General Pershing called on the Curtiss Flying
Jennies to Pursue Pancho Villa across Northern
Mexico
by
M. L. Webster
At four-thirty on the morning of
March 19, 1916, the sound of gunfire echoed
through the streets of Columbus, New Mexico, a
border settlement of adobe houses, a bank, a post office and a few
stores surrounded by cactus, mesquite and
rattlesnakes. Men on horseback led by the
renegade, Pancho Villa, swarmed through the
streets, looting, killing, burning and shouting,
“Viva Villa! Death to the gringos! As darkness
gave way to dawn, the Villistas disappeared back
into the Chihuahua hills, leaving behind 19
American dead and a town in smoldering ruins, an
action that led directly to the first use of
U.S. military aircraft over foreign territory.
In response to Villa’s raid, President Woodrow
Wilson ordered Gen. John J. “Black Jack”
Pershing to form a “Punitive Expedition” and
bring the renegade to justice. (The general’s
aide-de-camp was Second Lieutenant George S.
Patton, a 30-year-old West Pointer.) Air Power to the Rescue
Aware of the effectiveness of airplanes in World
War I, then raging in Europe, John Pershing
requested the support of the 1st Aero Squadron
for mail and communications, aerial photography
and the observation of enemy forces as well as
of advanced parties of the Expedition.
The squadron consisted of eight Curtiss NJ-2s,
(the famous Flying Jennies), 11 pilots, 82
enlisted men, 10 trucks and one civilian
mechanic. The Flying Jennies had low, rakish
lines; staggered wings; instrument panels; a
long, deep, narrow fuselage; and a wicker seat
for an observer. America Needed to Catch Up
Technically, however, these planes lagged far
behind those used in European combat.
Aeronautical progress in the United States was
slow due to a lack of interest by Congress and
ranking army officers who felt air power had no
military use. In 1916 alone, Germany spent $45
million to develop air support while the United
States spent $435,000. The American Army had
only 20 serviceable planes, the British over a
hundred, while the French and German armies had
still larger numbers. Benjamin Foulois an Air Power Visionary
In 1911, the first American military pilots, a
total of four men, were trained in San Diego
using the Curtiss “Type 1V, Military.” (In the
same year, Lt. Hap Arnold set an altitude record
of 4,167 feet. Arnold was also the first
American pilot to direct artillery fire from an
airplane.) In 1914 the 1st Aero Squadron was
organized as part of the Army Signal Corps
commanded by Cpt. Benjamin Foulois, with five
pilots and three Martin biplanes.
Foulois, 34 years old and largely a self-taught
pilot, believed fervently in the future of air
power. In 1915 the squadron transferred to Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, to test the new Curtiss JN-2 for
artillery liaison. Although new, the
90-horsepower Jennies were underpowered with
tail surfaces that were too small. The JN-2 were
fitted with shoulder harnesses that accentuated
the ailerons. To force a bank to the left or
right, pilots leaned into the harness to move
the aileron in the desired direction, producing
a jerky change in altitude. The planes had no
machine guns, no bombs; none of the necessities
of warfare.
A Mission to Texas for the Jennies
The squadron then transferred to San Antonio, a
distance of 450 miles, with orders to fly
cross-country rather than by the usual method of
rail transportation. Two stops and three days
later the Jennies arrived in Waco. Foulois
lamented to the press, “We have been several
years building fifty-three airplanes for the
army. Our active Squadron totals six. To show
the insignificance of such a force, more than
that number are destroyed every day in the
European War.”
With maps supplied by the U.S. Post Office—the
only maps available—the squadron left for Fort
Sam Houston, 90 miles to the south. En route,
strong winds scattered the planes, some pilots
following railroad tracks, others landing to ask
directions. Finally, seven days later, all six
Jennies had landed safely.
Here, the pilots took additional training in
conjunction with ground artillery, and also made
their first attempt at aerial photography. First Sortie Over Foreign Territory
 Three days after the Villa raid, Pershing
ordered the 1st Aero Squadron to proceed by rail
to Columbus. This time the men disassembled the
planes and loaded them onto flatcars. Captain
Foulois, 10 pilots, 82 enlisted men, one
civilian mechanic and two hospital corpsmen
boarded a Southern Pacific train for the
“front.” Upon arrival in Columbus, Foulois flew
a 30-mile sortie into Mexico—the first by a U.S.
military aircraft over foreign territory.
