Prologue

Summary

Largely forgotten in histories of the Cold War is America’s remarkable response to the global food crisis in the early postwar years. Across the Atlantic, Europeans were starving. The war had crippled food production. The massive bombing of roads, bridges, canals, and railway lines had shattered transportation routes, making the transit of food to cities that much harder. Drought had withered crops, further depleting what little food remained. More than two years had passed since Germany’s surrender, but the lives of average people had only worsened. Tens of millions of children were enduring malnutrition, stunted growth, and disease. Mothers jostled and shoved their way into the scrums surrounding canned food distribution sites. Others picked through garbage dumps, searching for any edible scraps. With winter rapidly approaching, Europeans desperately needed nutrients or millions would soon die. The continent was facing a grim postwar apocalypse, and Americans were being asked to help. Half a million gathered one night in Hollywood to launch a distinctly American solution: the newly minted Friendship Train.