10 Legendary Manhunts

Pancho Villa was a Mexican revolutionary and bandit (the banditry helped pay for the revolutionary activities).

In 1916 he and 500 men crossed the border into New Mexico in a raid on the small town of Columbus. It was the first foreign attack on US since the war of 1812.

In response, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the army to capture Villa in an operation called 'The Punitive Expedition'. The expedition consisted of 4,800 men and 8 airplanes.

The hunt for Pancho Villa isn't famous for Pancho's great elusive techniques (he was an amazing guerilla general though), so much as the incompetence of the army chasing him.

After raiding a town that Villa had not even visited, they headed for Guererro. Marching through the night without a map, a guide or any local knowledge, they ended up travelling twice the distance they needed to – and they still couldn't find Villa, who had been transported out of Guererro some hours before they arrived.

If they had taken the direct route they would have found him.

Brigadier General John J. Pershing, frustrated by the lack of cooperation from locals, said: 'I feel just a little bit like a man looking for a needle in a haystack with an armed guard standing over the stack forbidding him to look in the hay.'