Book Explores WWII History of Arizona's Hispanic 'Flyboys'

Phoenix, Arizona (By Angela Cara Pancrazio, Arizona Repyblic) May 24, 2004 - As Rudolph C. Villarreal flipped through pages of old newspapers dating back to the 1940s, one Hispanic name after another struck the Tempe man's curiosity.

Avila, Barraza, Campos, Carrillo, Gallegos, Larini, Mabante and Orrantia.

Hundreds of young men, contemporaries of Villarreal's father, served as pilots, bombardiers, navigators, gunners, flight engineers and radio operators with the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Many were the American-born sons of Mexican immigrant farm workers and miners from small-town Arizona. Many lost their lives in their country's service.

And, if, Villarreal hadn't taken his discovery in the library that day 15 years ago with a sense of purpose, the sacrifice of Arizona's Hispanic 'flyboys' might have been overlooked.

Instead, he has written a self-published book: Arizona's Hispanic Flyboys, 1941-1945. This Memorial Day weekend, Villarreal will read from and sign his book as part of Veteran's Tribute: Writers of WWII, Sunday at Borders in Glendale and Monday at Borders in Biltmore Fashion Park.

"World War II remains one of the most significant historical events of the 20th century," said Villarreal. "Not much, however, has been written about Hispanics who served in uniform from 1941 through 1945. This is especially true of those who served in the so-called 'glamorous' air corps of the U.S. Army and Navy."

Villarreal for years tracked down these men and their families, sending out questionnaires, copying photographs, and studying World War II, driven by his childhood memories of San Diego during World War II.

"I can recall the camouflaged exterior walls at the Consolidated Aircraft factory where warplanes were being built, tokens and stamps used to purchase rationed food items and gasoline, . . . and swarms of men and women everywhere in uniform," he writes in his book. "Perhaps it was all the activity witnessed on the home front of this busy port city that sparked my lifelong interest in learning what happened overseas."

Villarreal said he faced a daunting task as he gathered war records, photographs, letters and telegrams from veterans and their families. He filled scrapbooks with this raw material, nuggets that honor the memory of young Hispanic men from Arizona who fought in the war.

Twenty-one-year-old Sgt. Manuel H. Larini penned this letter to his mother, Lupe, dated June 4, 1944:

"Querida Madrecita ( My dear mother), "Estas cuantas lineas para saludarle regandole a Dios que ustedes se encuentren bien. (Just a quick note to say hello and pray to God that you are fine.) "Yo estoy bien gracias a Dios. (I am fine, thank God.) "Este es su hijo que nunca los olivida. (This is your son who will never forget you.)"

Two days after he wrote this letter, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the flight engineer/gunner was killed when his B-26 was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire as it approached Utah Beach, minutes before U.S. troops stormed ashore.

Other Hispanic "flyboys" were luckier, and returned home.

Servando Carrillo, 81, grew up in the mining town of Superior, where planes soared above the big mountain named Apache Leap. The day he graduated from Superior High School, he enlisted.

"By 1942, if you were 18 years old, you knew you were going in the service," Carrillo says. "It was just a matter of time."

When Villarreal contacted him, Carrillo hesitated because he did not want to be singled out, without his crew.

On a recent afternoon in his Tempe living room, he surrendered his war experience, slowly, not dependent on recollections more than a half-century old but from a recent nightmare. "You relive it all the time," Carrillo says, "you wake up in a cold sweat sometimes.

"You aren't thinking about it, there it is," he said. "You don't know what triggers it."

Only Carrillo and one other crew member remains.

"Eight of us have died since then. We started out together, we ended up together, we were always as one," said Carrillo, a radio operator/gunner who, with his crew, survived D-Day. "You're always afraid. The thing you are afraid of is letting your crew down.

"Nothing was ever demonstrative, you knew it was within each person in the crew," Carrillo says. "It's just like you love someone - like your mother - you know you do, come hell or high water you know you do - it's the same way you feel about your crew members."

Nearly 500,000 Hispanics fought in World War II. In 1941, Gilbert Duran Orrantia, son of a smelter worker in Clarkdale, knew he was close to being called up. So Orrantia enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

"Mom was devastated," Orrantia said.

Epigmenia Orrantia had already lost two sons: one died at age 5; another was crushed to death in a smelter. "She was constantly praying."

She had every reason to: Her son was caught between cultures.

In training, he eyed the pilot's seat, but recalled how his instructor had cast doubts by asking Orrantia if he was Mexican and warning he wasn't intelligent enough. Orrantia remembers how he told the instructor he was American-born and he would take the chances with the best of them.

"Mexican-Americans weren't looked at as a very smart people," he said. "They thought we were a bunch of dummies."

But there's a leather briefcase he has kept. He clutches his pilot's briefcase, cracked and worn by 50 combat missions, as if it were some sort of shield, his proof, that, along with his mother's blessings, it kept him alive as he flew with the best of them.