In Pursuit of Pancho Villa
By Carroll
V. Glines USAF
Feb. 1, 1991
With a force of more than 1,000 mounted Mexican
gunmen, Francisco “Pancho” Villa on March 9,
1916, raided Columbus, N. M., and other US
settlements on the international border. Sixteen
Americans died. US cavalry chased Villa across
the border but could not apprehend him.
In Washington, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker
immediately ordered Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing,
then stationed in El Paso, to pursue and capture
Villa.
The Army Signal
Corps First Aero Squadron, based at Fort Sam
Houston, Tex., and under command of Capt.
Benjamin D. Foulois, was assigned to Pershing’s
“punitive expedition.” The squadron had eight
old, low-powered Curtiss IN-3 Jennies,
unsuitable for flying more than fifty miles from
base.
Ground equipment
consisted of ten trucks, an automobile, and a
few spare parts. In addition to Captain Foulois,
there were nine pilots, eighty-two enlisted men,
a civilian mechanic, and two enlisted medical
corpsmen.
Captain Foulois’s
unit reached Columbus on March 15. The next day,
Capt. Townsend F. Dodd and Captain Foulois made
a first reconnaissance flight into Mexico. On
March 19, the squadron was ordered to proceed to
Casas Grandes, Mexico, 125 miles south of the
border. High winds, lack of navigational
equipment, poor maps, inadequate maintenance,
and mountainous terrain took their toll. Planes
were scattered across the area. It took a week
to round up all pilots and planes. Two planes
were destroyed, but their four airmen survived
with only minor injuries.
Captain Foulois
and Captain Dodd made another flight, this one
intended to establish communications with US
troops. Over the next three weeks, the squadron
was unable even to get a glimpse of Villa or his
revolutionaries. The pilots couldn’t coax the
Jennies high enough to reconnoiter the mountain
areas where Villa’s troops were hiding.
The dry climate
warped the planes’ propellers. Blowing sand
wrought havoc with the engines. By the end of
the first month of operations, the squadron
found its remaining six aircraft in questionable
condition to conduct military operations.
Pleading for New
Planes
Several missions
could not be completed due to poor weather,
maintenance problems, or the planes’
inadequacies. In a memorandum to General
Pershing, Captain Foulois said the Jennies “were
not capable of meeting the present military
service conditions” and pleaded for “at least
ten of the highest-powered, highest-climbing,
and best weight-carrying aeroplanes” that the
government could provide.
“I knew I was optimistic in thinking I would get
the planes I wanted,” Captain Foulois said in
his memoirs, “but I was duty-bound to ask for
them. In the meantime, we would do what we could
within the limitations of our equipment. “
Captain Foulois had only one course of action:
to use the remaining planes to carry mail and
dispatches between various US ground units until
the planes were no longer flyable. A number of
reconnaissance, photo, and mail flights were
made from several locations.
One frustrating condition of the Mexican
campaign was the refusal of the government of
Gen. Venustiano Carranza to let the US troops
use Mexico’s railroads for transport of men and
supplies. On top of that, Carranza’s forces,
whom the Americans thought they were helping by
chasing Villa, were openly hostile.
“When the supply
shortage began to get critical,” Captain Foulois
recalled, “I was asked to fly to the city of
Chihuahua to contact the American consul there
to see what could be done about getting
critically needed medicine and food items. The
town was held by the allegedly friendly forces
of Carranza, but I was suspicious. The reports I
had seen from the various commanders trying to
locate Villa did not indicate any friendship,
because they had been fired upon by Carranzistas.”
Captain Foulois
decided to send two planes with pilots and
observers and duplicate messages. One plane was
to land north of the city and the other on the
south side. The observers were to walk into the
city from opposite directions while the pilots
would protect their machines and, if necessary,
fly them out to prevent damage or capture.
