Overview of the life and theories of Billy Mitchell, aviator and strategist. He promoted the use of aircraft in crippling enemy resource centers and showed effectiveness with sinking of captured German battleships in the 1920s.
Who was William "Billy" Mitchell? Billy Mitchell was an aviator in World War I and a fierce proponent of the use of aircraft in war. Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France, December 28, 1879 of American parents who they were touring Europe. Billy Mitchell was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended Racine College and Columbian University. He left Columbian University in 1898 to enlist to serve in the Spanish-American War.
Billy Mitchell was stationed in Cuba and the Philippines at this time. He was attached to the Signal Corps in 1901. He was assigned to the general army staff in 1912. In 1915, Mitchell was sent to the aviation section of the Signal Corps. He was considered too old to become a pilot, so he went and took private flying lessons on his own and learned to fly. In 1917, Mitchell was in Europe acting as an observer when the United States became involved in World War I.
He became air commander of the American Expeditionary Force of I Corps and had the distinction of being the first American pilot to fly over enemy lines. In 1918, Mitchell led a bombing attack on St. Mihiel with over 1400 aircraft. Billy Mitchell returned from World War I a staunch supporter of the use of aircraft in warfare and spent over twenty years promoting and defending his ideas.
Billy Mitchell appears to have had two main ideologies in regard to the use of aircraft in warfare. One was the absolute need of using attack strategies that utilized a concerted grouping of infantry, artillery, aircraft and navy assets. The other ideology was the absolute need to establish air superiority and to use both short and long-range bombing strategies against vital enemy resource centers.
Billy Mitchell was critical of the U.S. military's lack of attention to the building up and support of a separate air corps. Mitchell even said that airplanes and their use in war made naval vessels obsolete. He attempted to prove this point in 1921 and 1923. Using captured German ships and old U.S. ships, Mitchell and a group of pilots successfully bombed and sank the Ostfriesland, a German battleship, in 1921. They started bombing with 600 pound bombs and caused significant damage to the Ostfriesland the first day. The demonstration was postponed because of weather. The next day Mitchell and his pilots dropped 1,100 pound bombs in the morning and then used 2,000 pound bombs in the afternoon to finally sink the battleship Ostfriesland. Mitchell and his pilots also successfully bombed and sank the U.S.S. Alabama.
Later, Mitchell and his pilots would sink the battleships U.S.S. New Jersey and the U.S.S. Virginia. The Navy did everything it could to stifle Billy Mitchell and his exhibitions of the military potential of the airplane. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels vociferously vowed to stand on the bow of any ship that Mitchell attempted to bomb in an effort to stop the demonstrations. The success of the bombings of the naval vessels helped increase support for military aircraft and its use.
On September 3, 1925, the dirigible Shenandoah crashed and was destroyed during a flight. Billy Mitchell used this event to publish a 6,000 word diatribe against the Army and Navy and their failure to promote military aviation. Mitchell accused the Army and Navy of using uninformed, nonflying personnel in creating the aviation polices for the armed forces. Response was immediate. The court-martial began on October 28, 1925 with Billy Mitchell charged with insubordination. A panel of thirteen officers sat in judgement for seven weeks, and all but one found Mitchell guilty. The one officer voting not guilty was Douglas A. MacArthur. After a half an hour deliberation Mitchell was sentenced to a suspension of his rank and command and loss of pay for five years. President Calvin Coolidge altered the verdict by granting Mitchell half pay, yet Mitchell refused to accept the verdict. He did not want to be on government charity. Billy Mitchell, therefore, resigned from the military on February 1, 1926. He then went on a speaking tour across the United States promoting his ideas of aviation preparedness.
Over his career Billy Mitchell wrote over 60 articles and five books on the importance of the use of aircraft in a modern military. He believed so strongly in his vision of aircraft that he jeopardized his career and was court-martialed rather than back down from his beliefs and ideas. He spent his professional life pushing and trying to educate his superiors in the military and the politicians in Congress to fund and advance the area of military aviation. On February 19, 1936 Billy Mitchell died in New York hospital. He was 56 years of age and was buried in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
