Airlift supplies from the United States came primarily by ship to Bremerhaven, then by railroad to a railhead near the airfield, and then by truck to the airplanes. Supplies from sources in Europe were transported primarily by train or barge to the railhead. The Quartermaster Corps and the Bizone Control Office procured the supplies; the Transportation Corps operated the ships, trains, and truck companies to deliver the supplies to the planes; and the Ordnance Division provided the maintenance to keep the trucks operating. Most of the labor to load the planes was provided by Labor Service Companies consisting of displaced Poles, Estonians, Letts, Lithuanians, and other Eastern Europeans.

  Some of the airfields used in the airlift had convenient access to railheads while others did not. This presented a varying problem in trucking. To keep the supplies flowing at a constant pace, a three-day supply was warehoused at each railhead. Large ten ton trailers, roughly corresponding to the carrying capacity of a C-54, were pulled up to the freight railcars and loaded in accordance with how the cargo was to be placed in the aircraft. The cargo was then trucked to the airfield control point where it was met by an Air Force airlift representative and a Transportation Corps representative.

Jewish Passover food arriving in Berlin.

Protecting coal against the weight increasing effects of rain, German loading crews prepare to truck this airlift cargo from train to plane at Fassberg. Berlin-bound cargo arrives on a Danish ship at the port of Bremerhaven. Fresh milk being loaded on a C-47. Shipments of whole milk soon were dropped in favor of more weight efficient condensed milk. C-47 transport aircraft, containing 190 sacks of flour each, arrive at Tempelhof, 2 July 1948. A pair of B-17 weather aircraft can be seen at the far side of the airfield along with a lone C-54 at extreme right.