Navigation errors contributed to the squadron’s problems. Each plane carried a different type of compass, and the aviators were equipped with poor maps. Only one flier, Lieutenant Townsend F. Dodd, had ever made a night flight before. After the sun dropped behind the Sierra Madre, Gorrell lost sight of his fellow pilots and flew on alone. Finally, hopelessly lost, Gorrell turned and headed north again, but his plane had reached the limit of its endurance. With the engine on the verge of seizing up, the young pilot brought the crippled plane in for a rough but successful landing by moonlight.

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Gorrell knew that he was deep within enemy territory — territory occupied by the mounted and heavily armed followers of Mexican revolutionary General Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa (the assumed name of Doroteo Arango). He drew his .45-caliber pistol, abandoned his plane and fled into the darkness. Gorrell’s first journey into northern Mexico was typical of the fate awaiting the pilots of the 1st Aero Squadron, the only American air unit to fly in combat prior to World War I.

The outbreak of World War I during the summer of 1914 first revealed the inadequacy of America’s military aviation program. At the war’s outset, the entire air force consisted of 12 officers, 54 men and six planes. At the same time, dozens of British, French and German airmen fought daily over the trenches of the Western Front. Although the numbers of U.S. men and aircraft tripled in the next year, then tripled again, the 1st Aero Squadron remained America’s sole operational air unit until 1917.

The squadron was organized in September 1914 and first based at North Island, San Diego. But in March 1915, five pilots, 30 men and three planes had been sent to Galveston, Texas, in response to tensions along the U.S.Mexican border. The entire squadron was transferred to Fort Sill, Okla., where the pilots were issued eight Curtiss JN-2s and charged with learning aerial artillery spotting.

Shortly after arriving at Fort Sill, two planes and four pilots were transferred to Brownsville, Texas. It was there, on August 26, 1915, that the airmen first took up one of their new planes. Lieutenants J.C. Morrow and B.Q. Jones encountered turbulence at 1,100 feet, and their Jenny unexpectedly dropped 200 feet. The shaken aviators managed to coax the plane up to 4,500 feet but found it extremely difficult to control. On a subsequent flight, Morrow and his observer were badly hurt when their JN-2 nose-dived during takeoff and smashed into the ground.

The rest of the squadron also tried out the JN-2s and found them less than satisfactory. Pilot R.B. Sutton was badly injured and his observer (who sat in the front seat) was killed during one flight. After that accident, the artillery officers at Fort Sill categorically refused to fly in the JN-2s except during ‘war and in case of absolute necessity.’

Mechanics in Columbus replaced the engine in Kilner’s plane the following morning, and he flew to Casas Grandes without incident. Upon landing, he found to his surprise that he was the first to arrive. He then took off and flew 10 miles to Pershing’s headquarters at Colonia Dublan, where Foulois and the three others who had landed at Ascension soon appeared. Willis walked in the next day, and a detachment was sent out to salvage his plane. (The salvage party was fired on but eventually recovered some parts of the plane.) Meanwhile, Gorrell remained missing.

Gorrell stumbled around until dawn after abandoning his plane in the dark. Then he approached a remote ranch, intending to steal a horse. Pistol in hand, the airman confronted a mounted Mexican. Gorrell offered the terrified man $8 to guide him to the nearest American troops. The guide was none too eager, knowing that Villa’s men would kill him if he were discovered helping an American, but the pistol in the young pilot’s hand persuaded the Mexican. Gorrell’s reluctant savior carried the airman 20 miles to a column of U.S. cavalry at Ascension.

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