Billy Mitchell
Billy Mitchell
Considered an aviation pioneer by many, Billy Mitchell (1879-1936) recognized the potential of air power as an integral part of national defense. His strong beliefs led to a court-martial for insubordination in the 1920s. The key role played by air defense during the Second World War II vindicated him.
In his website article "Billy Mitchell—Air Power Visionary," C.V. Glines stated, "The name Billy Mitchell brings different images to mind. To most, he was a hero, without whose dire warning the United States might never have been able to field the world's largest air force in time to fight World War II. To others, he was an ambitious egoist and zealot, who ran roughshod over anyone who opposed his views on air power." Glines concluded, "It was his voice that first loudly proclaimed the need for strong air defenses."
Early Life
William ("Billy") Mitchell was born in Nice, France, on December 28, 1879. He was the eldest of ten children born to John Lendrum Mitchell, who came from a politically active Wisconsin family, and Harriet Mitchell. When Mitchell was three years old, the family returned to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Growing up in Milwaukee, Mitchell spoke French just as fluently as English. He and his siblings also learned German, Spanish, and Italian. In The Billy Mitchell Affair, biographer Burke Davis noted that Mitchell was "small, wiry, and utterly fearless." His nanny spent a good deal of her time trying to control him. When he was told not to climb the family greenhouse, Mitchell attempted to scale it on an almost daily basis. He also enjoyed guns and horses.
Mitchell's father was elected to Congress in 1891 and to the Senate in 1893. Important guests were often invited to the Mitchell home and, as Davis noted, "There was an air of freedom in the household which encouraged the young Mitchells to grow up in their own way." The children were encouraged to interact and converse with their parents' guests. Davis added that Mitchell "was allowed at the dinner table with important guests, and always found a way to intrude into the conversation."
Began Military Career
In 1898, Mitchell enlisted in the Army at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. He dropped out of Columbian University (later George Washington University) to enter the service. (He eventually completed his degree after World War I in 1919.) Mitchell served in Cuba and the Philippines, and quickly became a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army. He advanced to first lieutenant in 1901 and captain by 1904. His personal life changed as well. In 1903, he married Caroline Stoddard. They eventually had three children—Harriet, Elizabeth, and John Lendrum III.
Mitchell studied at the army's School of the Line and Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from 1907 until 1909. In 1909, he began another tour of the Far East, returning to the Philippines, and proceeding to Japan and China. In 1913, he received a prestigious appointment to the U.S. Army General Staff, which introduced him to aeronautics, an emerging segment of the Signal Corps.
Becoming restless and seeking a more active role, Mitchell left the General Staff in 1916 to direct army aviation until the commander could take charge. Internal fighting and the outbreak of World War I provided new opportunities in aeronautics for officers like Mitchell. He was promoted to major and, once the commander arrived, assumed the position of deputy.
Told by the army that he was too old to fly, Mitchell spent his personal time and money taking lessons at a civilian flying school. He became a rapid advocate of military air power. Mitchell did not have a good relationship with his commander and decided to go to France as an observer in 1917. He reached Paris four days after the U.S. entered the war.
A Leader During World War I
Once in France, Mitchell tried unsuccessfully to take charge of American aeronautical planning in Europe. Not easily deterred, he became qualified as a U.S. Army pilot and studied the use of aviation on the western front. Davis noted that he also "bombarded the War Department with suggestions he gleaned from his French friends."
Mitchell continued to learn as much as he could. Biographer Davis wrote of Mitchell's flight with a French pilot in order to gain a different perspective. Mitchell commented, "One flight over the lines gave me a much clearer impression of how the armies were laid out than any amount of traveling on the ground." Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Mitchell was named air officer of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force).
In July 1918, the Germans launched their last great attack. Davis relayed that "it was Mitchell who discovered the strength and direction of the offensive." In September, he commanded the largest concentration of aircraft at that time—almost 1,500 warplanes. Victory was imminent. When the war ended a short time later, Mitchell was a decorated war hero and a brigadier general, as well as the senior American air combat officer. As Davis wrote, Henry "Hap" Arnold, a future general of the U.S. Army Air Forces stated, "Billy was clearly the Prince of the Air." Mitchell enjoyed his great popularity. In his website article, Glines stated, "his flamboyance, ability to gain the attention of the press, and willingness to proceed unhampered by precedent, made him the best-known American in Europe."
