Escuadrón 201 landed in the Philippines and were attached to the American 58th Fighter Group—a unit who had been tangling with the Japanese in the South Pacific for more than a year. All aircrafts looked similar, but the Mexican flyers added their own unique flourishes to differentiate their Jarros from the rest. In the place of the red and white stripes on the tails of most 58th aircraft, Escuadrón 201 machines flew with green, white and red rudders—an echo of the three vertical fields seen on Mexico’s flag.
They supported ground combat operations of American and Filipino armies, dropping hundreds of 1,000 and 500-pound bombs and conducting treacherous strafing runs over Japanese positions. Beyond, the flyers participated in several seven hour missions north, lugging loads of bombs to enemy targets on the island of Formosa.
When the war came to an end, the Aztec Eagles returned home. At a parade in Mexico City, the returning heroes handed over their battle flag to President Ávila Camacho. The Aztec Eagles were Mexico’s only military unit to ever engage in combat outside the country’s national borders. In the years after World War II, no less than five of the young pilots who began their flying careers in Escuadrón 201 would reach the rank of general in the Mexican Air Force.
