Air Marshal David Evans

Born: Paddington, NSW, June 3, 1925.

Enlisted: June 5, 1943.

Married: August 23, 1948, to Gail Campbell.

Retired: [As Chief of Air Staff] May 30, 1985.

War and war-like service: Berlin Airlift [Dakotas], Vietnam War [Canberra bombers].

Post-RAAF: Contested Eden-Monaro for the Liberal Party in 1987, chairman of the National Capital Authority from 1999 to 2003, on the board of British Aerospace Australia [later BAE Systems Australia] from 1990 until 2009, national president of the Royal United Services Institute from 1999 to 2003.

Honours and awards: Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Order and Companion of the Order of Australia, Centenary Medal.

Douglas Dakota

Length: 19.35 metres

Height: 4.89 metres

Wing span: 28.5 metres.

Maximum speed: 368km/h.

Range: 3400km.

This month's 25th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall would not have happened without the efforts of Air Marshal David Evans and a few thousand of his mates.

The then 23-year-old flying officer was one of 43 Royal Australian Air Force members told on August 21, 1948, they would be flying to Europe the following Tuesday on a Qantas Constellation airliner to join the Berlin Airlift.

Evans, who had been commissioned in 1947, was the youngest pilot in the RAAF contingent.

The timing could not have been worse. The designated departure date was four days before his wedding to Gail Campbell, the girl Evans had met at an air force club dance in Sydney, 18 months before.

While the deployment had been on the cards for a while, the original plan had been for the squadron members to fly their own Dakotas to Europe, probably early in September.

"There was no doubt our planes would have been useful," Evans said. "But the British were concerned that under the agreement [with the Soviets] the air corridor could only be used by aircraft owned by the occupying powers [Britain, America and France]. The use of RAAF planes could have led to the closure of the corridor."

While, 67-years on, this may sound far-fetched, it wasn't at the time. The Russians were in a belligerent mood and would have used any excuse to make a bad situation worse in their bid to seize as much of post-war Europe as they could.

"We [the RAAF aircrews] knew exactly what was going on and the possibility the Cold War could become a hot one was on our minds," Evans said. "The young people like myself were slightly disappointed [that it didn't]."

The airlift had come into being as relations between the Soviets and the powers occupying West Berlin broke down over the earlier part of the year.

Fifteen lives were lost on April 5, 1948, when a Soviet Yak fighter buzzed a BEA airliner near Gatow in the British sector. The planes collided and all aboard both aircraft were killed.

World War II had left West Berlin a pocket of British, American and French-occupied zones in the heart of Soviet-controlled East Germany. All the necessities of life, down to coal and condoms, had to be brought in from the west.

By late 1947 the Soviets, fearing economic reforms including a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, in West Berlin would strengthen their old enemy, resolved to seize the entire city.

Stalin reasoned that if the road and rail links were cut, Allied troops would have to withdraw, Western prestige would be shattered and communism would prevail without a fight.

Logic seemed to be on his side. America's post-war army was down to 500,000, the US had no nuclear forces in Europe and there were only 9000 American, 7500 British and 6100 French soldiers in the whole of West Berlin.

They were outnumbered almost 70 to one by 1.5 million Soviet soldiers who, if push came to shove, could seize the occupied zones in less than a day.

The Allies did not play ball however with General Lucius Clay, the military governor of the American Zone warning: "a retreat from Berlin would have … disastrous political consequences in Europe; I do not believe the Soviets mean war now. [But] If they do we might as well find out now as later".

Allied analysts concluded that while the Soviets could cut the land access, which had not been guaranteed by treaty, this was not the case with the three "air corridors". To block these, each of which was 32km wide and stretched from ground level to 4700 metres [10,000 feet], would be an act of war.

The real question was whether it was possible to supply a city of almost 2.5 million entirely by air as Germany headed into a long, dark, wet and foggy winter.

It took almost 700 planes, 4000 pilots and aircrew and tens of thousands of ground staff working around the clock for almost 18 months but the answer was a resounding "yes".

Gail Evans's white wedding was to be a casualty however. Even now she regrets not being able to get married in her carefully chosen, but unfortunately unready, wedding gown.

Five days after hastily reorganised nuptials, which could not be attended by the designated best man, the newly minted Mrs Evans kissed her flying officer goodbye under the watchful eyes of the press. It was to be 14 months until she saw him again.

The couple's only contact was by letter and occasional, very costly, international phone calls.

"Almost immediately after David left I was successful in getting a very well-paid secretarial job," Mrs Evans said.

"I was paid six pounds a week; a three-minute phone call [to Lubeck in northern Germany] cost four pounds and 10 shillings."

