He launched his crusade for airpower almost eighty years ago. His ideas live on in the armed forces of today. The Spirit of

Billy Mitchell By Walter J. Boyne

N TODAY'S cynical world, the very At the height of his fame, when he Billy Mitchell, act of remembering a hero poses was tilting with the War Department the spiritual many problems. Invoking Billy Mitch- and the Navy Department with equal father of the , led the ell ' s name raises questions of rel- enthusiasm, the term "Mitchellism" evance, accuracy, and purpose. Can was coined by the press to symbol- fight for airpower after a man who began his crusade for ize the concept that airpower was and airpower nearly eighty years ago, now the dominant military factor and was court- whose finest hour came seventy years that sea and land forces were becom- martialed for his ago, and who died in relative obscu- ing subordinate. In the intervening aggressive advocacy of the rity sixty years ago, have more than years, the correctness of his think- cause. symbolic meaning for us today? Is ing, the accuracy of his predictions, the symbol really accurate? Did the risks he took, the sacrifices he so Mitchell actually predict the future? willingly made of his health and his And, most fundamental, given the career, and, by far the most impor- passage of time and events and con- tant, the influence he had on his sidering the technological, economic, successors have conferred a new, social, and political revolutions that higher, and entirely contemporary have transpired since his heyday, meaning on "Mitchellism." can anything Mitchell did or said be Billy Mitchell's name conjures up useful for today's United States Air different and mostly stereotyped Force? images. For those with an interest in The answer to all of these ques- airpower, it brings to mind the vi- tions is a resounding "yes," for he sionary who sank battleships and paid molded what would become the US the price for defying the War De- Air Force in a thousand ways that partment. Unfortunately, for far too have been increasingly overlooked many, the name Billy Mitchell is and need to be remembered. Today, associated only with a grainy black- USAF is riding the fourth section of and-white movie showing Gary Coo- a multistage rocket that Billy Mitchell per fighting a court-martial. launched by the sheer force of his Brig. Gen. William L. Mitchell personality and the breadth of his deserves better than this. So great vision. was his impact on the Army Air Ser-

66 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1996 .. ..;.,....,:40'. .4.-,....*'''

AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1996 67 General Mitchell (center, with walking stick) poses with his staff in , Germany, on January 15, 1919. His experi- ences during World War I crystallized his belief in airpower. Below, he walks through a Langley Field, Va., hangar with Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.

