World War II: Mexican Air Force Helped Liberate the Philippines

 | Aviation History  | 5 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

After a rainstorm on January 23, 1945, a young second lieutenant, Cristoforo Salido Grijalva, attempted a takeoff from a muddy taxiway that he had apparently mistaken for an active runway. Warnings from the tower went unheeded. Salido hit his brakes and crashed before becoming airborne. His P-47 ended up inverted, and the young officer drowned in the mud that jammed the cockpit before the crash crew could free him. Salido’s death hit the unit hard.

Morale was further eroded by the discrimination the Mexican airmen encountered in the area. A sign over the town’s main street read ‘Greenville Welcome–The Blackest Land–The Whitest People.’ Pilots were amazed when they were refused service in a restaurant, but a more serious concern was off-base housing. An international incident was narrowly averted through hasty intervention between base officials and civic leaders. Accommodations were found for the men, and authorities circulated the word that the Mexicans were there as allies and should be treated with courtesy.

In some cases the youthful pilots’ natural exuberance led to breaches of regulations. In one notorious incident, Lieutenant Reynaldo Perez Gallardo brought his Thunderbolt in hot and low over Greenville one evening, intent on celebrating his recent marriage by giving the locals a beautiful buzz job. The big ‘Jug’ thundered down main street at over 300 miles an hour, its wingtips narrowly missing the buildings. Unknown to the lieutenant, inside a movie theater sat Captain Miller and his wife, enjoying a show. As Perez roared overhead, the vibrations reportedly’shook the building to its foundations.’ Miller was furious and summarily removed the lieutenant from flying status. The young lieutenant would later return to the unit and fly combat missions in the Philippines.

At year’s end, Mexico prepared for the unit’s deployment. Speaking to the senate, the president asked for the authority to send troops abroad. It was granted, and an order was issued redesignating the unit as the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force (FAEM). Rather than send the FAEM to join the Brazilian squadron in Italy, the Mexican president suggested operations in the Philippines to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. There, he said, the unit could aid ‘the liberation of a people for whom it is felt a continuity of idiom, history and traditions.’

On February 22, 1945, the new unit was given its battle flags in a formal ceremony, complete with two bands and a 21-gun salute. With the entire FAEM at attention, and officials from both countries, family members and hundreds of civilians watching, Mexican Subsecretary of War General Francisco L. Uruquizo, representing the president, presented the Mexican battle flag to Colonel Cardenas and gave a speech. He emphasized that Mexico was fighting with the Allied nations to support democracy and human rights, and reminded the pilots to represent their country with valor and honor. The airmen passed in review, manned their planes and roared into the cold, clear sky for an hour-long demonstration of combat tactics. The proceedings were broadcast live on radio in Mexico and Latin America and covered extensively in area newspapers. Newsreel footage of the event was later shown in theaters across the United States.

The pilots completed their training with air-to-air gunnery practice at Brownsville. On the afternoon of March 10, Lieutenant Javier Martinez Valle was up over the gunnery range, pursuing a target trailing from a tow plane. Flying alone into the setting sun, Martinez encountered trouble. His aircraft went out of control, and he was killed in the ensuing crash. It was thought that his P-47 must have struck the target cable or counterweight.

On March 27 the FAEM members boarded the liberty ship Fairisle at San Fransisco, joining 1,500 U.S. troops bound for the Philippines. Seasickness and fear of attack by submarines weighed on the men as the voyage wore on, and the screaming sirens of battle station drills made them edgy. But there were some lighter moments. At New Guinea, for example, the base commander invited the pilots to a party where they enjoyed iced beer and watched the new color movie Fighting Lady. Returning to Fairisle after that interlude, some of the well-lubricated airmen fell during the climb up the cargo net and had to be assisted aboard.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Aerial Combat, Air Sea, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, World War II

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.