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Fueled by doughnuts, hamburgers and coffee, these pilots at Rhein-Main flew four round trips per day.
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Early morning airlift operations at Tempelhof, 22 August 1948. Note the trio of aircraft parked beneath the overhang of the airport structure.
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Pierced steel planking for a new runway at Tempelhof arrives aboard a C-47.
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A pilot's eyeview of Tempelhof shortly before the blockade. Many of the large buildings surrounding the airport were destroyed by Allied bombing during the war. Unfortunately for the aircrew who later ran the blockade, the leveled buildings were not on the flight paths to the runways
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A C-54 flys over a graveyard and periously close to some apartments buildings while making its landing approach at Tempelhof.
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Survivors of a crash in the Soviet Zone, March 1949.
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While brake failure almost led the C-54 to smash into apartment buildings at the end of the runway in August.
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Remains of a Navy C-54 after a crash landing on the night of November 15, 1948.
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Lieutenant Donald W. Measley of Hampton, New Jersey is presented with a bouquet of flowers by nine-year-old Suzanna Joks of Berlin.
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A crowd of Berliners gather to purchase stolen East Zone coupons to place on their devalued Reichsmarks.
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The Lighter Side (Cartoons).1
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The Lighter Side (Cartoons).2
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General Hoyt S. Vandenberg
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Vittles aircrews at Tempelhof's mobile snack bar which rolled up to aircraft as soon as they taxied to a halt.
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C-54 transport aircraft were already beginning to crowd out the smaller, twin-engine C-47s when the photo below was taken at Rhein_Main Air Base, outside Frankfurt, on 26 July 1948.
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German cement workers laying Tegel Airfield's runway, 17 August 1948.
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Tractor being unloaded from one of the five C-82 aircraft taking part in the airlift.
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Grading a future taxiway to an adjoining apron, 28 September.
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Empty asphalt barrels line the area adjacent to the 5500-foot runway at Tegel Airfiled in the French Sector. The barrels pictured are part of the 10,000 barrels flown in by
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Thousands of tires, checked constantly for deterioration, were kept in a state of readiness at Rhein-Main Air Base for use on the Skymaster flying round-the-clock into blockaded Berlin.
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The line of maintenance docks during night crew operations at the Oberpfaffenhofen Air Force Depot.
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The Wash Dock installation at Oberpfaffenhofen Air Force Depot, 7 September 1949. The wash Docks were used in the first stages of 200 hour inspection of C-54s engaged in the airlift.
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Hundreds of miles from the nearest western airlift terminal, aviation fuel for Air Force planes flows through tubes from a Navy tanker at the Army-run port of Bremerhaven.
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Vehicle barrier being erected in Potsdamer Platz, 24 August 1948.
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Lord Mayor Louise Schroeder requesting that demonstrators leave the 23 June 1948 City Council meeting. This was the first of many occasions that communist demonstrators disrupted council proceedings. City Council Chairman, Otto Suhr is at Schroeder's left and representatives of the occupation forces are seted along the wall.
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The breakup of the 26 August City Council meeting.
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Communist demonstrators in front of the New City Hall in the Soviet Sector of the city, 26 August 1948. The demonstrator's signs demand a uniform currency and administration, the withdrawal of occupation forces from Berlin and Germany, the end of
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The City Council meeting at the Berlin Technical University in the British Sector, 6 September 1948. Carl Huber Schwennicke of the LPD is at the podium, Otto Suhr is seated at the center of the table to his right. Ernst Reuter is sitting at the far right in a light grey suit and bow tie with Ferdinand Friedensburg at his right.
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Otto Suhr at a special meeting of the Magistrate, 8 September.
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Ernst Teuter addressing up to 300,000 Berliners outside the Reichstag after the repeated disruption of City Council meetings in the Soviet Sector, 9 September 1948. Franz Neumann (Partially Obscured) and Otto Suhr are standing behind Reuter.
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A new R-200 engine, called
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Readying an R-2000 engine for its exit at Rhein-Main Air Base.
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A giant C-74 unloading at Gatow Airfield becomes an attraction for sightseers.
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A group of Berlin children try to express their appreciation to Lieutenant Gail S. Halversen, the orginator of
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Miniature parachutes can be seen dropping from Halvorsen's C-54 as he brings the plane in for a landing at Tempelhof.
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Halvorsen's bunk becomes a factory for miniature parachutes weighted with Lyons chocolate bars.
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A young girl with one of the estimated 150,000 Schokoladenflieger gifts dropped over Berlin.
