page_title: United States Army Border Air Patrol
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: United States Army Border Air Patrol / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: A 1st Aero Squadron Curtiss R–2, Signal Corps No. 71, at Columbus, New Mexico.
context_page_description: With the end of World War I in 1918, the Air Service, United States Army was largely demobilized. During the demobilization period of 1919, the Regular Army and its air arm answered a call to defend the southern border against raids from Mexico, and to halt smuggling of illegal aliens and narcotics into the United States and weapons from the United States into Mexico.
context_section_description: Revolution and disorder in Mexico and trouble along the U.S.-Mexican border in March 1913 brought on the hurried organization of the 1st Aero Squadron, the U.S. Army's first tactical unit equipped with airplanes. In 1916 the squadron took part in General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Mexican revolutionist Pancho Villa.
  Difficulties along the border continued during World War I while the United States was at war in Europe. Mexican bandits often raided American ranches to secure supplies, cattle, and horses, and in doing so sometimes killed the ranchers. U.S. troops stationed along the border shot raiders as they pursued them into Mexico. The biggest clash came in August 1918, when more than 800 American troops fought some 600 Mexicans near Nogales, Arizona.
  Border patrol was one of the many activities being considered for the postwar United States Army Air Service. However, no aviation units had been assigned to duty on the Mexican border, when a large force of Villistas moved northward in June 1919 toward Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (opposite El Paso, Texas), garrisoned by Mexican government forces. Major General DeRosey C. Cabell, Commanding General of the Army Southern Department, received orders to seal off the border if Villa took Juarez. If the Villistas tired across the border, Cabell was to cross into Mexico, disperse Villa's troops, and withdraw as soon as the safety of El Paso was assured. The general ordered Air Service men and planes from Kelly Field and Ellington Field, Texas, to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, for border patrol.
  American troops under Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, Commander of the El Paso District of the Southern Department, were on alert when about 1,600 of Villa's men attacked Juarez during the night of 14/15 June 1919. Stray fire from across the river killed an American soldier and a civilian, and wounded two other soldiers and four civilians. Around 3,600 U.S. troops crossed into Mexico, quickly dispersed the Villistas, and returned to the American side.
caption: A 1st Aero Squadron Curtiss R–2, Signal Corps No. 71, at Columbus, New Mexico, 1916.
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