South of the border, Mexico lay in anarchy; torn
into factions by a civil war, one of the
bloodiest in history. In the Northern State of
Chihuahua, Pancho Villa, the last of the
warlords roamed freely, looting and killing.
Complex and controversial, Villa was a fighter
with an instinctive grasp of guerrilla tactics.
The local campesinos called him “Tiger of the
North,” their Robin Hood, because he stole from
rich landowners and foreign mining interests,
rustled cattle and distributed the spoils to the
desperately poor peons. Villa understood their
plight. He, too, was born a peon into the feudal
hacienda system, illegitimate, illiterate, but
with a charismatic personality. Germany Stirs the Pot
Added to this unrest, Germany seized the
opportunity to infiltrate Mexico with propaganda
and spies, hoping that a war in Mexico would
divert American attention from the conflict in
Europe. The following telegram from Berlin to
Mexico City was intercepted by English
intelligence:
… we propose Mexico an alliance upon the
following terms: joint conduct of war … ample
financial support and an agreement on our part
that Mexico shall gain back by conquest the
territory lost by her at a prior time in Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona .… An Environment Not Fit for Man or Beast
The Punitive Expedition also became a campaign
against inhospitable terrain. Chihuahua
comprised more than 94,000 square miles of
desert and the Sierra Madre Mountains. There
were no maps of an area where every mountain and
valley was of tactical importance. Nor were
there roads, only desolate, barren plains broken
by cattle trails, cactus, scorpions,
rattlesnakes and mountains.
Logistic problems became acute. More than six
thousand horses required a daily minimum of
60,000 pounds of grain and 84,000 pounds of hay.
Water for both men and animals grew scarce. Men
tied rags around their faces and the muzzles of
the animals to shut out the blowing alkaline
dust. The nights were freezing, the days blazing
hot. During the rainy season, vehicles
struggled, mired in mud that sucked at the
wheels and horses’ hoofs.
Animals succumbed to exhaustion, starvation,
colic and extreme temperatures. In addition,
local inhabitants met the “gringos” with
increasing hostility. Memories of the U.S.
Marines’ occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914
lingered in their minds, as did the
Mexican-American War that “confiscated” half of
their territory. Did the gringos want more land?
Blind Leading the Blind
On the afternoon of March 19, Pershing ordered
the 1st Aero Squadron “to proceed here [Casas
Grandes] at once for immediate service,” 120
miles south of the border. Taking the “at once”
seriously, Captain Foulois ordered the squadron
to take off, even though it was late afternoon.
The men were dismayed. None had flown at night
nor had they any idea where Casas Grandes was.
They had no maps, no reliable compass and no
lights to read the instrument panel. The only
information they had was that the landing field
would be “lit by fires.” Foulois ordered the
pilots “to follow the plane ahead of you.” That
meant if one got lost its followers got lost.
One plane, piloted by Lt. Walter ”Mike” Kilner,
unable to gain altitude, returned to Columbus.
The mechanics worked through the night
installing a new engine. At dawn, Kilner again
took off and landed two hours later at Casas
Grandes, the first of the eight planes to
arrive. Missing Comrades
The remaining seven Jennies flew on in the dark,
each following the glow of the exhaust flames
from the plane in front. Realizing the danger,
Foulois set down at Ascensión, halfway to Casas
Grandes. Only three pilots noticed his descent
and landed. The next day those planes flew on to
Casas Grandes. That left three Jennies
unaccounted for.
 One of the missing pilots, Lt. Edgar Gorrell,
headed toward a glow on the horizon thinking it
was the signal fires, only to find a forest
fire. Passing over adobe huts, he smelled the
odor of his engine burning from lack of oil.
Heading down in a series of steps—nose over,
level off, nose over, level off—he landed
safely. Seeing men coming toward him, and
believing them unfriendly, he grabbed his
pistol.
As the men got closer, Gorrell dropped to his
stomach and began to crawl through a herd of
cattle and horses. Later he commented, “As I
crawled forward the herd came after me: when I
stopped, they stopped, when I crawled they
followed so close their horns touched my heels.”
Terrified, he ran toward a small stream, sloshed
across it, leaving the animals behind. After
seven hours of walking, he collapsed and slept
until dawn. All My Silver for a Horse
Believing the army’s line of communication lay
to the west, he made his way across the
scorching desert, walking until late afternoon.