On April 7,
Captain Foulois and Lt. Herbert A. Dargue took
off from San Geronimo in one plane, while
Captain Dodd and Lt. Joe Carberry departed in
another. Captain Dodd and Lieutenant Carberry
landed without incident on the north side.
Captain Dodd commandeered a carriage and drove
directly to the consulate. The consul, Marion H.
Letcher, contacted a few merchants. Supplies
were purchased, and arrangements were made to
have them shipped by train later that day.
Captain Foulois
was not so lucky. “A number of townspeople had
seen us circling south of the city and came
running toward the field we selected,” Captain
Foulois said. “Four Mexican rurales waved rifles
at us excitedly when we landed. When Lieutenant
Dargue got the plane stopped, I got out and
yelled to him to take off immediately to join
Lieutenant Carberry north of town and that I
would meet him there later.”
Facing
Winchester Rifles
“I immediately
started walking briskly toward the city and
tried to ignore the group shouting and shaking
their fists at the departing plane. Four shots
were fired but Lieutenant Dargue got away. I
shouted at the crowd to divert their attention.
The rurales wheeled and leveled their rifles at
me. I was defenseless except for a Colt .45,
which was no match for four Winchester rifles.
There was nothing I could do but put my hands
up-and pray. I did both.”
Captain Foulois
was shoved and prodded toward the city jail. As
the crowd pushed him along, he heard a voice
shout in English: “Do you need any help,
Captain?”
Captain Foulois replied, “Yes! Go get the
American consul!”
“When we arrived at the jail,” Captain Foulois
recalled, “I was thrust through the doorway and
into a cell. An iron door clanged shut behind
me, and I became the first American aviator ever
to become a prisoner of war.”
Captain Dodd was having no such difficulties.
While the supplies were being loaded on a train,
Mr. Letcher took him to see the governor of
Chihuahua, who turned out to be a former
classmate of Dodd’s from the University of
Illinois.
Meanwhile, Captain Foulois was trying to
negotiate for his release with the jail warden,
who finally agreed to send a messenger to
General Gutierrez, the military governor.
“A Colonel Miranda, the general’s chief of
staff, showed up, took me in custody, and we
marched several blocks to the headquarters,”
recalled Foulois. “General Gutierrez was affable
and agreed that I should not be detained any
longer. I told him about the two planes north of
the city and asked for guards to keep them from
being harmed. Again he was agreeable. I asked if
I might visit the planes to reassure my men, and
we were soon on our way.”
When Captain Foulois arrived at the field north
of the city, only Lieutenant Dargue was there.
He had joined Lieutenant Carberry, but his
arrival had drawn a large crowd of Carranzistas
who crowded menacingly around both machines.
With cigarettes, they burned holes in the
fabric. When Lieutenants Dargue and Carberry
tried to stop them, the mob slashed at the cloth
with knives and machetes. Boys began to swarm
all over the planes, loosening nuts and
turnbuckles.
The two pilots felt their only defense was to
make a strategic retreat. They started their
engines and taxied to take off. Lieutenant
Carberry got off all right, but he dusted the
mob so thoroughly with his propeller blast that
the angry crowd chased after Lieutenant Dargue’s
plane, throwing rocks.
Lieutenant Dargue was just lifting off when the
entire top section of the fuselage behind the
cockpit flew off and struck the vertical
stabilizer. He chopped the throttle and landed
straight ahead.
When Captain Foulois arrived with the guards,
Lieutenant Dargue was doing his best to hold off
the angry mob with his wits, bare fists, and a
loud voice. The guards took over and quieted the
crowd. Lieutenant Carberry landed at a smelting
company about six miles away and returned later
that afternoon. The four pilots stayed overnight
at the US consulate, where they experienced no
further difficulties. Next morning, after making
rudimentary repairs, they took off.
Military Theater
of the Absurd
This encounter
with the Carranzistas was typical of the
ridiculous position in which the American forces
found themselves, despite the fact that both
sides supposedly were trying to capture Villa.
