D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April 2010
First in Fighting Flight
In 1916, the First Aero Squadron took off from Columbus and blazed the trail for what would become the US Air Force. Now an effort is underway to rescue the airfield where New Mexico made aviation history.
By Ken Emery
On March 15, 1916, a train from El Paso pulled into the depot at Columbus, NM, carrying the US Army's First Aero Squadron, Captain Benjamin D. Foulois, commanding. The squadron had left Fort Sam Houston two days earlier with orders to proceed to Columbus and participate in General John "Blackjack" Pershing's search for Pancho Villa.
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Artist's rendition
for the First Aero Foundation web site of two "Jennies." |
Villa had raided Columbus the morning of March 9, killing 18 Americans and burning part of the town. Pershing was assembling a large force to enter Mexico in pursuit of Villa, and he expected the squadron to be invaluable in locating his quarry. This would be the first time that the US Army used airplanes in a military campaign.
For all practical purposes, the First Aero squadron was the US Army Air Force. The Army's Aviation School near San Diego had several instructors, a number of cadets in various stages of training and a few obsolete aircraft. There would be no replacement planes or pilots for some time.
The squadron consisted of 11 officer/pilots, 82 enlisted men, a civilian aviation mechanic, a doctor and two hospital corpsmen. They had 12 trucks, six motorcycles and eight airplanes. The planes were Curtiss JN-2s in the process of being converted to JN-3s by modifying the wings and tails and adding newer, presumably more powerful motors. They were trainers and not at all suitable for war.
The "Jennies" had been disassembled for the train ride and the men began reassembling them at once. One plane, No. 43, piloted by Lieutenant Herbert Dargue, took a brief 12-minute test flight at 6 p.m. He reported he "crossed the border just a little." The next day, March 16, No. 44 with Captain Townsend Dodd, pilot, and Capt. Foulois, observer, made a formal flight of 20 miles into Mexico. This generally is accepted to be the first flight by a US Army plane into "enemy" territory.
For the next few days, Foulois had his team continue assembling and fine-tuning the aircraft. No. 45, for instance, was getting new wings to become a JN-3. Also, Foulois was forced to loan most of his trucks to the Quartermaster Corps and was placed in charge of all transportation.
Orders came from Gen. Pershing on March 19 to proceed at once to his base inside Mexico at Casas Grandes. This meant flying at night — something only Capt. Dodd had previously done. The planes were poorly equipped for night flying, with no lights, unreliable maps and only compasses for instrumentation. They planned to fly single file, Dodd and Foulois in the lead, guided by the exhaust of the plane ahead. The plan broke down immediately.
Lieutenant Walter Kilner's plane, No. 42, returned to Columbus with engine trouble while the other seven flew on. Three planes managed to keep Dodd's No. 44 in sight, but two were flying several thousand feet higher and another a thousand feet lower and all three lost sight of the leaders. Foulois' group landed near Ascencion, where the 16th Infantry furnished a guard, but the others flew south. Lieutenant Herbert Dargue, in No. 43, landed in Janos, twice. The first time he was frightened by approaching Mexicans, so took off and flew as far as Corralitos — then back to Janos, where he landed in the same field. He stayed awake all night guarding his plane. At 6:20 a.m., he took off and reached Colonia Dublan, where Pershing was based, at 8 a.m. He was the first to arrive. Kilner arrived from Columbus at 9:30 and Foulois' group at 9:35.
On March 21, Lieutenant Robert Willis arrived at camp at 1 a.m., having walked 30 miles. He'd landed near Pearson on the 19th but the rough ground severely damaged his plane, No. 41. Eventually a party returned to it, salvaged what they could and destroyed the rest.
It wasn't until March 23 that Lieutenant Edgar Gorrell arrived. He had landed near Ojo Caliente, northeast of Casas Grandes, when he ran out of gas. He tried walking out but ran out of water and had to return to the stream near his plane. He hired a Mexican to guide him to the US troops and made it to Ascension on horseback. A Sixth Infantry driver took him back to his plane the next day, where Gorrell gassed up and flew to Colonia Dublan.
