Operation Hajji Baba

The mission of the operation was to airlift Hajj pilgrims stranded in Beirut, Lebanon to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia before the closing of the gates to Mecca.

He settled on the US Air Force and, putting aside the fact that the US had supported Israel during the Mideast War of 1948, Salaam reached out to the US ambassador in Beirut, Harold B.

Goss assembled a team of 209 personnel, 80 officers and 129 enlisted members, to operate and maintain the 12 Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft that would be ferrying the pilgrims.

Once the passengers were off-loaded in Jeddah, the ground crew would quickly service the plane and it would begin its return trip to Beirut within 45 minutes of landing.

Because these airlines already had all of the initial paperwork completed, they were able to coordinate the release of the passengers in blocks of 50 thus speeding up the security and passport processing and allowing boarding to continue normally.

This had the potential of negating any effect the mission may have since, given the resources and time available, there was no way the operation could transport all of the stranded pilgrims before Saudi Arabia closed the gates to Mecca on 27 August.

Goss immediately voiced his concern to his superiors and the US State Department made an impassioned plea to the Saudi government to keep the gates open for one extra day.

Even though the very anti-Western Ayatollah Seyyed Abol-Ghasem Kashani, a high profile member of the Iranian Parliament, used his flight on one of the C-54s as an opportunity to publicly voice his opposition to Western involvement in the Middle East, the reaction within the Islamic media was generally favorable with even the most hard-line press outlets giving some kind words to the effort.

The state department produced a special booklet entitled Pilgrim Journey along with a documentary film, each recording different aspects of the operation.