The Aerodrome: The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, ...

The Aerodrome: The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, ...: The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El P... :  Oh great, now what? Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New ...

The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El P...

The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El P...:  Oh great, now what? Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense  

The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense

The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El P...:  Oh great, now what? Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense  

Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense

 Oh great, now what?

Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense

 

Thursday, February 9, 1911. Establishing the size of the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives approved the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, increasing the number of U.S. Representatives, beginning in 1913, from 391 to 435, the number that it has had ever since. 

This has created unequal representation and something really needs to be done to change it.

Voters in the Arizona Territory approved the proposed state Constitution.

Writer Jack London, who was a Socialist, came out in support of Socialist revolutionaries in Mexico.

The Army intended to deploy lighter than air craft near El Paso in an attempt to figure out what was going on in the revolution near there.

Indentured servitude for Chinese workers in British Malaya was abolished, effective June 30, 1914.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 8, 1911. Revolutions.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 2026 Election, Battle of Smelter View, boats and ships, Cuba, Cuba (Havana), Honduras, Iran, Mexico (Juarez), panoramic, Persia, The Big Picture, The Lost Cause, The Second Trump Administration

Wednesday, June 30, 1915. Armenian massacre.

Facing a lack of ammunition, Aremenial militiamen engaged Ottoman troops hand to hand.

They lost, and the Ottomans entered the fort and killed the women and children inside.

The HMS Lightning struck a mine in the Thames Estuary of England and sank.  The German submarine SM UC-2 struck a mine in the North Sea and sank.

French commander Henri Gouraud was wounded at Gallipoli and replaced by his divisional commander, Maurice Bailloud.

A telegram was sent to the Secretary of State from El Paso.

Collector Cobb to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram.]

El Paso, June 30, 1915.

Trial Huerta and others postponed until July 12. When Huerta left Federal building there was repetition of scene of June 27; he was given an ovation by his partisans who are assembled in El Paso.

Cobb.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 29, 1915. Airpower comes to the forests.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Aircraft, British Empire, Cameroon, German Empire, World War One

Friday, September 25, 1964. Gomer Pyle, USMC.

Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. premiered on CBS.

Somehow, Pvt. Pyle managed never to be deployed to Vietnam, and seemingly, with the exception of one single episode I can think of, remain in the Pre Vietnam War era entirely.

President Johnson and Mexican President López Mateos shook hands on the International Bridge at El Paso.  Later that day President Johnson flew to Oklahoma for the dedication of the new Eufaula Dam and spoke about the Vietnam War, stating: "There are those that say you ought to go north and drop bombs, to try to wipe out the supply lines, and they think that would escalate the war. We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys."

FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) launched the Mozambican War of Independence.

Last edition:

Blog Mirror: Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

Labels: 1960s, 1964, Blog Mirror, Cameras, technology

The Mexican Border War: The Third Battle of Ciudad Juarez. June 15-16, 1919 Part 3.

The Juarez racetrack on June 16, 1919.  The large hole in the cupola was caused by it being hit by American artillery.

And with this, the story of the United States and the Mexican Revolution, which we started following nearly daily with the 1916 Columbus Raid, and which became as story which bled into World War One, while not definitively over, is significantly over.

As we saw first on June 14, the Villistas launched their anticipated attack on Juarez very late in the night of June 14.  That attack first met with success, but by morning the Villistas had been pushed back.  American forces that had moved up in anticipation of crossing the Rio Grande accordingly went back into Ft. Bliss.

Those troops were soon back out.  Villa's renewed attack was proving successful and the troops reassembled to cross the Rio Grande.  This time they also brought up two armored gun trucks, the first time they'd been used by the U.S. Army in this locality.  Searchlights were also deployed to illuminate Juarez's streets and buildings in the night.

As the battle raged in Juarez shots inevitably began landing in El Paso, wounding and killing American civilians.  At first the Americans held their fire, but ultimately after taking a few casualties the U.S. Army intervened.  The final blow for the U.S. Army was when Pvt. Salvatore Fusco was killed by Villista sniper fire and Pvt. Burchard F. Casey was wounded.  With that, the American troops were ordered across the border to restore order.  The armored gun trucks crossed the Santa Fe Bridge followed by the 24th Infantry Regiment.  The 5th and 7th Cavalry, under Col. Tommy Tomkins, crossed the Rio Grande directly and moved to the western part of the city with the goal of creating a pincer movement in which Villa would be caught.  Near the Juarez racetrack the infantry encountered withdrawing Constitutionalist who informed them that the Villistas were dug in at the racetrack, which the 82nd Artillery then shelled.  Cavalry advanced from the east on the racetrack but encountered no Villista forces.

