Bill's Stubbornness Got Himself Wrong: The Rise and Fall of General William Mitchell, Father of the U.S. Air Force
William "Billy" Mitchell (1879-1936) is one of the most famous and controversial figures in stories American aviationHe came from a wealthy and influential Wisconsin family—his grandfather was a railroad magnate, and his father was a Democratic senator. Mitchell attended private schools and was not particularly academically successful.
When the Spanish-American War began in 1898, he enlisted in the volunteer army and, thanks to the intervention of his influential father, received an officer's commission and joined the Signal Corps. He did not participate directly in the fighting; he arrived in Cuba after the fighting had ended [3].
After postings to the Philippines and Alaska (where he surveyed for telegraph lines), Mitchell was appointed to the General Staff, becoming its youngest officer. He gradually developed a passion for aviation, and in 1916, at the age of 38, he began taking private flying lessons.
Mitchell's biographer, Alfred Hurley, notes that Mitchell became a career soldier thanks to his aristocratic background, the support of a politically influential family, his charm, his desire to stand out, and his sincere desire to serve his country.
The army gave him a broader perspective and a rare appreciation of the rapid advances in technology. His service taught him to think in terms of mass warfare, but it also hardened him in the most brutal form of modern warfare—guerrilla warfare. [2]
William Mitchell, along with Giulio Douhet, played a key role in bringing attention to the strategic potential of air powered warfare, leading him to be considered the father of the US Air Force. Many biographies portray Mitchell as a prophet and martyr of the air force.
The Journey from Hero to Outcast
In September 1917, Billy Mitchell received his commission as a junior naval aviator, which is likely why he was appointed an aerial observer in Europe just weeks before the United States entered World War I. When the United States entered the war, Lieutenant Colonel Billy Mitchell was already in Europe, meeting with British and French commanders and studying their methods of warfare. Billy eventually became the commander of combat aircraft at the front [1].
Months passed before American pilots and aircraft arrived in France. Nevertheless, Mitchell quickly earned a reputation as a bold and daring leader. In September 1918, he commanded nearly 1500 Allied aircraft during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, one of the first coordinated air offensives in aviation history. He was eventually promoted to brigadier general and placed in charge of all American combat units in France.
Recognized as the finest American fighter pilot, Mitchell received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and several foreign decorations. However, during his 18 months of service in France, Billy managed to alienate most of the military brass [1].
Returning to the United States in early 1919, Mitchell was appointed Deputy Chief of the Air Service, retaining his rank of lieutenant general. His relationship with his superiors continued to deteriorate, as he began criticizing the War and Navy Departments for their lack of foresight in their air force plans. Mitchell believed that building expensive battleships was pointless, since the same amount of money spent on them could have easily been used to build a thousand bombers, which could easily sink them.
The culmination of his struggle with the Navy was the trials carried out in 1921 and 1923, in which fleet was scheduled to be bombed from the air. During the exercise, dubbed "Project B," old or captured World War I ships were used as targets. As a result, US aircraft sank an entire squadron of warships off their coast with virtually no losses.
Mitchell used these exercises to demonstrate the power of military aviation. Although the tests weren't exactly representative of wartime conditions, they forced the Navy to take aviation more seriously. However, Navy leadership and US President Warren Harding were dissatisfied with the tests, as they cast the Navy in an unfavorable light.
Billy Mitchell, however, continued to criticize the Army and Navy leadership, which had consequences. When his term as Deputy Chief of Air Forces ended in March 1925, he lost his general's rank (he had been a temporary brigadier general throughout this period) and was transferred to San Antonio, Texas, as a colonel in an Army unit. Many perceived this move by the US military leadership as a punishment in the form of "honorable exile."
However, William Mitchell was not silent here either. When the US Navy airship Shenandoah sank during a storm, killing 14 crew members, Mitchell issued his famous statement accusing the Army and Navy's top brass of incompetence and "almost treasonable management of the national defense." For this, he was court-martialed and ultimately found guilty of insubordination and suspended from active duty for five years without pay.
Shortly after his conviction, Mitchell decided to resign, which he did in February 1926. He continued to argue that aviation would play a key role in future wars and to promote the idea of an air force, but leaving the service severely limited his ability to influence military policy and public opinion.
Mitchell believed that Franklin Roosevelt's election as president would have a beneficial effect on the Air Force's development, and even believed that the new president might appoint him Assistant Secretary of Air Power. However, these hopes were not to be realized. Mitchell died in 1936 in a New York City hospital of coronary heart disease at the age of 56.
Mitchell's theories gained worldwide recognition after his death.
