Behind the Scenes: Mexico in World War II.
Yes, Mexico sent a squadron to the Pacific. But there's more to their WWII story than that.
Today is, once again, release day. My latest long-form deep dive video on my YouTube channel, titled simply “Mexico in World War II,” went up early this afternoon. The subject is exactly what it says in the title, no more, no less. This has been a project I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and it’s always satisfying when a long-held idea eventually becomes a reality. There are two versions of the video, one on the public-facing channel, and an extended/expanded version on the members section of my channel. I’ve embedded the “free version” below, but for a better experience, click “watch on YouTube.” The members section version is ad-free and also contains some images that I had to redact from the free version due to YouTube’s “ad-friendly” guidelines.
Mexico was a member of the Allies during the Second World War. The country declared war on Germany on May 28, 1942, following the sinking by Nazi U-boats of two of its ships, the SS Portrero del Llano and the SS Faja de Oro, both in the Caribbean. Unless you’re an obsessive completist regarding the subject of World War II, the chances are very good that you know almost nothing about Mexico’s history during the war, and if you do know something about it, chances are even higher that the one thing you know is that Mexico supplied an air squadron, known as the 201st Fighter Squadron or the Aztec Eagles, who went into action in June 1945 in the Philippines. This is the kind of factual morsel that lends itself well to YouTube shorts and trivia lists. It is not the main subject of my video, because the contribution of the Aztec Eagles was a tiny, and indeed not very consequential, aspect of Mexico’s World War II experience. The purpose of the video is to flesh out that history and try to move past the trivia/listicle kind of treatment of this subject.
