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.