vice and its successor organizations John L. Mitchell, became a US sena- Washington, he felt the first attrac- that the effect is still being felt. Dur- tor and would quietly smooth the tion to aviation, seeing in it the fu- ing Mitchell' s meteoric military ca- way for his impetuous son's early ture for his country and, not inciden- reer, he charted new paths, set new military career. Commissioned as a tally, for himself. Paying for his own standards, and influenced key lead- second lieutenant at age eighteen, flying lessons, he learned to fly in ers for decades to come. Mitchell Billy Mitchell immediately got on four Sunday sessions at the Curtiss was twenty years ahead of his time the fast track by demonstrating his Flying School, Newport News, Va., when he put forth his detailed vision leadership and organizational skills in 1915. of a hazardous future. More impor- in the Philippines and Alaska. With- There have been disputes over his tant, he knew that airpower was the out a contracting officer' s warrant, ability as a flyer—for example, Maj. answer to overcoming the danger. he managed to spend $50,000 of US Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois always His impassioned campaign to tell government money to build a tele- contended that Mitchell was not a his story had a quadruple-barreled graph line across Alaska—on an au- "regular" Army flyer because he had impact on the modern Air Force, thorized budget of $5,000. The over- not been through an Army flying past, present, and future. run must not have hurt Mitchell; he school. (This was a somewhat ironic came back a captain at age twenty- point for Foulois to make, given that Mitchell and the Past three, the youngest in the Army. he had taught himself to fly by corre- Billy Mitchell was born into privi- At thirty-two, Mitchell became the sponding with the Wright brothers.) leged circumstances in Nice, France, youngest officer ever appointed to On the other hand, one of the great on December 29, 1879. His father, the Army General Staff. While in pioneer test pilots, the record-setting 68 AIR FORCE Magazine/ June 1996 Challenge to the Navy In the convulsive downsizing that followed World War I, Mitchell, who had achieved the grade of temporary brigadier general (a grade he would retain for all but ten months until April 1925), was one of the few of- ficers not reduced in rank, much to the distress of longtime rival Foulois, who reverted to being a major. Yet the War Department regarded Mitch- ell as a loose cannon and placed him under the supervision of a nonflyer, Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher, the new Director of the Air Service. It was at this point that Billy Mitchell set out on the path that would lead him to his greatest heights— and ultimately to his court-martial. Knowing he would never prevail over MB-2 bombers fly in formation over Atlantic coastal waters in exercises intended the stolid, conservative Army lead- to demonstrate the prowess of airplanes against battleships. Though fragile ers of the time, Mitchell went pub- by today's standards, the MB-2s could carry more than a ton of ordnance. lic. He soon became a national fig- ure as a witness at Congressional hearings. He expanded his audience Lt. Lester J. Maitland, stated un- the Saint-Mihiel offensive of Sep- with speeches and articles on his equivocally that Mitchell "could fly tember 1918 was chief of the Air new ideas about airpower. Already anything with wings and fly it well." Service, 1st Army, American Expe- in hot water with the Army, he next Mitchell's flying catapulted him to ditionary Forces. collided with the deep-water Navy prominence, and he became deputy Mitchell commanded 1,476 air- by saying that airplanes could sink chief of the Signal Corps Aviation craft and twenty balloons, assembled battleships. Section in 1916, with the rank of ma- from 101 American, British, French, The Navy's leadership ignored, jor. This was his ticket to the top. He and Italian squadrons, in the great- ridiculed, or attacked Mitchell, de- wangled his way to France as a mili- est air offensive of the war. The pending on the issue, but he finally tary observer in March 1917. When battle of Saint-Mihiel was itself a bit backed them into a corner with an the US declared war on Imperial Ger- of an anticlimax, as the Germans open challenge while testifying be- many the next month, he soon estab- were in the process of evacuating fore the House subcommittee on avia- lished himself as the premier US avia- the salient, but the air battle went as tion. Mitchell announced that "1,000 tion officer in France. He was promoted Mitchell had planned. bombardment airplanes can be built to lieutenant colonel in May and to colonel in August 1917 and received a rating as a Junior Military Aviator without the normal testing process. Fluent in French, unlike most of his colleagues, Billy Mitchell be- came what today would be called a master networker—cementing ties, obtaining resources, making friends, and pledging help that he could only hope to deliver. Hugh "Boom" Tren- chard, commander of the Royal Fly- ing Corps (later, first Marshal of the ), became his mentor. He could not have chosen better. Mitchell drew many ideas from Trenchard, especially the fundamen- tal conclusion that airpower was pri- marily an instrument for offensive, not defensive, employment. Mitchell embraced Trenchard' s concepts on supremacy in the air and demon- Mitchell (arm raised) speaks with Gen. of the Armies John J. Pershing during strated them as chief of the Air Ser- an inspection of an MB-2. Mitchell's initial challenges to the Navy were met vice, 1st Brigade, and by the time of with ridicule, but he eventually got the chance to prove the might of airpower. AIR FORCE Magazine/ June 1996 69 German battleship, and she went down, to the horror of the assembled Navy brass. To add insult to injury, the seventh ship of Mitchell' s for- mation, a Handley Page, dropped its 2,000 pounder into the foam and bubbles rising from the sunken ship. Mitchell was vindicated, but it was the Navy itself that would benefit most from the tests, as they turned immediately to embrace the concept of aircraft carriers, which would dominate the naval war in the Pa- cific only twenty years later. Oddly enough, Mitchell's greatest contri- butions to the Air Service and its successor organizations, contribu- tions that echo today, were made in a far less spectacular fashion.

