at the Old Post Quadrangle at Fort Sill. Here, the 1st Aero Squadron, under Captain Benjamin D. Foulois, uncrated their new, unassembled airplanes and put them together in 1915. They then pushed their Curtiss JN-2 planes down hill to the Polo field. On 10 August, they made their first flights. The first airplane accident came just two days later, on 12 August 1915. Lt. Rondondo B. Sutton, the pilot, was hospitalized. His passenger, Captain George H. Knox, the paymaster of Fort Sill, was killed. According to the Lawton Constitution newspaper article, there was a large crowd of civilians at the field to see the aircraft in flight – and were, consequently, there to see the results of the accident. According to the newspaper article the large crowd of men, women and children were horrified. Soon after, on September 5th, another plane was lost in a second crash, after which Cpt. Foulois grounded the remaining planes out of concern for safety. The squadron began trials with the field artillery to see if they could perform reconnaissance of field position. The results were disappointing, mostly due to inadequate equipment. New equipment was ordered and by October 14th, operations with the field artillery were resumed. On October 22nd, Lt. T.D. Milling made the first two flights to test aerial photography using a Brock camera. On November 6th, the squadron successfully made a photo mosaic of 42 plates. The squadron left Fort Sill on November 19th, on a cross-country trip from which they would not return. They flew six planes to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, a total of 439 miles (706.5 km) in a cross-country distance flight. The aviators were supported by a trail of heavy trucks and their mechanics on motorcycles. The flight arrived on November 26th, without any major incidents delaying them. The squadron was kept in Texas because of tension along the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa felt betrayed that the U.S. government recognized Venustiano Carranza's Mexican government. Villa began to attack Americans in northern Mexico. On March 9th, 1916, Villa's troops attacked Columbus, N.M. and a detachment of the 13th Cavalry. The town was burned and the Americans suffered eighteen soldiers and civilians killed and eight wounded. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing to lead 4,800 men into Mexico to capture Villa. Villa was never killed but did receive a wound from being shot by one of