Fly, Fly Away

What if your beloved homeland were taken away from you? What if the only way to save your family was to send your children to an unknown land and uncertain future? This happened to thousands of families in Cuba. The loss of freedom, the fear of persecution and the idea of losing their children to the communist government forced many parents to save their children by sending them away. One of the most dramatic events in post-revolutionary Cuba was the unprecedented exodus of more than 14,000 unaccompanied children. This relocation of children, beginning in 1960 to prevent them from facing Marxist indoctrination in Cuban State schools, became known as "Operation Pedro Pan." It was founded in Miami by Father Bryan O. Walsh of the Catholic Welfare Bureau, with the assistance of James Baker, headmaster of a private American school in Havana. This inspiring story of the "Underground Railway in the Sky" introduces the heroic efforts of so many people in pursuit of freedom for a generation of young Cubans.