Mitchell also had his cause. As Davis wrote, at the end of World War I, Mitchell predicted that "the next war would come in the air. Planes would strike at cities and factories and not simply at armies. The air was now the first line of defense and, without air power to shield them, armies and navies would be helpless." Glines added, "Mitchell the hero soon became known as Mitchell the agitator as he tried to prove that airplanes could actually accomplish the things he forecast."
The Sinking of Ostfriesland
As noted by Martin Caidin in Air Force—A Pictorial History of American Airpower, until air power was introduced during World War I, the army and navy were responsible for the nation's defense, and each unit knew what was expected of them. Caidin wrote, "The rise of aviation vastly complicated this defense situation, and touched off a fierce battle between the two services regarding authority and service capabilities."
Home from the war in 1919, Mitchell was named the assistant chief of the Army Air Service in Washington D.C. He argued that air power could threaten the nation's security. Mitchell led a group of AEF fliers who campaigned for a separate air force, similar to the British Royal Air Force. Their request was denied in 1920. Caidin noted, "The Army and Navy held fast to their concept that airplanes could never play anything but a subordinate role in war; to the Army, the infantry was the Queen of battle, and to the Navy, the battleship reigned supreme." Mitchell changed his strategy. Davis wrote, "He talked more of defending the United States from attack, and less of building an offensive force for the future."
Mitchell was allowed to do some experiments and, as a result, Glines stated, "Mitchell became more determined that the nation's money should be spent on aircraft and not expensive battleships. He stepped on the egos of the ground generals and the battleship admirals." Antagonizing many military leaders, but getting a great deal of press coverage, Mitchell was given permission to sink obsolete warships at sea to prove his air power theories were true. In June and July of 1921, the experiments took place. Davis wrote, "The program would open with the bombing of a submarine, working upward through a destroyer and a cruiser to a battleship, the allegedly unsinkable Ostfriesland. "
On July 21, 1921, off the Virginia coast, the Ostfriesland took several direct hits, and sank in 212 minutes. Mitchell biographer Davis wrote, "To some, the bubbling and gushing of air from the sinking Ostfriesland seemed like great sobs." Mitchell also sank the USS Alabama, and in 1923, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the USS Virginia and the USS New Jersey. Americans followed Mitchell's every move, fascinated by his air power ideas and watching mighty battleships sink. Despite the "success" of the experiments, the country's defense budget was being scaled back and building airplanes was not really considered an option. No organizational changes were made.
Labeled a Troublemaker
Mitchell's experiments caused quite a stir. As noted by Caidin, "The Navy reluctantly agreed (it had little choice) that coastal defense should be shared with the Army and Air Service." Caidin added, "General Mitchell set forth an entire new concept of coastal defense which virtually swept the Navy bare of its cherished authority in this area." He concluded that the battles of jurisdiction and overlapping jurisdiction between the War Department and the Navy were never really resolved—which directly led to the disastrous consequences in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941.
During his air experiments, Mitchell and his first wife divorced. In the summer of 1922, he met Elizabeth (Betty) Trumbull Miller at a Detroit, Michigan horse show. They were engaged six months later. The couple later married and had two children, Lucy and William Jr.
Mitchell's supervisor sent him on temporary assignments to keep him out of trouble. However, in 1924 he launched another campaign to build an air force in the U.S. As Davis noted, Mitchell and his new bride were sent on a tour of the Far East. Mitchell carefully observed the powers in Asia and wrote (as relayed by Davis) in a report of his trip: "Japan is preparing her whole war-making powers so that every advantage can be taken of new developments in the art of war." Mitchell added, "She knows that war is coming some day with the United States, and it will be a contest for her very existence." Mitchell's predictions would come true in 17 years.
Still considered controversial, Mitchell lost his Air Service post in 1925 and the rank of brigadier general that went with it. He was transferred to San Antonio, Texas. On September 1, 1925, a naval seaplane was lost while on a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. Two days later, the U.S. Navy dirigible (a zeppelin, called a "battleship of the skies") Shenandoah, crashed in Ohio, killing its commander and several crew members. Mitchell issued the scathing statement that would lead to his court-martial. As relayed by Davis, Mitchell stated: "These accidents are the result of incompetency, the criminal negligence, and the almost treasonable negligence of our national defense by the Navy and War Departments."