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Airlift C-54's being unladed at Tempelhaf after the heaviest snowfall of the winter blanketed the airport in white on 1 March 1949. High winds, poor visibility, and icing conditions near ground level forced a temporary cessation of operations during the night, but clearing skies the following day brought tonnages to the near normal level.
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Awaiting their turn to take off for Berlin, US Air Force C-54s will land at Gatow in the British Sector of Berlin just one hour from their British Zone airlift terminat at Fassberg.
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Abritish armored car guards a string of Fassberg-based C-54s being unloaded at Gatow Airfield in the early morning haze. Even the residue from the unloading of coal is not wasted. Swept into neat piles, it is rebagged and added to the beleagured city's supplies.
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British and American personel at Fassberg's traffic control center.
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A British Army enlisted man directs the parking of a coal truck as German laborers prepare to load a shipment of coal aboard a C-54 at Fassberg.
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Airlift Bases -Winter, 1948-1949
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A sample of the kind of weather that plagued flight operations throughout the airlift.
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Radio operators on the B-17 weather patrols of the airlift corridors reported on flight conditions every 20 minutes from pre-determined check points.
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Airlift pilots receiving weather information from a briefing jeep at Tempelhof.
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A weather officer at Oberpfaffenhofen AirForce Depot briefs the crew of a B-17 before its six-hour patrol of the corridors.
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Air installations personnel clear taxiways at Tempelhof after a 19 March snowstorm.
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C-54s at Wiesbaden stand out against a background of snow, 2 March 1949.
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The first C-54 to arrive at Tegel Airfield lands during a light rain, 5 November 1948.
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The dedication of Tegel Airfield, 1 December 1948. General Jean Ganeval, who ordered the demolition of Radio Berlin's broadcast tower, is saluting at front row left.
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While waiting for their
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During yet another monotonous flight to Berlin, the radio operator aboard a C-54 describes interference he's receiving as the engineer (seated behind the pilots) wonders aloud about a light outside the right window.
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Project Sleighbells brought Christmas gifts from dependents of Vittles fliers from all parts of the world to German. In the foreground are some of the mail bags to be loaded and to the extreme left can be seen some of the C-74 crew members. At the extreme right are crew emebers of a plane which had just arrived from Alaska bringing in gifts for the proejct. The women and children are dependents of Vittles personnel from Brookley Air Force Base and Mobile, Alabama.
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Air Force personnel from Fassberg RAF Station are shown aboard the
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The office complex of Soviet controled Radio Berlin.
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RIAS announcer doing a remote broadcast from Potsdamer Platz, 28 August 1948.
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Ernst Reuter casts his ballot during the city elections, 5 December.
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Communist Free German Youth demonstrators, 1 December 1948.
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Aircraft of the Gatow-Fassberg coal run. Note the spilled coal at left which will eventually be rebagged.
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Much of the coal flown into Berlin was unloaded into barges on the Havel River. When filled, the barges carried coal to Kladow or Westhafen area for distribution to industies and homes in the blockaded city. The barges carried an average of 500 to 700 tons of
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A resident of the Neukoeln District receiving her weekly coal ration.
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A student pilot receiving radar instructions for his simulated flight down an airlift corridor.
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A synthetic trainer, once used to train bombardiers during World War II, was adapted to instruct pilots in navigation to Berlin in all kinds of weather.
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Unloading flour at Tempelhof
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Using a fork lift, crews load bags of flour onto a C-54 at Rhein-Main Air Base.
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Unloading flour at Tempelhof.
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Aircrew checking the load distribution of Berlin-bound flour.
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Bread baked from airlifted flour
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Bread baked from airlifted flour
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A four-year old girl who lives in one of Berlin's Western Sectors, totes her family's weekly bread ration from a bakery near her home. The bread was baked from American flour and is wrapped in a Soviet-licensed newspaper which carries a banner headline reading:
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Philip C. Jessup
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Delegation heads at the 1949 council of Foreign Ministers meeting (left to right) Dean Acheson for the United States, Andrei Vyshinsky for the Soviet Union, Robert Schuman for France, and Ernst Bevin representing Great Britain.
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Berliner's interest in the airlift remained undulled throughout the many months of the Blockade.
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A controlled Approach unit at Tempelhof designed in sections to facilitate movement.
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Air traffic controlers at Tempelhof
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One of forth lights placed in two, 20-lights, parallel rows ighting a 3000 foot approach to the main runway at Tempelhof. The towers used as platforms for the lights were manufactured from runway matting. The reason for its great height is so the approach lights are not blocked from sight by the tall buildings around the airport.
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The Tempelhof Flight Operation Desk
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The Berlin Wall shortly after its construction.
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Care packages being distributed to Berliners.