To the Navy's dismay, the MB-2s and Handley Pages sank target after target in Impact on R&D the demonstration off the Virginia Capes. The Navy benefited, however, Despite the postwar collapse of because the demonstration prompted the service to push for aircraft carriers. the Air Service budget, Mitchell saw and operated for about the price of one battleship." He declared that his "r**' ; ****.***** :******i- airplanes could sink a battleship, and * * * -41-* he invited the economy-minded Con- gress to see for itself. In his Con- gressional testimony, as in every- thing Mitchell did, lay the subliminal message that there should be an in- dependent Air Force, equal with the Army and the Navy. The Navy grudgingly agreed to a demonstration, providing as the tar- gets some captured Imperial Ger- man Navy ships, including a sub- marine, a destroyer, a cruiser, and the toughest ship of all, the many- compartmented battleship Ostfries- land—thought by many to be un- sinkable. The Navy also provided strict rules of engagement, designed to minimize Mitchell' s chance of The controversy caused by Mitchell's advocacy of airpower went all the way to success. the top. President Warren G. Harding (center, with cane) and his staff viewed Mitchell created the First Provi- bombing tests from a hastily constructed viewing stand at Langley Field, Va. sional Air Brigade at Langley Field, Va., equipping it with some 150 bomb- ers and pursuit airplanes and almost rules were followed. The Navy set to it that the maximum possible funds 1,000 personnel—a considerable por- up some procedures to hamper Mitch- were given to McCook Field, Ohio, tion of the Air Service. The heavy ell' s efforts, including limiting the the ancestor not only of Wright- bombs he knew he needed were not size and number of bombs that could Patterson AFB, Ohio, but also Ed- available. With typical foresight and be dropped on any single sortie. wards AFB, Calif., Arnold Engineer- tenacity, Mitchell induced the ord- At the crucial moment, when it ing Development Center, Arnold nance division to produce 2,000- appeared the Ostfriesland might in- AFB, Tenn., and every other base pound bombs, based on a sketch he deed be too tough a nut to crack, where research and development and two ordnance men drew during Mitchell violated the rules by send- work is done. Mitchell served as both an afternoon's conversation. ing in his twin-engine Martin bomb- whip and inspiration to the engi- The tests off the Virginia Capes ers to drop six of the big bombs neers he assigned to bring forth faster in the fall of 1921 were carefully instead of the three they were al- fighters and bigger bombers. regulated, with many observers sta- lowed. A hit and several near misses Mitchell knew that flying had to be tioned nearby to make sure that the split the seams of the tough old sold to the public before it could be

70 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1996 sold to Congress and that record- setting would advance aviation tech- nology, even as it gained public atten- tion. He was wholeheartedly behind the great headline-making flights of the era, from the 1923 nonstop trans- continental flight in the Fokker T- 2—Mitchell did not hesitate to buy from foreign sources when it suited his needs—to the 175-day trip around the world of the Douglas World Cruis- ers in 1924. On October 18, 1922, in his first flight in the beautiful little Curtiss R-6 biplane, Mitchell himself set a world absolute speed record of 222.97 mph. Appearances to the contrary, Mitch- ell could not be everywhere and do everything even as he was leading the fight for an independent Air Force. He deliberately created a cli- General Mitchell predicted his own court-martial. His aggressive promotion of mate in the Air Service that was airpower brought it about. At the trial, his military supporters lined up to passed on to its successor services, speak on his behalf despite the risk of damage to their careers. one in which technology was recog- nized as the ore from which a war- winning air force could be refined. ell's testimony before the board was ace Hickam, and others. Each put his Most important, he inspired devo- measured and brilliant, laying out career on the line for Mitchell even tion in the airmen who would follow with clarity the specter of the Pacific though they knew he would be con- in his footsteps and keep research war that would come only sixteen victed. After the trial, Arnold was and development at the top of the years later. He predicted the rise of exiled to become commanding of- priority list. His best choice, and a Japanese strength and later foretold ficer of the 16th Observation Squad- very loyal friend, was a young of- its Sunday-morning attack on Pearl ron, Fort Riley, Kan. The assign- ficer named Henry H. Arnold. Harbor and the Philippines. He made ment was intended to be the end of Mitchell' s own career had run its the argument, accurate until 1944, his career. course by the mid-1920s. Contro- that aircraft carriers could not oper- Mitchell continued to campaign versial testimony before Congres- ate against landbased aviation. He in speeches and articles. "Hap" Ar- sional committees, combined with saw war as global and imminent, and nold, for his part, soldiered on, his intemperate speeches and articles he knew that airpower was the only leadership qualities inevitably pro- calling for an independent Air Force, way to master the situation. pelling him to the top, regardless of made him persona non grata with And it was President Coolidge him- residual resentment about his un- both the Navy and War Departments. self who ordered Mitchell's court- flagging support for Mitchell. Demoted to colonel and exiled to a martial under charges of insubordi- More important than Arnold' s loy- minor post in San Antonio, Tex., he nation under the 96th Article of War alty, however, was his comprehen- continued to lash out. When the Navy ("conduct of a nature to bring dis- sion of Mitchell's fascination with dirigible Shenandoah was torn apart credit on the military service"). The technology. Early in his tour as Army in a severe squall over Byesville, trial lasted seven weeks, most of Air Corps Chief, Arnold began so- Ohio, Mitchell released a 6,000-word which was devoted to a discussion liciting the ideas and the company of statement to the press. The Septem- of Mitchell's concept of airpower. the top scientists in the country. ber 5, 1925, statement attacked the The verdict of guilty was a foregone Eventually, he enlisted the assis- War Department and the Navy De- conclusion, and Mitchell was sen- tance of such stellar names as Theo- partment for incompetence and for tenced to be suspended from rank, dore von Karman, Hugh L. Dryden, seeking publicity at the cost of toler- command, and duty, with a forfei- Frank Wattendorf, Hsue-shen Tsien, ating dangerous flights. He also pre- ture of all pay and allowances for Vladimir K. Zworykin, and many dicted his own court-martial. five years. President Coolidge, in an others for the Scientific Advisory uncharacteristic fit of generosity, Group, later transformed into the The Morrow Board later reduced this to forfeiture of Scientific Advisory Board. These In a preemptive move designed to half his pay and allowances. men and others created first "Where moderate anything Mitchell might Billy Mitchell refused the offer We Stand" and then "Toward New say at his court-martial, President and resigned on February 1, 1926. Horizons," studies that addressed Calvin Coolidge set up a board un- All through the court-martial pro- state-of-the-art technology and put der Dwight W. Morrow "for the pur- ceedings, Mitchell had the staunch forth a blueprint for the develop- pose of making a study of the best support of "Hap" Arnold and such of- ment of the postwar Air Force. means of developing and applying ficers as Carl Spaatz, Herbert Dargue, It is important to note that neither aircraft in national defense." Mitch- Robert Olds, William Gillmore, Hor- Mitchell nor Arnold had the scien-

