July 17, 2018 Naco-Naco

The Liberty Gazette

July 17, 2018

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Let’s take a trip down to the border, and back in time.

When Mexico’s civil war ended in 1920, several revolutions followed. One of the guys most celebrated for putting down some of those revolutions was Jose Gonzalo Escobar. Trouble was, he was planning his own. But don’t think the Mexican government didn’t suspect it. They never did trust that scoundrel. No matter that he’d had a significant role in defeating Pancho Villa. They knew he wanted to oust President Emilio Portes Gil. So the Mexican government asked the U.S. government to seal off the border from trade to rebels and bought materials and supplies to beef up their side, ready for Escobar’s attacks.

Among the supplies were combat aircraft and U.S. veteran pilots to fly them. The federales attacked by air first, bombing a couple of rebel locations. This prompted Escobar to holler across the border for help from like-minded souls. Actually, they didn’t have to be so like-minded as much as just want to do the job. There were, in those days, a few “revolution-hoppers,” men who made it their profession to join revolutions…at $1,000 a week.

Escobar’s army wasn’t as well equipped as the government’s, but he scraped along as best and for as long as he could. However, when one rebels with a lesser budget, one likely has troops of lesser commitment. Such was the case for Escobar.

An Irishman named Patrick Murphy offered his services. He had been working in the U.S. as a crop duster, which made his flying skills for this sort of job pretty sharp. So they thought.

His good buddy Jon Gorre also got a job. Only his employer happened to be on the other side – the Mexican government. The story goes that the two would meet at a bar each night, compare their statistics on bomb dropping for the day, and then agree to who got to go next. Because they were friends, they politely took turns. They even bought their bombs from the same guy. Turns out, Murphy could handle the flying part okay, but maybe not navigation.

Linda: In Sonora, Mexico is a town named Naco. Across the border in Arizona is an unincorporated village also named Naco. There’s less than a mile between them. Even in the lumbering Stearman, which was used by both sides, the two Nacos are only about 24 seconds’ flight time apart.

On April 2, 1929, Murphy either miscalculated his route or misjudged the wind, if there was any. He hit a mercantile, a pharmacy, and the post office in Naco, Arizona. His bombs left craters in the streets and one blew up a Dodge touring car owned by a Mexican army officer who had left it there for safekeeping.

Since he’d been hired by the Mexican rebels, this made his attacks the first aerial bombardment of the contiguous United States by a foreign power.

He certainly had no “luck o’ the Irish,” but perhaps it was Murphy’s Law.

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