A daring air rescue was proposed, Alaska Airlines was contacted and Operation “On Wings of Eagles” was launched
IN his Anchorage office, Alaska Airlines president James Wooten pondered how to utilize the new fleet of DC-4 and C-46 transport aircraft he had purchased from US military surplus after World War II. He had recently used several planes to ship cargo during the 1948 Berlin Airlift. But the adventures were just beginning.
Jewish immigrants had trickled steadily out of the ancient community in Yemen to Eretz Yisrael since the middle of the 19th century, often making the long desert trek on foot with great sacrifice. When Yemen closed its borders in May 1945, many Jews there had already left their homes and were refugees in the port city of Aden awaiting transport out. The Joint Distribution Committee established a temporary holding facility known as “Machaneh Geulah.”
With the declaration of the State of Israel, violence erupted all over the region, and the Yemenite Jewish population was targeted in pogroms. This increased the number of Jewish refugees plying the desert roads leading to Aden. Something had to be done to get them to Israel. While most immigrants during this perilous time arrived by boat, the Egyptian Navy patrolling the Gulf of Aqaba precluded that possibility. A daring air rescue was proposed, Alaska Airlines was contacted and Operation “On Wings of Eagles” was launched.
The airlift began in December 1948 and ended on September 19, 1950, with close to 450 charter flights flown on Alaska Airlines, many of which were piloted by Wooten himself. Alaska Airlines evacuated approximately 49,000 Yemenite Jews on a harrowing escape route from Aden to Tel Aviv. In the initial stage, Jewish lives were endangered, and flights went for seven days straight.
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