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A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

20. The Drunk Bombing of America

A car destroyed by Patrick Murphy’s drunk bombing of Naco, Arizona. Wikimedia

After the inauspicious bombings in early April, 1929, mercenary pilot Patrick Murphy flew further raids against Mexican government forces. He frequently missed the Mexican trenches, and bombed Naco, Arizona. His bombs on the American side of the border blew up a general store, destroyed a car parked in a garage, shattered numerous windows, damaged a US Post Office, and inflicted some injuries, none of them life-threatening.

Murphy’s drunk bombing reign of terror finally ended on April 6^th, 1929, when a lucky shot from a federales rifle struck his plane’s engine. Trailing white smoke, Murphy crash-landed, then sprinted to the rebel lines, and from there crossed into America. He was arrested by US soldiers and taken to a Nogales jail, but was never charged. US Army detachments, plus a fighter squadron, were sent to Naco, but by the time they got there the rebels had already been defeated, and the fighting was over.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.