Mexican fighter pilots in WW II

Kyt · Jan 11, 2008

Forgotten heroes get their due - a documentary to be screened this weekend recalls efforts of Mexican fighter pilots in WW II

News - StatesmanJournal.com

Briefly recorded in the annals of war are the actions of a little-known military unit that fought as an ally of the United States in World War II.

Thirty-eight Mexican pilots plus support personnel helped U.S. and Filipino forces liberate the Philippine islands from Japanese occupation. Their story will be told this week in two showings of a documentary film at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville.

"History, in general, has failed to recognize the contributions of this elite squadron, and someone needed to tell their story," said director Victor Mancilla, a Los Angeles filmmaker. "I made the documentary because I wanted to add this Latino chapter to history, so that future generations of Latinos will know about it and see heroes who look like them, heroes who have the same color of skin as they do."

In the 2006 documentary "The Forgotten Eagles," Mancilla brings to light the story of the Aztec Eagles pilots of Mexican Air Force Fighter Squadron 201. It remains the only Mexican military unit to have served in combat outside Mexico.

The English-language film has two Oregon connections, including retired Philippine army veteran Alejandro De La Rosa, who lives in Portland, and retired U.S. Air Force pilot Lt. Col. Howard Tuman of Gold Hill, who helped orient the Mexican squadron to the Pacific war zone.

"My contact with them was mostly in the air as we, at first, would escort them on missions," said Tuman, who served as squadron commander of the 310th Fighter Squadron in the 5th Fighter Command.

"Then they were on their own, and they did great," Tuman recalled. "They had been very well trained in Mexico, and had also received extensive training by the Air Force in the United States.

"I only wish I had gotten to know them better on the ground, but there just wasn't much time to do that."

The film is not encyclopedic but an impressionistic portrait of the front lines as told by a handful of squadron personnel, some of who have died since being interviewed.

The 65-minute documentary blends rare archival color and black-and-white footage of the unit in training with the U.S. Air Force's 58th Fighter Group, in the combat zone and in present-day interviews with personnel at their old air base in the Philippines.

The movie was filmed during a three-year period in Mexico, the Philippines and the United States, and is narrated by actor/director Edward James Olmos, best known for his roles as Martin Castillo in "Miami Vice" and Jaime Escalante in "Stand and Deliver."

Created in 1942 by special accord between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mexican President Manuel Avila Camacho, the fighter pilots and 270 specialists and support personnel were initially intended to serve in Europe.

But because of historical ties between Mexico and the Philippines, Camacho requested that the squadron be sent to help defend the Pacific island nation.

Already trained in Mexico, the pilots were given additional flight training at Pocatello Army Air Base in Idaho.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur personally greeted the squadron when it arrived in the Philippines on May 1, 1945.

While there, the unit was attached to the 5th Fighter Command at an airfield north of Manila.

Although in the Philippines for only six months, the group participated in 59 missions and helped the Allies bomb Luzon and Formosa, pushing the Japanese out of the islands.

Like their American counterparts, the Mexican aviators carried out their tactical air missions in P-47 Thunderbolt, single-seat fighters. Seven of the 38 Mexican pilots were killed in action.

The war came to an end with the surrender of Japan on Aug. 15, 1945. Mexico's survivors returned home and were decorated by the governments of all three countries for valor in the cause of freedom.

Before going back to Mexico, the men of Fighter Squadron 201 built a monument in Manila in honor of the seven members of their group who were killed.

Adam Schmidt, the marketing coordinator for the Evergreen Aviation Museum, said a decision was made to show the film at the McMinnville venue because they wanted to help tell the Mexican squadron's untold story.

"It shows the real history of how the Mexican Air Force helped Americans in World War II," Schmidt said.
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Mexican fighter pilots in WW II

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