Description
1948 PEDI first flight mail - numbered 28: airmail stationary cover from BROOKLYN to TEL AVIV franked 25c regular airmail rate, postmarked MAY 21 1948 (1st day of PEDI service) using both Type I and II cancels, and bearing very low serial number, 28 (out of 1288 carried on 1st flight); with US "First Flight" & locally applied CSA cachets on front; this 1st flight arrived in Haifa 2 June; opened roughly at back (some tears have been repaired and frank re-attached); 3 vertical folds; complete. "Palestine Emergency Deliveries Inc." was a private company founded by the Jewish Agency in New York, to collect mail and send it to Israel at a time when the British ceased their postal activities in the Mandate and air links to it were suspended. PEDI mail was carried as baggage, first on a KLM flight to Rome (ref. instructional marking on front), and then forwarded to Israel by Czechoslovakian airlines.