 Pvt. Salvatore Fusco.

At daybreak, the Cavalry returned to the river to water their horses and then moved south into Mexico in hopes of assaulting Villa's base.

They did in fact locate it, shell it and then assault it.  However, the Villistas, while at first surprised while eating breakfast, rapidly abandoned the camp, leaving their wounded as well as horses, mules and equipment.

The American infantry remained in Juarez itself while this was going on and received a protest from the Constitutionalist forces for entering the country without invitation, which was ironic under the situation as they were outnumbered and well on their way to defeat at the time that the Americans intervened.  Indeed, they speant the rest of the battle in their barracks.  The Americans soon  nonetheless withdrew, deeming their mission accomplished.   Three Americans were killed in the battle, Pvt. Fusco, Pvt. Anthony Cunningham of the 24th Infantry and Sgt. Pete Chigas of the 7th Cavalry.

Col. Tommy Tomkins in Juarez, whose brother Frank Tomkins had led American cavalry across the border following the Columbus Raid, and who lead the U.S. Cavalry contingent across the border in the Battle of Juarez. The Tomkins effectively bookended the Border War.

The battle was not only the last battle of the Border War, it was the last battle to be fought by Pancho Villa.  He did not retire thereafter, but instead actually conducted areal warfare through an air corps formed in his service. Although he remained very resentful against the US intervention in the battle, as well as of course earlier American intervention in the Mexican Revolution, he never participated in another battle against American troops and he was not really capable of doing so after the Battle of Juarez.  Villistas may have raided in Arizona as late as 1920, when some Mexican forces attacked Ruby Arizona, but the loyalty of those troops is not known.

Funeral procession for Pvt. Fusco.

While the battle didn't result in Villa's capture and it didn't fully end his activities, for all practical purposes he was done for.  So in a way, the 1919 battle achieved what the 1916 intervention had not.  Villa was effectively destroyed as a force in the field.  Once again, the U.S. Army was frustrated in a desire to capture Villa, but it didn't really matter.  Villa, while sufficiently resurgent to have mounted such a campaign, was not the force he had been earlier in the Mexican Revolution even if the Constituionalist forces in Juarez proved inadequate to contest him.  The American reaction to his presence in Juarez, justified by American troops being in harm's way, ended his career as a serious contender in the Mexican Revolution.

The Mexican Border War: The Third Battle of Ciudad Juarez. June 15-16, 1919 Part 2.

And so the day by day, so to speak (with a lot of non posts in between) entries on the Mexican Border War, which commenced with the threads on the attack of Columbus New Mexico in 1916, which I posted in 2016, start to come to an end.

And that's because this was the last battle of the Border War.

The battle commenced very late on the night of June 14 (approximately 11:35) when Villa attempted to take Juarez from the Constitutionalist army, putting the city in contest for at least the third time since 1911 and oddly reprising some of the events that had sent the US into Mexico in in 1916.

The attack was not any kind of a surprise and had been expected for days.  Indeed, the presumption that the attack was going to be launched on June 14, which ultimately it was but only very late at night, resulted in newspaper headlines regarding its delay.  Whatever the source of that delay actually was, it would have done speculators well to recall that Villa liked to attack at night.

The attack on the night of the 14th spread into the next day with the Constitutionalist forces withdrawing towards the city center.  But during the day they recovered and forced Villa back to the eastern part of the city.  In the meantime, the U.S. Army ordered up troops from the 24th Infantry, the 2nd Cavalry, the 82nd Field Artillery and the 8th Engineers to a location near a ford across the Rio Grande in case an American intervention proved necessary.  By daybreak it appeared it would not be, so the troops were ordered back to Ft. Bliss.

The battle was not yet over however.  The Villistas would launch another nighttime assault that night.

June 13, 1919. Misleading Headlines

American troops had not been sent into Mexico.

They were taking up positions near Columbus, New Mexico, however.  As well as standing ready in El Paso.  It was clear by this day that Villa was going to attempt to move north. . . maybe to Juarez, and less likely on Columbus.

And it was unlikely that he was going to try to cross the border.  But being on guard was well warranted.

Vladivostok was also a location where a lot of troops, and refugees, were in evidence on this day in 1919.  In this case, White Russian troops, and refugees fleeing the Reds as the lines changed every day.

June 10, 1919. Meanwhile, in Texas. . . .

The "World's Wonder Oilfield", Burkburnett Texas.  June 10, 1919.