The travails encountered by the squadron on the flight into Mexico were harbingers of what was to come. Pershing wanted the squadron to scout the foothills and mountains for Villistas and to maintain contact between headquarters and the cavalry troops in the field. The pilots were willing; the planes weren't. The Sierra Madres were too high and formidable. The Jennies simply didn't have enough power. High winds, downdrafts and dust combined with the altitude to defeat the best efforts of the pilots. They were, however, able to maintain contact with the cavalry when they weren't on the mountains. The squadron proved useful in carrying dispatches, mail and sometimes supplies between Columbus, Colonia Dublan and the forces in the field.
Finding a suitable place to land near the cavalry was often a problem. The planes didn't require a long landing strip, but the terrain had to be relatively flat and free of encumbrances such as boulders, trees and holes. Sometimes landing was impossible and the cargo had to be dropped. On one occasion, the pilot landed several miles away. He rigged up a parachute from a neckerchief, flew back over the column and successfully dropped the dispatch.
Improvisation such as this was the key, especially in keeping the planes flying. The fabric was easily torn, punctured and burned and field patches had to be devised. Often it was necessary to wire the frames together using unconventional material. When Dargue came under attack by a mob near Chihuahua City, doing considerable damage to his plane, he used a wagon-wheel rim, old cloth and shellac to get it airworthy again. Duct tape would have been useful.
Dargue had been on the ground waiting for Foulois to return from delivering dispatches to the American consul when a crowd gathered. They burned cigarette holes in the fabric, cut souvenirs, loosened bolts and threw stones. The mob became increasingly aggressive and Dargue was hard-pressed to protect himself and his plane until a photographer appeared. The crowd backed off to allow pictures to be taken and Dargue seized on this. Under various pretenses, he prolonged the photo op until, finally, a squad of soldiers arrived and dispersed the assailants. Later he received a picture from the photographer.
As time went on, the squadron's size dwindled. One by one the Jennies dropped out, either through crashes or by being removed as unsafe and unrepairable. By April 20, only two remained. They were flown to Columbus, taken out of service and destroyed. New planes were to be provided.
Amazingly, despite the hazardous flying conditions and limitation of the Jennies, no pilots died, though there were injuries. Lieutenant Thomas Bowen was the first, suffering a broken nose when his plane was caught in a whirlwind while landing at Colonia Dublan on March 20. His plane was destroyed.
Lt. Willis suffered the most serious wound. On a reconnaissance/photographic mission northwest of Chihuahua City with Lt. Dargue, they crashed in rocky country. Willis was pinned under the plane, had a three- to four-inch gash on his head, and a badly bruised, perhaps broken, ankle. Dargue was banged up, too.
No. 43 was destroyed, so they gathered what equipment they had and, after Dargue bandaged Willis' head, they started walking toward San Antonio, 60-70 miles away. Before starting out, they set fire to their plane, which spread to nearby brush and caused a large forest fire. Dargue said that for awhile it pursued them.
They pushed on all day, searching for water as they had very little. At about 8 p.m., they came across a small stream, pushed aside the green scum and drank — but not much because it tasted so bad. A little later, they found the stream's source: a pig sty!
All that night and the next day Willis and Dargue hiked with frequent rest breaks. They found a lake but it was so alkaline, it was unpalatable. A spring nearby was less alkaline and they were able to drink and fill their canteens. Another day's walk and they reached US troops in San Antonio, which they had left 49 hours earlier. They could still see their forest fire burning in the distance.
The pilots recognized that the Jenny 3s were unreliable and unsafe, but they did as they were ordered to the best of their abilities. Capt. Foulois, in a memorandum to Gen. Pershing on March 22, stated that the present planes were incapable of doing what was required of them. He requested 10 new planes, two each of five models, as replacement craft. He thought that by requesting a variety, he had a better chance of getting something. Also, a variety would allow testing to see which were best for the conditions in Mexico. Pershing concurred but no planes were immediately forthcoming because, as Secretary of War Baker said, all available airplanes were already with the Punitive Expedition.