Mitchell's air warfare theories and the influence of Douhet's ideas on them
The assumptions underlying Billy Mitchell's concepts of the role of air power in strategic attack seem strikingly similar to those of Giulio Douhet and Hugh Trenchard. It is well known that Mitchell was familiar with the works of both of these theorists long before his court-martial in 1925. Mitchell's assumptions included the following:
1. The advent of aviation was a revolutionary event;
2. Gaining air superiority is a top priority;
3. Air forces are offensive in nature;
4. Funds Defense ineffective;
5. The Air Force could defend the continental United States more effectively and at lower cost than the Navy. The Navy is already largely obsolete for waging war;
6. Pilots are the elite of the army, and only they can determine how to properly use air power;
7. Future wars will be total, with a predominance of ground-based defenses [3].
From the very beginning, General Mitchell supported the idea of creating the Air Force as a separate branch of the armed forces, a centralized Air Force command, and the creation of a Department of Defense. Initially, he did not focus on strategic objectives as we understand them today; he was more interested in tactical tasks. Clearly, the ideas associated with the Air Force Tactical School, which emerged ten years later, were also partly thanks to Mitchell [3].
At the same time, Mitchell, like Giulio Douhet, believed that air superiority was essential for successful military operations. Historian Alfred Hurley argues that while in Italy in February 1922, Mitchell likely met with both Giovanni Caproni and Giulio Douhet [4].
It seems clear that Mitchell was familiar with Douhet's ideas, which he readily accepted and implemented. However, Douhet envisioned achieving air superiority through lightning strikes at the outset of combat operations against enemy air forces while they were still on their airfields. Mitchell, on the other hand, argued that this advantage would be achieved primarily through aerial combat, although he did not rule out the concept of mass attacks on airfields.
The primary mission of aviation is to destroy the enemy's air force and then deliver devastating blows to its formations both on land and at sea... Aviation can also be used as an auxiliary means to support ground forces and increase their effectiveness in the fight against the enemy. [5]
The Dark Side of Billy Mitchell
Mitchell was undoubtedly the first prominent American to publicly declare that strategic air power would play a leading role in future wars. He believed that aircraft were an offensive strategic weapon. weapons, which will revolutionize military affairs, since thanks to them it will become possible to launch massive attacks on the “vital centers” of an enemy country – industrial areas that produce huge quantities of weapons and equipment so necessary in modern warfare [1].
He didn't consider such methods of warfare immoral, since, given the bloody carnage in the trenches during World War I, which claimed millions of lives, he believed that air power offered a faster and therefore more humane way to achieve victory (and therefore with fewer casualties). But to effectively fulfill its mission, the Air Force had to become an independent force, not remain subordinate to the Army and Navy.
Mitchell's constant teasing and ridicule of the Navy not only intensified inter-service rivalry in the United States, but also pushed the Navy to intensify its efforts to develop carrier-based aviation, which was the direct opposite of Mitchell's plans and intentions.
Some researchers note that Mitchell was vain and selfish. And his methods of warfare were far from humane. In particular, during the "miner wars" in West Virginia (1920–1921), which arose from a dispute between coal companies and miners, Mitchell sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of using aviation in suppressing civil unrest and was prepared for anything.
On August 26, speaking to a crowd of reporters in Charleston, West Virginia, General Mitchell made his intentions crystal clear:
At first, we won't try to kill these people. We'll spray tear gas throughout the area. But if they refuse to disperse, we'll use artillery and other weapons.
"These people" Mitchell referred to were miners from Kanawha City (a Charleston area). Mitchell deployed 17 DH-4B fighters from the 88th Squadron and four Martin MB-2 bombers to Kanawha City. However, orders to use them against the striking miners never came.
Furthermore, although Mitchell owed much to the work of Giulio Douhet, he did not officially acknowledge this, attributing some of his ideas to himself.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be noted that Billy Mitchell made a significant contribution to the development of the Air Force. Overall, he accurately predicted what future wars would look like and the role aviation would play in them. However, some of his ideas about naval warfare were incorrect (in particular, his view of the role of aircraft carriers and the effectiveness of horizontal bombers against battleships).
The idea that aerial warfare and air supremacy would make war more "humane" also proved wrong—the inhumane bombing raids of World War II clearly demonstrated this. Public morale proved far more resilient than Mitchell and other theorists had predicted, despite the fact that the war was indeed total, as they had predicted.
References
[1]. Phillip S. Meilinger. Airmen and Air Theory: A Review of the Sources. Air University Press Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 2001.
[2]. Alfred F. Hurley. Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, Indiana University Press, 1975.
[3]. Mets, David R. The Air Campaign: John Warden and the Classical Airpower Theorists. Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1999.
[4]. Brian D. Laslie, “Giulio Douhet: His Impact and Relevance on American Air Power Doctrine and Education from the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) Through Today,” Nacelles [Online], 9 | 2020.
[5]. Mitchell lecture, 24 November 1922, 47
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