AIR FORCE Magazine/ June 1996 71 tific competence to write such re- ports; they had, instead, the far more vital ability to see that the reports were needed, recognize who could produce them, and sympathetically Mitchell's supporters enlist their support. The officers included entertainer, Arnold picked to work with the sci- political satirist, and aviation enthusiast Will entists were equally well chosen, Rogers (below, left) and among them such men as James H. Capt. Eddie Ricken- Doolittle, Donald L. Putt, and Lau- backer (right), Medal of rence C. Craigie. They knew the im- Honor recipient and top US ace of World War I. portance of science and of scientists. Rickenbacker called Again in the spirit of Billy Mitch- Mitchell's guilty verdict ell, Arnold picked promising young "a crime against officers who understood the require- posterity." ments of technology and saw that they were given a track to top posi- tions. Doing so cost him friends. Comrades who had served with him, and who were now passed over, re- sented his choices. But Arnold knew he was not running a popularity con- test; he was building an independent Air Force. The constructive culture created by Mitchell and Arnold made it pos- sible for R&D positions to be estab- lished for such men as Bernard A. Schriever and his successors. From that foundation grew the intricate

velopment by Mitchell, Arnold, and their spiritual successors.

The Future Air Force Mitchell and Arnold successfully established the service that, as the Army Air Forces, would be vital in winning World War II. It is less well understood that they achieved this through an unprecedented apprecia- tion for technology and a willing- ness to gamble on the brains of men they respected. Neither Mitchell nor Arnold would have claimed to have been scientists, and both would have admitted readily that they did not understand the engi- neering underlying the equipment the scientists promised to deliver. How- ever, both understood that the great- est scientists in the world cannot con- structure of developments leading of satellites that harvest intelligence tribute to national defense unless they first to a fleet of ICBMs and then to on an unprecedented scale can be are invited to do so and are then given the exploitation of space technol- attributed directly to the encourag- an environment in which they can ogy. The subsequent development ing climate given research and de- comfortably function. When von Karman told Arnold that he was not certain he could con- Walter J. Boyne, formerly director of the National Air and Space Museum in form to the customs of the Pentagon, Washington, D. C., is a retired Air Force colonel and author. He has written Arnold quickly told him not to wor- more than 400 articles and several books, the most recent of which was Silver ry—he would see that the Pentagon Wings. His last article for Air Force Magazine, "Weird, Wonderful Warplanes," conformed to von Karman. That was appeared in the June 1975 issue. Mitchellism at its finest! • 72 AIR FORCE Magazine/ June 1996