Billy Mitchell's Legacy

When someone hears the words ‘Air Force’ they might think of one of the most strikingly impressive and capable military branches known today. However, most people do not know the struggle and competition to change the minds of stubborn Generals and die hard soldiers. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell was the man who first envisioned air power. He fought his whole life for an Air Force. Once he ran out of options he sacrificed his career to continue advocating for air power’s potential, Mitchell continued this effort until death. He managed to convince his superiors of his idea of aircraft right before America would have been destroyed by Germany and Japan in World War II. General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell’s leadership in advocating air power led to his legacy that lives on and is clearly seen in today’s modern United States Air Force.

William Mitchell was born on December 29, 1879 in Nice, France. His parents were John and Harriet Mitchell, he was the oldest

of ten children. William enlisted in the Army at age eighteen with hopes of being a soldier in the Spanish-American War in 1897 1. Instead he was commissioned to serve in the Army Signal Corps in Cuba, Alaska, the Philippines, and Europe. Mitchell found himself with very poor equipment; an old rifle that simply took too long to load.
“This is how we fight wars,” Mitchell was told by his superiors, “It has always been this way, it always will be.” 2
For years the United States sent in troops with outdated technology and old tactics. The results __________________________
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2 William Ransom Jones (interview).
were devastating; something had to change and fast. Mitchell was the first to break out of this circle of indoctrination, the first to see just what lay beyond the horizon, the first to open their eyes. This inability to envision the impact of new technologies was not limited to the United States Army, it existed throughout the world. An example of this repeating through history was when the French and British rejected the new idea of the machine gun in the early 1900’s. They were later decimated by the Germans who took in the machine gun and forever changed Army battlefield tactics.
“Conflicts no doubt will be carried out in the future in the air.” 3 - William ‘Billy’ Mitchell 1906.
In 1912, he was assigned to Army General Staff in Washington and at age thirty-two was given
the title of Captain.

Mitchell was the youngest officer ever to be assigned to this important of a post. He immediately started to show others the benefits of airplanes being our new first line of defense. Mitchell began to recognize the desperate need for air power and the potential that came with it. Mitchell excelled in this new job and was soon promoted to Major and then to Lieutenant Colonel in 1917. Believing so strongly in the future of the airplane he started to pay for flying lessons and received a ranking as junior military aviator.

After twelve years of proving himself, on Sunday April 14, 1918 Mitchell declared that the first American squadron had finally entered the war. Airplanes were used in World War I allowing Mitchell to prove his point further. He was promoted to Brigadier General soon _______________________

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sentence.
thereafter. He continued to advocate for air power’s great potential. However when he was appointed to Assistant Chief of the U.S Army Air Service his continued advocacy of air power became an annoyance and another abrasive irritant to his superiors. Despite the initial success of the airplane, the Generals still refused to change their war tactics. Mitchell realized he could not just simply speak his idea, he would have to go bigger than that. He would have to show the indoctrinated people the future. In a strong effort to change the mind of his commander, Mitchell asked if he could led an experiment called Project B. In this attempt Mitchell’s airplanes would drop bombs onto captured ships below. Mitchell hoped that the captain would see his vision and welcome the new idea of air airpower. After almost three years of convincing and the press supporting Mitchell’s theories, he was granted permission to conduct his demonstration . The Navy was scared of what might happen. They wanted to avoid the demonstration altogether and stay with the old ways. But Mitchell had seen a new beginning, now he just had to get everyone else to see it.
“The Navy’s ironclad, die-hards fought the idea of actual tests and prefered their word be taken that aircraft could not sink the super-safe, first-class, battleships of any nation” 4- News reporter 1921.
In June and July of 1921, Mitchell set up his targets and prepared the planes. If he could show the people that he could indeed sink a ship, it would be a huge turning point and might spark a flame. Once final preparations were made, all the planes readied and fitted with their bomb ________________________________
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payload, Mitchell was finally ready to prove his vision or fail in humiliation. On June 24, 1921 a string of bombs were released over Chesapeake Bay, and against what the Navy had said, five ships went to the bottom of the ocean. The German battleship Ostfriesland, the American battleships, Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia as well as a cruise ship. It took an average of twenty-one minutes to sink each one. This was a huge success because the German battleship was considered “unsinkable” by almost everyone. Mitchell had just proved his theory, when the Navy saw a flaw and exaggerated it to the public. Claiming that it took too long to sink a ship that was not under war conditions. However, sinking an unsinkable ship awakened new hope for aircraft.
“Planes would be useful for reconnaissance, preventing enemy reconnaissance, and offensive action against enemy submarines and ships.” 5-William Billy Mitchell 1921.