International calls had to be booked and it could be an hour or more before the other party came to the phone. Because it was impossible to schedule the calls Evans was often alerted by his navigator shouting "Gail warning, Gail warning".

Life at Lubeck, a former Luftwaffe base, was much more comfortable than the makeshift facilities at Narromine, Bundaberg, East Sale, Archerfield and Schofield he had been accustomed to.

This was some compensation for a rigorous flight schedule involving a seemingly endless succession of missions at all hours of the night and day and in all weather conditions.

There was little time for sightseeing in Lubeck and none at all in Berlin where crews had to stay with their planes while they were unloaded at breakneck speed.

Crews worked to a rolling 20-hour schedule based around two flights to Berlin and back in that time. Each round trip took about four hours.

"Say your first flight was at 8am on day one," Evans said. "You would finish that [and be back in Lubeck] about noon. You would get a meal while the plane was reloaded and refuelled and then go back to Berlin. Your second flight would finish [in Lubeck] at about 4pm."

The crew then had 12 hours off until their next shift at 4am the following day. After six flights they had a 36-hour break.

"You could do bugger all [in terms of getting away from the base]," Evans said. "We built a cricket pitch and played tennis. We also had Australians in the [RAF] rugby team and there were Australians in the RAF cricket and tennis teams."

Evans flew the first two of his 255 missions from Lubeck to Berlin on September 16, 1948. More than half the time he was in cloud, although the weather was "otherwise good". He recalled the air traffic control at Gatow airport in Berlin was "a little chaotic".

With Sunderland flying boats from Switzerland landing and taking off at nearby Lake Havel and the American's main airbase, Tempelhof, in close proximity, this was not desirable.

Organisation was improving thanks to legendary US Airforce air transport service boss, Major General William Tunner, who had taken over on July 28, 1948.

Despite this it was still dangerous work. One Australian, Flight Lieutenant Mel Quinn of Maitland, was killed when his plane overshot the runway landing at Lubeck in heavy fog on March 22, 1949.

Quinn, like Evans, was only recently married. His widow gave birth to their son six months later. The former 453 Squadron Spitfire pilot had been on attachment to the RAF.

"He [Quinn] could not identify the runway and, regrettably, he flew into the ground," Evans said. I had to take the same overshoot action on two occasions, fortunately with a better outcome."

These were not the future chief-of-airforce's only close scrapes. The most dangerous occurred during a very foggy flight from Lubeck to Gatow. Unbeknown to all involved, the aircraft that had taken off three minutes behind Evans landed in Berlin three minutes ahead of him.

Somewhere, somehow, with both planes flying the same course at the same designated speed and altitude, they had been overtaken.

"Where that happened and how close we [came to each other] we will never know," he said. Nor will we ever know who was right and who was wrong."

Compared to this potential disaster Evan's test of virtuosity on April 7, 1949, was a simple affair. He had been taking off from Berlin when the Dakota's port [left] engine "made disturbing noises" at about 60 metres.

"At 400 feet [about 120 metres] it had failed completely," Evans said. "It was a cool day with dense air and I was able to climb [to about 500 metres to turn around for a landing]."

He wasn't nervous despite having more than 20 German school children aboard. A post-incident inspection revealed a rag in the petrol tank.

"Was it deliberate? I just don't know," Evans said. While sabotage was extremely rare on the airlift it was not unknown with four cases being confirmed.

The fact human intervention, either by accident or by design, was responsible came as no surprise. Although more than half a century has passed since Evans last flew a Dakota he still regards them as among his favourite things.

"Everyone who flew Daks loved them," he said. "They were beautiful [to look at and to fly]. They are still being used as airliners in some parts of the world. Their reliability was legendary."

Reflecting on the airlift in his 2011 biography, Down To Earth, Evans wrote: "I think we acquitted ourselves well – as RAAF people usually do".

That said, he believes he and his colleagues were not well used with the Australians spending more time on task than any other contingent.

"I think we were treated badly," he said. "This was a high intensity environment and American pilots were rotated out after 100 trips. RAF pilots were on the airlift for two months [at a time] and the New Zealanders were there for six months.

"We were left there without a word. When we had left Australia, at short notice, most thought it would be [for] a matter of weeks or months."

The return flight to Australia, which took seven days with nine stops aboard an RAF York transport, bore no comparison to the first class ride to Europe, complete with free drinks, aboard the BAE airliner the year before.

"The final frustration was the plane elected to remain overnight in Amberley [in Queensland], just two hours short of Sydney where we all had our families," he said. "A small matter perhaps, but not when you had been separated for so long."