* Mexico In World War 2

Mexico’s neutrality ended when the United States declared war on Imperial Japan on Dec. 8, 1941, when she not only signed economic agreements with the US and aligned herself defensively with her, but simultaneously ended relations with the Axis Pact Powers.

It was not until a Mexican tanker was sunk in May 1942, however, that she declared war herself, and the next month signed the United Nations Declaration. Her most significant contribution to the overall war effort was to increase her exports of raw materials, meat, food, timber, and leather to her longtime enemy, the US.

There also began, however, the current immigration of the western US of Mexican workers to supply labor for both Gringo farms and railways under the bracero program to help ease America’s own manpower shortages, a situation that exists until this very day.

In addition, fully 250,000 Mexican residents of the US joined its armed forces, and of these 14,000 were in actual combat.

Mexico even sent its own Expeditionary Force to help liberate the Spanish speaking Philippine Islands, and a Mexican Air Squadron also saw active service during the final months against the Japanese in the Pacific War.

Thus, having gone to war against the US during 1846-48, having been invaded by Gen. John J. Pershing’s Expeditionary Force in 1916, and almost being embroiled in war at the side of Imperial Germany in the First World War, Mexico stood at the side of FDR’s America during World War II as an ally.