Thirsty and parched, with his tongue stuck to
the roof of his mouth, he passed out. When he
came to, it was dark. Ahead of him was the
stream of water he had crossed the night before.
He drank his fill and slept until dawn. Suddenly
a Mexican on horseback came riding toward him.
Pointing his pistol at the rider, Gorrrell
yelled, “Amigo, amigo.” Seeing the horseman was
unarmed he explained his problem in his best
West Point Spanish, offering the Mexican eight
silver dollars—all he had—if he would lend him a
horse and take him to the nearest American
encampment. The sight of the silver quickly
concentrated the Mexican’s mind. Together they
set off for Ascensión, a distance of 20 miles,
with his pistol trained on the Mexican all the
way. Seeing smoke on the nearby hills, the
Mexican explained they were signals “from one
Villa band to another,” and that he was
“terrified of being caught helping a gringo.” On a Patched Wing and a lot of
Determination
On the outskirts of Ascensión they met an
American cavalry unit. Borrowing a truck and
driver, eight gallons of gas and a gallon of
oil, Gorrrell drove back to his plane, filled
the radiator from the stream, fueled the tanks
and took off, flying for 30 more miles.
Again he landed to beg more fuel from a moving
American convoy. He enlisted several truckers to
hold the wings and tail of the plane until he
got the maximum revolutions from the engine.
Then the truckers let go and the Jenny shot
forward. Gaining height, Gorrell noticed a large
part of the rear wing spar missing, and the
linen covering “began to shred into long
flapping ribbons.” He fought the plane down
safely.
Disgusted, Gorrell hitched a ride to Casas
Grandes. Two days later he returned, patched up
the Jenny and flew back to the squadron seven
days after leaving Columbus. Crew Reunited but Down a Jenny
The next morning, the last of the missing
pilots, Lt. Robert Willis, arrived in Casas
Grandes on foot. Unable to find his way in the
darkness, he had kept flying until he ran out of
gas and landed in a field. A truck with spare
parts and an armed guard drove to the site only
to find his plane chopped into little pieces by
the local natives. The 1st Aero Squadron was now
down to seven planes.
On March 22, Foulois and another Jenny tried to
locate American cavalry moving south. En route,
they reached a pass but could not get the
90-horsepower Jennies over the mountains. The
next morning, three other planes located the
missing cavalry and landed. They did not return
for three days due to high winds and blowing
dust.
In a report to Washington, Foulois requested
re-equipment of the squadron, including engines
with 125 to 160 horsepower, spare engines,
wings, landing gear, radiators and magnetos. The
reply came back that “all airplanes available
for service were already with the Pershing
Expedition.”
Jennies Shine in Recon Mission and Even Set
Record
The Jennies performed surprisingly well as
couriers, carrying dispatches between Columbus
and the various field headquarters, or following
cavalry pursuit columns. No longer required to
fly Chihuahua’s rugged peaks, the planes flew
only in daylight along Mexico’s valleys,
sometimes as many as 19 missions a day. One
plane, piloted by Gorrell and carrying an
observer, flew a distance of 315 miles in less
than five hours, a record for a nonstop flight
with two men.
As Pershing’s need for reconnaissance increased,
the squadron undertook several flights during
April 1916, moving its operating base south with
the cavalry to keep up with the general’s
requirements. But their efforts were doomed. The
squadron had only 12 days of usefulness left. Hostile Conditions Finally Take Their Toll
 On one mission, a heat-warped propeller snapped
a blade, the torque nearly tearing the engine
from its mounting. By applying full opposite
aileron, the pilot managed to land the Jenny
successfully, but it was the plane’s last
flight. Another Jenny was damaged when a wheel
sheared off while landing. The plane
ground-looped, ripping off the lower wing and
snapping several longerons in the fuselage.
The pilot was unhurt but the Jenny was
destroyed. That left the general with five
serviceable planes.
On April 7, Pershing ordered Foulois to carry
dispatches to the American Consul in Chihuahua
City, 130 miles away. To ensure delivery,
Foulois duplicated the messages; the copies were
to be sent in two different planes, each with a
pilot and an observer. One plane, piloted by Lt.