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Schloss Strasse in the US Sector from the top of Wertheims's Department Store, 27 August 1952. As late as 1946 this street was half filled with rubble with only on elane open to traffic.
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Soviet troops returning to their sector after a ceremony at the Soviet War Memorial, 9 May 1952. Nearly a decade later, the Berlin Wall was erected roughly half way between where the British soldier is standing guard and the Brandenburg Gate.
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The Soviet delegation arrives for a session of the four-Power Conference of Fereign Ministers, 1 February 1954. Foreign Minister Molotov, at far right, leads the way followed by Jacob Malik and Andrei Gromyko.
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German refugees moving west, Bamberg, 13 July 1945.
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US equipped troops of the French First Army advance cautiously into the town of Colmar, France, 2 February 1945.
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Bread being distributed from a trailer in the residential Zehlendorf section of Berlin. The ration was two-thirds of a pound per day for employed persons and one-half pound for the unemployed.
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Under the direction of Soviet soldiers, civilians clear rubble away from the Unter den Linden 4 May 1945.
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General Lucius D. Clay.
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Konrad Adenauer.
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Stalin, Truman and Churchill at the Potsdam Conference.
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The battleship Missouri, sent to Turkay as a gesture of US support for her against soviet territorial claims. Substantial US aid soon followed.
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US military police at Potsdamer Platz where the US, British and Soviet sectors meet. The spuare was often the scene of confrontations between Communists and supporters of Western democracy.
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President Truman with Secretary of State Marshall, Marshall Plan administrator Paul G. Hoffman and Averell Harriman in the oval office of the White House.
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British soldiers relax in their occupation sector. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the background still sits on the Kurfustendamm and has been left in its ruined state as a memorial to war.
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The Unter den Linden in the Soviet sector looking toward the Brandenburg Gate and British Sector.
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The May 13, 1948 meeting of the Berlin Kommandantura, one of last meetings that the Soviets representatives attended.
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Civilians milling about in Anhalter station on 1 April. The Soviets deployed, but did not completely stop civilian rail traffic during this period.
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Supplies for the US garrison in Berlin being unloaded from C-47 aircraft at Tempelhof during the emergency air movement later dubbed the
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May Day demonstration in Berlin, 1948. Part of the crowd is turning left to the Reichstag rendezvous of anti-communists while others continue to a Soviet demonstration. This photo was taken from the border of the British and Soviet Sectors at a point where the Berlin wall would later be constructed.
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Rail and barge traffic begins to stack up as the blockage begins in earnest. Before the currency reform, black-market activity was common throughout Germany.
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Rail and barge traffic begins to stack up as the blockage begins in earnest. Before the currency reform, black-market activity was common throughout Germany.
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US troops check identification cards and search for unauthorized goods during a
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Allied financial experts explain the currency reform at a press briefing at OMGUS headquarters, 18 June 1948. US Deputy Assistant Financial Advisor Jo Fisher Freeman is speaking, British and French advisors are seated to his right and the man at far left against the wall is believed to Edward Tenenbaum.
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West Sector residents exchanging Reichsmarks for Deutsche Marks.
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The Soviet side of their checkpoint on the autobahn at Helmstedt.
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A light dusting of snow covers surplus US Army vehicles of all types at Wurttemberg in the winter of 1946. The soldiers who operated them had long since returned to the United States.
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A minature city is used to instruct military police in Germany on the situations likely to arise in various parts of a city, September 1946. After the war, Western forces were geared toward support and civil control
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General Curtis LeMay
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General Albert Wedemeyer
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US air traffic controllers at the Berlin air Safety Center check and post flight progress strips indicating movement of American aircraft in and out of Tempelho. The Soviet panel for their airfield at Schonefeld is at right and a corner of the British panel for Gatow airfield can be seen at left.
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The limited load capacity of the C-47 aircraft necessitated that the much larger C-54s be added to the airlift as quickly as possible. A single C-54 was capable of carrying as much cargo as four of its older cousins.
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Parachutes in hand, Berlin-bound pilots take a quick look at the morning paper before heading for their plane.
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Jewish Passover food arriving in Berlin.
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Protecting coal against the wight increasing effects of rain, German loading crews prepare to truck this airlift cargo from train to plane at Fassberg.
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Berlin-bound cargo arrives on a Danish ship at the port of Bremerhaven.
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Fresh milk being loaded on a C-47. Shipments of whole milk soon were dropped in favor of more weight efficient condensed milk.
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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.
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The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is one of thirteen Presidential Libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

500 W. US Hwy. 24. Independence MO 64050
truman.library@nara.gov;
Phone: 816-268-8200 or 1-800-833-1225;
Fax: 816-268-8295.

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