Excerpts from Paraguay Goes to War, a history of Paraguay's involvement in the Second World War:
Prior to the St. Patrick's Day Raids, Paraguayan President Rafael Franco's government had been precarious - it had been just four years since the March Revolution unseated Higinio Morigño; rumors of a pro-German coup at times seemed to be the only thing keeping Franco's National Revolutionary Coalition together. Federico Chaves, leader of the conservative Democratic Party, was constantly on the verge of bolting over Franco's socialist policies, and the Liberals at times threatened to join him. The St. Patrick's Day Raids shocked Paraguay. That Nazi bombers had managed to strike the Americas - never mind how relatively little damage was struck, never mind how many losses the Nazis took - meant that Paraguay, too, was a possible target. Paraguay formally declared war on Germany on March 18, 1953 (though ties had been severed back in 1942); the country initially rallied behind the coalition.
The Raids had sparked fear of new raids against Paraguay herself; in response, the Chamber of Representatives quickly passed an emergency defense act, authorizing the spending of unprecedented sums on modernization of the Paraguayan Air Force. This modernization was long overdue - the Air Force still mostly fielded aging prop-powered aircraft. The top-line fighters of the FAP were a squadron of ex-Chinese Kittyhawks; had the Ju-688s that struck New York attacked Asunción, they would've easily outfought the Paraguayans and leveled the capital.
The US Ambassador to Paraguay at the time was George Messersmith, a career Foreign Service officer who had previously worked in Berlin, Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Messersmith had been asked to help organize a Latin American Expeditionary Corps for service overseas. It had been recognized that the Allies would need to make use of all available manpower to raise enough troops to fight Germany: Latin America would contribute not only her economic resources, but also her men, trained and equipped in the US, to the liberation of the Old World. Thus, on March 30, 1953, Messersmith asked President Franco to commit Paraguayan troops for a Pan-American expeditionary force for service in Europe.
Franco refused. A generation ago, the Chaco War had tore apart Paraguay - despite the Paraguayan victory, the human and financial cost of the war had unleashed social turmoil and brought down the Ayala government. For now, the country was rallying behind the cause of National Defense; sending a new generation of men off to die abroad would likely end the temporary measure of political peace For that matter, the majority of Paraguayans spoke Guaraní, not Spanish or Portuguese. Integrating Guaraní-speaking Paraguayan troops into a Spanish-speaking expeditionary corps would have been much more difficult than integrating Portuguese-speaking Brazilians ultimately proved.
Franco then presented a counteroffer - a wing of interceptors, raised in Paraguay, trained in the US, and deployed to Britain, helping defend Paraguay by defeating the Luftwaffe over European skies. The aircraft would have to be mostly financed by the Americans, naturally, but the best pilots of the FAP would be sent, and Paraguay would pay for their training. Furthermore, a fighter group could go to war much quicker, helping keep morale up by showing that Paraguay was contributing to the war effort. Finally, this would allow Paraguay to show that it was modernizing and had moved on from the stultifying fascism of the Morigño regime. Messersmith was convinced, and soon convinced President Kennedy in turn.
On August 1, 1954, the 90th Fighter Group (Paraguayan) began assembling for training in Brownsville, Texas. The 84 pilots and 500 other personnel of the Fighter Group would spend the next nine months training on the F-88G Voodoo. Training was conducted in English so that the Fighter Group could coordinate with USAF and RAF personnel, so the men had to learn English as well. At the same time, they began to integrate themselves into local communities, with varying degrees of success. When the Paraguayans first arrived in Brownsville, they did so to empty streets; when they left, splitting up by specialty, half the town showed up at the train station - including three newlyweds.
The 90th Fighter Group shipped off for Britain on May 1, 1955. Initially, it was tasked with supporting Fighter Command's efforts to defend London - a relatively quiet duty, since Germany's primary response to the Allied air raids on Germany came in the form of A-9 ballistic missiles. Still, the Germans occasionally tried small-scale pinprick raids, going in low (to hide in ground clutter), fast (in an attempt to escape interception), and few (to minimize losses). 90th Fighter Group got its first kill in one such raid, with the 12 Voodoos of 190th 'Orion' Squadron seeing off a four-plane raid of BV P.202 fighter-bombers. Attrition slowly took its toll on the Paraguayans, but a stream of replacement recruits began their training in August.
On December 3, 1955, the 90th Fighter Group was retasked with bomber escort missions, a task they would continue to conduct for the rest of the war. Initially, they were assigned to escort raids over France and the Low Countries; by March 1956, they were escorting Stratoforts over the Rhineland, part of 8th Air Force's attack on Inner Germany. The group was re-equipped with F-101C Voodoos in the summer of 1956, one squadron at a time. Seven F-101s were completely funded by donations from Paraguayans - and four more by Texans living near the bases the Paraguayans trained at. One of these F-101s, 'Brownsville,' is preserved today at the Museo de Aviación in Asunción, Paraguay.
