Three years after V-E Day, Joseph Stalin gambled that hunger would break the West. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union cut every road, rail, and canal route into West Berlin, stranding 2.5 million civilians and daring the United States to back down. President Harry Truman refused. Within days, the US Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force launched Operation Vittles, flying round-the-clock cargo runs into Tempelhof Airport. At the airlift's peak, Allied planes landed every 90 seconds, delivering coal, flour, and powdered milk. Over 15 months, more than 200,000 flights hauled nearly 2.3 million tons of supplies. Stalin lifted the blockade on May 12, 1949, having gained nothing. The confrontation proved that the United States would sustain an expensive, logistically staggering commitment rather than surrender an ally, a posture that anchored NATO strategy and US foreign policy for the entire Cold War era.