Doris Galambos was 7 when she and her two brothers shared a piece of hard candy that dropped out of the sky over Berlin, Germany, where they lived.

At the time, she didn't know where the candy came from. But she never forgot it.

It was in the mid-1950s when she heard about a pilot called "the candy bomber." He was mentioned in a film clip about post-war Germany and the Berlin Airlift, the U.S. operation that flew food and coal to Germany following the Russian blockade. One pilot decided to drop candy to the children.

Doris remembered her brothers going to the airport to get food delivered by the Americans. Some days, the family of four had nothing to eat. So when Doris had a chance to join a German circus as a child acrobat, she took it.

"There would be one less mouth to feed at home," she said. She ended up in Sarasota, Fla., home of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. There she married and had children.

Doris always wondered about the candy bomber. Who was he? Why did he do that? Is he still living? She asked several veterans, but none of them knew.

Finally, in January, someone knew. "Sure, you can find out about him on the computer," said Lt. Col. Lee F. Kichen, a World War II veteran Doris met while grocery shopping in Sarasota. He volunteered to print out the information and mail it to her. He even found out the name and address of the pilot's son.

Doris wrote to the son, Robert: "I hope and pray that your dad is still with you. All my life I've wanted to say ‘thank you' to the pilot who flew that plane and dropped the candy."

About five weeks later, she got a telephone call. But she didn't recognize the strange voice. She was ready to hang up when the caller said in a slow, shadowy tone: "I am the candy bomber."

Col. Gail Halvorsen, the candy bomber himself, was calling from his winter home in Tucson, Ariz.

A few weeks later, Beverly Howerton called from Flowery Branch, Ga., to invite Doris to a candy drop, one of many Col. Halvorsen has done lately in commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. He even spoke at the dedication of an airlift exhibit at the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, introduced him.

So Doris and her husband drove up to Flowery Branch. And on April 25, they watched as candy, tied to handkerchief parachutes, floated to the ground. Alan Wayne of Flowery Branch was the pilot. Col. Halvorsen was the candy bomber.

And then they met: Doris Drazkowski Galambos, now 68, and Gail "Hal" Halvorsen, now 88.

"I tell you," Doris said, "we spent a long time hugging, and I told him over and over, ‘Thank you very much.'"

Thank you for that piece of hard candy dropped out of the sky in 1948.