Townsend Dodd with Lt. Joseph Carberry as
observer, was to land north of the city, Foulois
and Lt. Herbert Dargue would land to the south. First American Pilot Prisoner of War
Dodd landed without incident, but as Foulois’s
plane set down, they were surrounded by angry
Mexicans waving rifles. Jumping out, Foulois
ordered Dargue to take off and join the other
plane north of the city. As shots rang out, the
pilot gave the engine full throttle, zooming
over the crowd, spattering them with dust.
The rifles then pointed at Foulois, forcing him
to raise his arms. Prodded toward the city by
the trigger-happy mob shouting, “Viva Villa—kill
the gringo,” he found himself in the local
jail—the first American pilot to become a
prisoner of war. Another Narrow Escape From Angry Locals
North of the city, an angry crowd surrounded the
two planes, taunting the pilots, burning holes
in the wings with cigarettes, and slashing the
fabric with knives. Small boys swarmed over the
Jennies, unscrewing nuts and turnbuckles. Both
pilots scrambled back into their planes.
Carberry took off safely. But when Dargue lifted
off, the top section of the fuselage flew back,
striking the vertical stabilizer. Dargue managed
to land, again surrounded by the angry mob.
Thankfully, an armed guard sent by the American
Consul came to his rescue. Foulois was freed
from jail, both planes patched up, and the
pilots flew out. Inside the city, angry Mexicans
stormed the American Consulate, throwing stones
and breaking windows. The consular shield was
dragged through the streets to the familiar cry,
“Death to the gringos!”
The following day Lieutenant Ira Rader, carrying
dispatches, was forced down by a high ridge of
mountains, badly damaging the machine. Unable to
make repairs a hundred miles from base, Rader
abandoned the plane. This left the squadron with
three Jennies.
New Technology and a Forrest Fire
With the arrival of a new Brooke automatic
aerial camera that sequenced itself at
predetermined intervals, Pershing ordered Dargue
and an observer aloft to photographically map
the approaches to Chihuahua City. Following
roads through the foothills, the engine began to
vibrate and lose power. Dargue crash-landed
upside down on a slope, tearing the plane to
pieces. Both men crawled out unhurt, but the
camera was smashed and the plates ruined.
The men set fire to the wreckage, the flames
quickly spreading to surrounding trees. Back
down the hill the men stumbled to escape what an
official report later described as “one of the
largest forest fires in Mexico. The mountains
burned for forty miles.”
Walking day and night, the men started toward
their base more than 60 miles away, wary of
rattlesnakes and scorpions, while suffering from
the cold and heat and lack of water. Two days
later they limped into camp, exhausted, only to
discover that Pershing had ordered the
squadron—the two remaining Jennies—back to
Columbus to refit. Ignoble End to the Last of the Jennies
Upon arrival in New Mexico, Foulois parked the
two remaining planes on the far side of the
runway and put a match to them. The Jennies were
replaced by the more promising Curtiss R-2s with
160 horsepower engines. But Foulois found them
poorly assembled with vital parts missing.
Preparing for a possible war with Mexico, the
planes were rebuilt in the base workshops, but
the laminated propellers became unglued in the
dry heat that sucked the moisture out of the
wood.
The men tried metal propellers but they proved
too heavy, then single blocks of wood that
warped so badly the engines vibrated in flight.
Finally they solved the problem using pre-aged
wood native to the desert heat. To keep the glue
from drying out, they built special humidors to
store the propellers while not in use. This
meant bolting and unbolting the propellers
before and after each flight.
Although Pancho Villa was never captured, he was
effectively neutralized and forgotten as the war
in Europe occupied increasing American
attention. By January 1917, Pershing began the
withdrawal of American troops from Mexico. In a
way, it was the end of an era. Military tactics
were changing. The days of the cavalry were
over. Trucks and tanks were replacing mules and
wagons. Jennies’ Accomplishments Propel Big Advancements
But from the perspective of the 1st Aero
Squadron, the Punitive Expedition was a
milestone in the development of military
aircraft. While the Jennies were inadequate for
reconnaissance in the mountains of Chihuahua,
their accomplishments were many: flying 346
hours on 540 missions covering more than 19,533
miles, performing reconnaissance over territory
unsuitable for cavalry or infantry and beginning
the first military aerial air route by
delivering thousands of letters to and from
Pershing’s troops without a single fatality.
On Christmas Day, 1917, Captain Foulois received
the following telegram from General Pershing:
"Please accept for yourselves and officers and
men of the First Aero Squadron my cordial
greetings … for the faithful and efficient
service it performed as part of the expedition."
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