The deeper into Mexico the Americans penetrated,
the more hostility they encountered from both
Villa sympathizers and Carranzistas. On April
12, 1916, a small US cavalry unit fought a
pitched battle with a band of Carranzistas,
killing forty of the Mexican troops. Two
Americans died, and six suffered wounds.
By April 14, after flying as many missions as
possible, only two US planes remained airworthy.
It appeared that the First Aero Squadron would
go out of business, at least in Mexico.
In the interim, however, the bad news about the
aviation situation had reached Washington.
Secretary Baker appealed to Congress for a
special, $500,000 appropriation to buy twelve
new Curtiss R-2 planes. They were to be equipped
with Lewis guns, automatic cameras, bombs, and
radios. On April 20, the First Aero Squadron was
ordered to return to Columbus to await these new
planes. Captain Foulois put a match to the two
tired Jennies so that no one could order him to
take them aloft.
Instead of new R-2s, however, the squadron
received four Curtiss N-8s, which were nothing
more than copies of JN-4s built for overseas
delivery. Captain Foulois flew all four of them
and declared them unfit for service.
Eventually, the R-2s did arrive, but for the
next three months, said Foulois, “we had
constant engine and construction troubles.
“Every plane required alterations and
replacement of vital parts. The biggest problem
turned out to be propellers, which had been
manufactured all over the States and sent to us
for testing. Practically all were defective
because of the climate. As a result we never
again were able to perform useful field service
with the Pershing forces.
“However, we did manage to get a half-dozen
planes in the air on August 22, 1916, and give
General Pershing the first aerial review ever
held by a United States air unit.”
Risk to Life and
Limb
Captain Foulois,
who later rose to the rank of major general and
in 1931 became Chief of the US Army Air Corps,
made a summary report of the first American
attempt to use airplanes in active field
service. In pertinent part, it stated:
“Due to lack of aeroplanes with greater carrying
capacity, all flying officers were continually
called upon to take risks in every
reconnaissance flight made while on duty in
Mexico. All officers thoroughly appreciated the
fact that the failure of their aeroplane motors,
while flying through mountainous canyons and
over rugged mountains, would invariably result
in death.”
Captain Foulois noted that the pilots also
suffered physically. “Due to inadequate
weight-carrying capacity of all aeroplanes,” he
wrote, “it was impossible even to carry
sufficient food, water, or clothing on many of
the reconnaissance flights. Pilots were
frequently caught in snow, rain, and hail
storms. . . . In several instances, pilots were
compelled to make forced landings in desert and
hostile country, fifty to seventy miles from the
nearest troops.
“In nearly every case, the aeroplanes were
abandoned or destroyed and the pilots, after
experiencing all possible suffering due to lack
of food and water, would finally work their way
on foot, through alkali deserts and mountains,
to friendly troops, usually arriving thoroughly
exhausted as a result of these hardships.”
Mexican bandits continued to conduct border
raids against US targets, but the Carranza
government insisted it could control Villa
without US intervention. In January 1917, the US
force was ordered out of Mexico, and the last
American soldier crossed the border on February
5.
It had had no success finding Villa. To Captain
Foulois, however, the plight of his eight-plane
“air force” was a turning point in the
development of American military aviation. “The
machines were inadequate for the task assigned,”
he said. “Not only were they inadequate, they
were downright dangerous to fly because of their
age. Yet we did a great amount of scouting over
country in which cavalry and infantry could not
operate.”
Despite all the difficulties, the First Aero
Squadron chalked up 346 hours of flying time on
540 flights, covering more than 19,533 miles
while performing aerial reconnaissance and
photography and transporting mail and official
dispatches. More important for the nation was
the ultimate realization that the airplane was
no longer an experiment or an oddity.
C. V. Glines is a regular contributor to this
magazine. A retired Air Force colonel, he is a
free-lance writer and the author of many books.
His most recent article for AIR FORCE Magazine,
“The Cargo Cults,” appeared in the January 1991
issue.
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