Despite this proven success the Army and Navy still failed to embrace air power’s potential. Mitchell soon started to advocate his ideas to all that would listen. He was sent to Hawaii around 1922 to draw off some of his attention caused by Project B. However, he returned two years later with a three hundred twenty-three page report predicting the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor. He stressed in this paper to ‘take care in not underestimating the Japanese Air Power.’ 6 At this point he knew what was in store for the Navy. He knew they needed to _________________________
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assemble an Air Force at that moment, but he could not get the people in charge to see over the horizon. Billy was at a loss of words, how could the War Department be so oblivious to the future, how could they not understand? How could they just ignore this matter? How could after eighteen years of advocating, showing, presenting, and fighting, they just didn’t get it? Mitchell was so shocked at the General’s reaction and used some strong words to describe the feeling.
“Not only do we do nothing to face all of these things but, we leave our future in the air to incompetence.” 7-William Billy Mitchell 1924.
Offended at being called ‘incompetent’ and tired of Mitchell’s outbursts and insubordination Mitchells superiors decided to take care of the problem. “The average man suffers very severely from the pain of a new idea.” 8- William S. Sims U.S commander of Naval forces.

Mitchell’s boss ignored his prediction of the attack on Pearl Harbor and continued to ignore his advocacy. As more and more airplanes crashed because they were not in the right condition to fly, the pilots were not trained properly, and the military refused to pay for an Air Force, Mitchell grew angry. He wrote a strong document stating his opinion of all the crashes and the refusal to fund an air force, along with how he felt about the people running it and offended his superiors again by stating:9
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9 William broke an article of war and under the ninety-sixth was subject to tried by court martial.
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The result of incompetence, criminal negligence, and almost treasonable negligence of our national defense by the War and Navy departments.” 10 -William Billy Mitchell 1925.

Mitchell was court martialed and found guilty for insubordination under the ninety-sixth article of war on October 28, 1925. 11 He had stepped on the egos of his superiors, blaming them for the deaths of so many aviators. Calling your superior anything disrespectful is highly intolerable and is punishable by court martial. Billy Mitchell was sentenced to suspension from rank, command and duty, and half pay for five years. Instead, he resigned from the military February 1, 1926. Mitchell risked everything, and lost everything but hope. His job, his pay, and his title were taken and, many people who once saw his vision stopped believing.
“William is a zealot, a fanatic, a one idea man.” 12 - Kansas City Star Newspaper 1925.

Mitchell took a four month coast to coast voyage advocating the potential for air power. He wrote sixty articles, several newspaper articles, and five books never deviating from his appeal for public understanding and the promise of an Air Force.13 He made his last public appearance February 11, 1935 to the House of Military Affairs Community. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell died at the age fifty-six in a New York Hospital February 19, 1936.
“Distance will soon be measured in times, not miles.” 14 -William ‘Billy’ Mitchell. This quote _______________________________________________
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basically wraps up everything Mitchell fought for. It says on a deeper level, “ Soon we will have
to break away from our old habits. A time will come when we have to face the future. A time will come when it doesn’t matter how far we go, it matters how fast we get there.” Mitchell sacrificed his career for his beliefs, he worked for what he knew was right until his death. That was his leadership, steering America in the right direction, to improve our war
tactics and strategies. His experiment in 1921 at Chesapeake Bay lit the pathway for finding new technologies. Without these efforts, America would likely have lost World War II and be stripped of our freedoms. It really wasn’t until World War II that people started to see the advantages of aircraft.
“While I do not go as far as to claim that airpower alone will win the war, I do claim that the war can not be won without it.”15- Robert A. Lovett. Sure enough in 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and people understood they could not afford to ignore Mitchell’s ideas. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell led America out of the dark and
into a new age of airpower.

In 1946 General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell was inducted into the military hall of fame as ‘The Father of the Air Force.’ Mitchell saw the potential of airpower, unfortunately everyone else saw this vision twenty-five years. Mitchell made a huge impact on America, his vision changed the way we fought wars forever. Only because of his continued advocacy of the ___________________
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development of the airplane, and his solid leadership to see his vision through do
we have the worlds dominate Air Force of today. Consider if ‘Billy’ Mitchell had failed to
convince the Army of the importance of air power? What if we did not have the air superiority we had in World War II? We would not have been able to go deep into enemy territory and destroy their manufacturing plants. We would have never been able to catch up building the airplane in time to defeat Germany and Japan in World War II. Germany would have conquered most of the world and we would not have the freedom we have today. Without Mitchells efforts, nothing would be the same. General William Billy Mitchell’s leadership in advocating air power led to his legacy that lives on and is clearly seen in today’s modern United States Air Force.