Burkburnett, Texas oilfield north-west extension from opposite Golden Cycle well.  June 10, 1919.

Oil exploration was going great guns in Texas, but guns were beginning to sound again just south of the border.

No peace had yet arrived with Germany, officially, and things were getting pretty tense in Juarez as residents began to flee the border town just south of El Paso.  And Mexican revolutionaries were reported as active elsewhere.

The huge strike in Winnipeg and the impending Telegraph strike were also on the front page.  In fact, the strike in Winnipeg had not been broken and the municipality had been forced to fire nearly the entire town's police force.

And the Boy Scouts were in town.

Sheridan Enterprise for September 5, 1916. Big Labor Day celebration in Sheridan, riots in El Paso.

Roads to the Great War: A Surprising Newspaper Headline from 1 January 1914

We've looked a lot in 2016 at the Punitive Expedition of 1916. But, of course, the crisis with Mexico started before that.  Here's an interesting example of how things were developing before the events of 1916.

Roads to the Great War: A Surprising Newspaper Headline from 1 January 191...: Click on Image to Expand On New Year's Day in 1914 there was simply no awareness in the United States that an unprecedented ...

Scott and Obregon meet in El Paso.

 Hugh Scott

Gen Hugh Scott, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and General Alvaro Obregon, Minister of War of the Mexican Government, met in El Paso to discuss problems that had arisen due to the American intervention in Mexico.  The meetings continued to May 2 and resulted in an understanding between the two governments providing that the United States would slowly withdraw from Mexico and the Mexican government would undertake measures to prevent future raids into the United States.  The understanding was then submitted to the governments of the respective parties to see if they would agree to it.

Alvaro Obregon

The Punitive Expedition: Casper Daily Press, March 25, 1916.

The Punitive Expedition: The Casper Daily Press, March 23, 1916

Let's look at the entire evening paper this go around.

This is the first issue of the Casper evening paper in which a story about the troops in Mexico is not on the first page, since the raid on Columbus.

The editor was casting doubts on the distance between Villa and Carranza.

I've never even heard of Wyoming Light Lager.

Friday January 14, 1916. Collins resigns British employment.

Michael Collins resigned from his employment in London at the Guaranty Trust Company n order to return to Ireland.  He was already a clandestine Irish revolutionary.

Severe flooding caused dikes to burst at Zuiderzee, Netherlands.

The Royal Flying Corps ordered that reconnaissance planes have an escort of at least three fighters flying in close formation with them, and that a reconnaissance aircraft must abort its flight if even one of the three fighters becomes detached from the formation for any reason, due to highly losses from Fokker Eindeckers.

In the U.S., where they were not worried about Eindeckers, today it seemed that war worries had lessened.

Or maybe they did.

The Rocky Mountain News was also reporting that wolves were active in Aurora.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 13, 1916. Death of Huerta.

Pancho Villa, Santa Ysabel Massacre, Victoriano Huerta, World War One

Monday, June 28, 1915. Huerta busted, Recreation vital.

 

Last edition:  

Sunday, June 27, 1915. Deep Cold: Alaska Weather & Climate: All-Time Record High Temperature Anniversary. Huerta and Orozco prevented from entering Mexico.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Alaska, Blog Mirror, El Paso Texas, law, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pascual Orozco, Texas, Texas (El Paso), Victoriano Huerta, Weather

Sunday, June 27, 1915. Deep Cold: Alaska Weather & Climate: All-Time Record High Temperature Anniversary. Huerta and Orozco prevented from entering Mexico.

Deep Cold: Alaska Weather & Climate: All-Time Record High Temperature Anniversary: 100 year anniversaries don't come around very often. This is one of those rare exceptions. You see, 100 years ago, June 27, 1915, the...

From Deep Cold.

I wonder if that record was just broken?

Huerta

State Department agent Zach Cobb directed federal agents and soldiers to apprehend General Victoriano Huerta and Pascual Orozco just before they could leave the United States and enter Mexico to kindle a German-funded uprising in the country which already was engaged in a civil war.

Orozco.

Both were arrested en route to El Paso by train in Newman, Texas, and charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. neutrality laws on this day. Orozco was placed under house arrest in his family's home at 1315 Wyoming Avenue El Paso.

The entire event was illustrative of the extent to which the US was a haven for various forces that were on the outs in the Mexican Revolution.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 26, 1915. Burn. Destroy. Kill.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Armenian Genocide, Art, Mercenaries, Ottoman Empire, The relationship between men and women, World War One