Bob L. answered • 04/21/19
Masters Degree in History with 40+ Years Teaching Experience
The Great Depression had devastating effects on New Mexico farmers and ranchers. Going back to the Great War and the 1920's, farmers and ranchers actually suffered from overproduction and having borrowed money from banks to purchase new technology and expensive machinery to meet the European demand for agricultural products. Once the Great War ended, European farmers regained the use of their farmland to grow crops and raise farm animals. This left American farmers with surplus farm products, high credit loans to pay, and dropping prices.
A double whammy occurred when the droughts and Dust Bowl of the Great Depression hit the area. Now, farmers and ranchers were trying to ply their trade on increasingly useless land. Even if they could sell agricultural products, the land did not afford them the wherewithal to do so.
Many New Mexico farm laborers were no longer employable in that sector of a declining economy and looked to the national guard as a way of occupying time while being paid for their efforts.
New Mexico National Guardsmen were actually fighting in the Pacific even before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. 1941. They were part of the National Guard 111th Cavalry and later became part of the 200th Coast Artillery, Anti-Aircraft Regiment in 1940. In September 1941, they were sent to the Philippines, a U.S. possession at the time and were assigned to of defend Clark Field and Fort Stotsenberg seventy-five miles north of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Many New Mexican guardsmen were at Clark Field when the Japanese attacked merely ten hours after the Pearl Harbor attack.
