Gorrell rested for a few hours, then borrowed a Ford sedan from the U.S. 6th Infantry. He drove back to his crippled plane with fuel and oil and managed to start the engine. He flew the plane 30 miles south to Ojo Federico, where he landed near an American truck convoy. He refueled, but as he taxied for takeoff, his wing struck a fuel barrel. Once he was airborne, the canvas began to rip from the wing. Gorrell brought his plane down once again and hitched a ride to Colonia Dublan, where he finally rejoined his squadron. Two days later he returned to his plane, repaired it and flew it back to headquarters.

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While Gorrell had been wandering through the rough country of Chihuahua, the other fliers of the 1st Aero Squadron were assigned to locate American troops advancing south along the Mexico Northwestern Railway. Lieutenant Dodd, with Foulois in the observer’s seat, flew toward Cumbre Pass. Foulois reported that ‘the plane began to buck and shake violently in ever-increasing turbulent air. We had the throttle on as far as it would go, and the engine was straining valiantly at its limits. Ahead, the ground rose abruptly above us, and I knew that much as Dodd and I wanted to complete our mission, we had reached the absolute ceiling of our plane. We had no choice but to return to headquarters and report our failure.’ Discouraged, they returned to Colonia Dublan.

One of the squadron’s Jennys, piloted by Lieutenant Thomas Bowen, was caught in a gust of wind during takeoff later that same day. Bowen was injured in the ensuing crash and the Jenny was destroyed, leaving the squadron with only six functional planes (including Gorrell’s still-missing craft). Over the next several days, the fliers again tried to push the JN-3s over the mountains, but the 100-hp engines were not powerful enough. After only a few days of operations, it became clear that the JN-3s (which had been designed as trainers) could not fly over the 12,000-foot-high mountains, nor could they withstand the gusty winds, rain, hail and snow that were prevalent in the area.

There were other problems with the planes as well. Their wheels bogged down in the deep sand, and the hot, dry air quickly dried out the wooden planes. Especially troublesome were the propellers, which delaminated in the dry heat. Metal propellers were too heavy for the underpowered engines, and only a propeller laboriously carved from dried native wood proved successful. The pilots soon learned to carry a spare propeller, stored in a humidity-controlled box strapped to the side of the fuselage, on every mission.

News of the equipment problems of the 1st Aero Squadron quickly leaked back to the rest of the country. Byron Utecht, a New York World correspondent accompanying the Pershing forces, quoted Foulois when he wrote that the airmen were ‘risking lives ten times a day, but are not given equipment needed.’ Utecht said the pilots blamed ‘politics, personal ambition and utter lack of knowledge of aviation as being responsible for the dangerous plight of the 1st Aero Squadron.’ Lieutenant Herbert A. Dargue was quoted as saying, ‘It is nothing short of criminal to send the aviators up under such conditions as we are meeting here.’

Utecht, who had not submitted his work to the censors, was kicked out of Mexico, and Pershing’s inspector general questioned all the officers of the squadron. With an eye on their careers, the fliers denied the quotes attributed to them.

The squadron’s mechanics — some of whom used motorcycles to quickly reach a downed aircraft — did all they could to strengthen the Jennys for use in Mexico, but there was only so much that could be done. After several abortive attempts to cross Cumbre Pass, the 1st Aero Squadron concentrated on carrying mail and dispatches between Columbus and the columns moving south into Mexico. In this capacity, the squadron proved to be successful. During the last few days of March, the six remaining planes flew approximately 20 missions with messages for the various columns of Pershing’s command. The planes were moved to Namiquipa beginning April 1, 1916, where 19 missions were flown on one day without a problem.

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