During the most unsettled days of the revolution, particularly in 1913-14, naval vessels were being used to evacuate citizens of other nations from Mexico. Some of those vessels may also have been near or at Guaymas. By some accounts, the U.S. Navy cruiser Colorado witnessed the attack on the nearby Mexican gunboat. Most of the naval vessels in Mexican waters belonged to the United States, but there were German, British and Japanese warships operating in the Gulf of California as well.

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On the day following their initial sortie, Masson and his bombardier resumed their attack on the gunboat. Again they achieved no hits on their target, although they had the satisfaction of seeing some of the sailors on Guerrero leap into the water to escape the threat of the bombs. The men were apparently very anxious about the fate they might encounter by remaining on board.

Masson returned to base and made a number of adjustments to the bombsight and to the vanes of the bombs, hoping to improve upon the dismal performance of the first two flights. Nevertheless, the next attempt was as unproductive as the first two, although a newspaper account credits the attack with driving two gunboats out of the harbor. That third attempt was particularly dangerous, because repairing a blown tire on the plane cost the aviators precious time on the ground. It was midday before they were airborne again, resulting in sluggish performance from the plane plus considerable shore-based fire as they approached the harbor at a dangerously low altitude. The new art of aerially bombing ships did not seem to be easily mastered.

Masson’s fourth attempt came to a premature end when Sonora crashed on takeoff. The pilot was unhurt, but the plane required repairs, including the replacement of several parts, among them a propeller, which were not available locally. After a four-week wait, the parts finally arrived after being smuggled across the border from the United States. Once more Sonora was readied to make war against the Federalist forces. This time, Masson and Captain Alcalde managed to achieve a near miss on Guerrero, but again they had to return without having scored a hit.

Masson was back over Guaymas once more early in August, this time with his loyal mechanic Tom Dean as his bombardier. During the first bomb run at 2,000 feet, amid a concentration of small-arms fire, the Curtiss engine sputtered in the hot summer air and died. The harbor at Guaymas was surrounded by mountains, as well as being enemy territory, so Masson glided the plane to the head of an adjacent bay and the town of Empalme. The town was a railroad junction, laid out on flatter ground not far from Guaymas, and was occupied by rebel troops. En route, the crew jettisoned their bombs to reduce the risk of their exploding upon landing. Fortunately, Masson was able to let down safely on the tricycle landing gear, only to discover that one of the bombs, snagged in its trip cord, was trailing behind the plane. The flier was relieved to learn that the homemade detonator on the bombs worked no better than the homemade bombsight had worked.

Sonora’s crew soon discovered that the area around Empalme was not securely in the hands of the rebels. Even though two American naval vessels, the storeship Glacier and the cruiser Pittsburgh, were trying to evacuate refugees from the railroad pier at the time, enemy shells continued to fall in Empalme and near the plane during the balance of their stay. Fortunately, no immediate danger to any Americans resulted from the shelling.

The next day, after repairs were made to the fuel system, Sonora was once again in the air, bound for home base 40 miles to the north. This trip, too, was plagued with mechanical problems; at one point the engine seized up. Consequently, when the two adventurers finally arrived back at their base, they agreed that they wanted no more of military aviation in the rebel forces. Both men submitted their resignations from Obregon’s army.

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