After some initial success in taking over several key cities in the northern half of the country, the Escobar rebels were decisively defeated in a major battle at Jiménez, Chihuahua, and were eventually swept aside by the advancing government forces under the command of General Calles.

Consequently, Portes Gil launched a "two-phase plan" to have the United States government seal the border to any potential rebel needs and also resupply the Mexican Army with war materiel, including modern combat aircraft.

Escobar maintained his guise as a loyal subject for as long as he could, having sent a letter to Portes Gil offering his services just hours before leading an attack on the city of Monterrey, in Nuevo Leon.

This had a significant impact on the outcome of the rebellion, according to columnist Drew Pearson, who said that many of the garrisons that defected to join Escorbar's revolt soon deserted back to the federal government after learning of Hoover's decision.

By March 5, rebel forces were in command of Villa Acuña, Piedras Negras and Ojinaga, and moving to take control of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's largest city on the international border and its greatest port of entry, opposite of El Paso, Texas.

General Ramos informed Moseley that he was willing to surrender the city, but only if the rebels guaranteed him and his men proper treatment as prisoners of war, or be allowed to cross into the United States for internment.

The air war began on the morning of March 16, 1929, when two federal airplanes dropped bombs on rebel troop trains at the railyard in Torreon and then on the military base just outside town.

After the attack, General Escobar realized that he was at a major disadvantage without an air force of his own, so he immediately took steps to acquire aircraft from the United States and American mercenaries to pilot them.

The federal government also looked to the United States for supplying aircraft and even hired an American combat veteran named Major Rayma L. Andrews to take command of their new squadron.

Overall command of the Yankee Doodle Escadrille was given to General Gustavo Salinas, a cultured man who was educated and learned to fly in the United States and who was a veteran of some of the other the Mexican revolutions of the 1920s.

During the siege of Naco, beginning on March 31, a rebel plane allegedly flown by the Irish pilot Patrick Murphy scored two direct hits on federal trenches, killing at least two soldiers, according to a newspaper.

Murphy also managed to drop several bombs on the American side of the border, causing a significant amount of damage and a few injuries, as well as making history by committing the first ever aerial bombardment of United States territory.

When the rebels saw the enemy plane, they ran to take cover underneath the overhanging banks of a dry river, creating the perfect target of men and animals for Andrews.

There were no casualties reported, but the sound of the explosions and the return fire from rebel ground forces was enough to cause thousands of Mexicans to flee to the American side of the border for protection.

Fear of additional airstrikes and the realization that the war was lost prompted many of the rebel officers to consider surrendering to the federals or fleeing into the United States, to avoid punishment by the Mexican government.

At noon that day, the commander of American forces at Fort Huachuca, General Frank S. Cocheu, met with a group of rebel officers at the border in Nogales to negotiate the terms of surrender.

On March 3, 1930, a grand jury in Tucson, Arizona, filed a seven-count suit against Escobar, several of his generals, and members of the Yankee Doodle Escadrille, for "unlawfully exporting arms and munitions of war from the United States to Mexico", but the case was later dismissed on May 25, 1932.

Escobar remained in exile in Canada for the next several years until 1942, shortly after the American entrance into World War II, when he returned to Mexico to offer his services to President Lázaro Cárdenas.