For the last sixty four years the US army has been playing Santa Claus to some 20,000 people inhabiting dozens of tiny Micronesian islands spread across a vast area in the western Pacific Ocean. Each year in December, these islanders receive all sorts of gifts and useful supplies packed in approximately a hundred crates and dropped gently to earth on green military parachutes. Known as Operation Christmas Drop, this effort on the part of the United States Air Force has been called the “longest running humanitarian mission in the world.”

Operation Christmas Drop has its roots to the Christmas of 1952, when the crew of an Air Force B-29 aircraft, flying a mission to the south of Guam, saw some of the islanders waving at them. In the spirit of the season, the crew gathered some items they had on the plane, placed them in a container, attached a parachute and dropped the bundle to the islanders below.

An airman of the US Air Force pushes a bundle from a C-130 Hercules during Operation Christmas Drop over Guam on Dec. 5, 2016. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Delano Scott