Family History

Emilio Carranza Rodriguez was the fourth child born to Sebastián Carranza Cepeda (1882-1973) and María Dolores Rodríguez Gómez (1877-1975). He was born on December 9th, 1905 in the town of Ramos Arízpe, Coahuila, Mexico. Emilio's siblings are: Estela (1901-abt. 1980), Sebastián (1902-1994), Marietta (1904-1988), José (1906-2001), Guadalupe (1918- 2018), and half-sister Emilia.

Emilio's grandfather, Sebastián Carranza de la Garza (1848-1921) was brother of Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), who was President of Mexico from 1917 until his assassination in 1920.

Emilio's father was a businessman and government official who, at the time of Emilio's death in 1928, was an accountant at the Mexican Consulate in New York City.

Emilio's brothers Sebastián and José were also involved in aviation. Sebastian often few with Emilio and both Sebastián and José were accomplished aircraft mechanics. Sebastián was involved with civilian aviation the rest of his life, working primarily for Pan-American Airlines in Mexico.

In January 1928, just 6 months before his death, Emilio married Maria Luisa Corbala of Sinaloa, Mexico. The young widow had a child in 1929, who was named after his father Emilio. Following the death of Emilio, Maria Luisa moved to Guadalajara. She visited the Carranza family in Mexico City once when the young Emilio was about 5 years old. The Carranza family was informed that young Emilio Carranza Corbala died of appendicitis when he was about 6. It appears Maria Luisa remarried and lived the rest of her life in Guadalajara.

Childhood

Emilio's desire to become an aviator started early in life. When he was only 11 or 12 years old, he would visit the newly established School of Military Aviation of Mexico, in Balbuena. The school's first director was Major Alberto Salinas Carranza, Emilio's uncle.

Mr. Juan Guillermo Villasana, an engineer, a distinguished professor at the school of aviation, and Emilio's biographer relates that during these frequent visits, the young Emilio would ask the pilots and mechanics questions about the airplanes in the hangar. He would then climb on some of the airplanes in the assembly line to simulate his "flights".

Soon thereafter, he was sent to San Antonio, Texas to continue his studies. But his interest in aviation never waned. He would return to the School of Military Aviation of Mexico as a cadet in 1923.

School of Aviation

Colonel Gustavo Baz and Francisco A. Cuenca were the director and deputy director, respectively, of the School of Aviation when Emilio enrolled. Among his classmates were many who would later become prominent in the history of Mexican aviation: Luis Boyer, Antonio Cárdenas Rodríguez, Alfonso Corona del Rosal, Antonio Nava Castillo, Melchor Sánchez Cárdenas, Enrique Kanter, David Chagoya, Arturo Jiménez Nieto, Rodolfo Torres Rico, Rafael J. Suárez, José Betancourt, Othon Hernandez Amaral, Juan Carmona, Bernardo H. Hermosillo, Ignacio Valle, Eduardo F. Serrano, Gonzalo Acosta, Antonio Lojero, Raúl Mateos Aguilera, Oscar Aarana Sanz, Martín R. Taguma, Fructuoso Perez, Feliciano Flores, and many others.

While at the school of aviation, Emilio stood out for his amazing memory. One of the bimonthly exams in Aerodynamics asked for six of the one hundred and twenty values from a table of barometric pressure, relative pressure, and relative temperature at different altitudes. In his answer sheet, Emilio wrote down all one hundred and twenty values without a single mistake. This raised suspicion on behalf of the faculty that Emilio had cheated on his exam. The faculty members located Emilio playing basketball and informed him of their suspicion. Emilio promptly invited the faculty members to a nearby empty classroom where he replicated the entire table on the blackboard from memory and without errors. He was immediately awarded a Outstanding grade on the exam.

Emilio advanced quickly through the theoretical portion of his training and demonstrated enormous practical flying skills even at the early age of 19. He completed his studies and earned the title of "Pilot of Aviation" on January 14th,1926 after completing his flight test on a Mexican built Avro biplane.

Military Service

In 1927, during the "Yaqui Campaign" in the northwestern state of Sonora, Emilio Carranza was assigned to an aviation squadron under the command of Major P. A. Gustavo G. León. He later participated in the "Jalisco" campaign.