an average of 6,800 tons a day, 80% by the US and 20% by the UK. Although freight traffic developed modestly, reaching only 800,000 tonnes worldwide by the mid-1950s, the world economy was hitting its post-war stride. Germany and Japan were emerging
Sixteen Tons Sixteen Tons "Sixteen Tons" is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album "Folk Songs of the Hills". The song became a gold record. The line "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" came from a letter written by Travis's brother John.