The Philippine Islands, 11 main ones and some 7,000 minor, lay at a strategic point between Japan and the resources it was chasing in the Dutch East Indies, what today are the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. Several hours after crippling the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces moved across the Philippines, where they would remain until Americans would re-take the islands three years later.

On this day, January 9th, in 1936, following a hard-fought capture of the neighboring island of Leyte, American soldiers accompanied General Douglas MacArthur onto the beach at Luzon island, site of the capital city of Manila. Seemingly on their way to securing in an easy victory, MacArthur posed for the cameras, while the bulk of the Japanese forces lay heavily entrenched at the interior of the island, waiting for the Americans to come.

The U.S. was aided in the fight for Luzon from an unusual source – the Mexican Air Force. A squadron of P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers piloted by Mexicans, known as El Escuadrón 201 in Spanish and nicknamed “Aztec Eagles” by grateful American soldiers, they flew dozens of sorties in support of American troops all the way until the final battles for Manila.