The Court Martial
Having continually criticized his superiors, Mitchell's court-martial was probably inevitable. It began in October 1925. There was a lot of media coverage and Mitchell used the trial as a sounding board for his ideas. The court-martial lasted seven weeks. The board deliberated for only one half hour before convicting him of insubordination. He was found guilty on eight charges. Davis wrote that the board "sentence[d] the accused to be suspended from rank, command, and duty, with the forfeiture of all pay and allowances for five years." Half of this was later restored. Mitchell resigned from the army in February 1926 and went to his farm in Virginia.
Later Years
Mitchell was able to adjust to life as a civilian. From his home in Virginia, he wrote books, and newspaper and magazine articles. He traveled around the country, gave lectures on his vision of air power, and showed the film footage of his experiments. Mitchell continued to assert that war between Japan and the U.S. was inevitable. He also predicted that Germany would once again become a strong military power. Once the Great Depression came, citizens worried about things other than air power and Mitchell's vision.
Ailing from the flu and suffering from heart trouble, Mitchell died suddenly on February 19, 1936 in New York City, at the age of 56. At his request, Mitchell was buried in Milwaukee rather than Arlington National Cemetery.
Posthumous Vindication
World War II brought vindication for Mitchell. In 1939, the Army Air Corps began using a bomber—the B-25 Mitchell—named in his honor. The navy used almost 700 of these planes during World War II. In his website article, Glines stated, "Mitchell believed that Japan was the dominant nation in Asia and was preparing to do battle with the United States. He predicted the air attacks would be made by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and described how they would be conducted." Mitchell's predictions came true and, in 1946, Congress bestowed a special medal of honor on him.
In 1956, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, a film with an all-star cast and Gary Cooper in the lead role was released. In his website article "Lost Legacy of Billy Mitchell," Walter J. Boyne stated, "Sadly, most memories of Mitchell derive from the Gary Cooper film on that done-deal trial; nor have his biographers served him very well."
In 1957, Mitchell's youngest child, Billy Jr., asked the Air Force to set aside the court-martial verdict. The public supported his son's request. As reported by Davis, the Milwaukee Journal wrote, "Time has proved how right Billy Mitchell was." As retold by Mitchell biographer Davis, the secretary of the Air Force, James H. Douglas stated: "The history of recent years has shown that Colonel Mitchell's vision concerning the future of air power was amazingly accurate. He saw clearly the shape of things to come in the field of military aviation, and he forecast with precision, the role of air power as it developed in World War II, and as we see it today. Our nation is deeply in his debt." But he added, "He chose to remain on active duty while making his charges against his service superiors. In taking this course, he was bound to accept the consequences." The request to overturn the verdict was denied.
Despite this decision, Mitchell continued to be honored and remembered. The "General Billy Mitchell Award," given to a cadet of the Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the United States Air Force, has been in existence since 1964. In 1970, Mitchell was invested in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame. His hometown proudly honors him as well. The airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is named the Milwaukee-General Mitchell International Airport. On the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, there is an exhibit of Mitchell at the Golda Meir Library. Considered a trailblazer and a pioneer, Boyne stated in his article that Mitchell should be remembered for two important qualities: his ability to intelligently forecast the future, and his willingness to sacrifice his career for his beliefs.
Further Reading
Caidin, Martin, Air Force—A Pictorial History of American Air Power, Bramhall House, 1957.
Davis, Burke, The Billy Mitchell Affair, Random House, 1967.
Business Journal-Milwaukee, April 9, 1999.
Aviation History, September 1997, http://www.militaryhistory.com/AviationHistory/articles/1997/0997_side.htm (October 16, 1999).
"B-25 Mitchell," Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum,http://www.state.sc.us/patpt/b25.htm (October 16, 1999).
"General Billy Mitchell, Milwaukee Native and Air Force Pioneer," University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Golda Meir Library, http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/arch/mitchell/exhibit.htm (October 16, 1999).
"General Billy Mitchell Award," Civil Air Patrol, http://www.cap.af.mil/nhq/cp/cpr/mitchell.htm (October 16, 1999).
"General William 'Billy' Mitchell," and "William Mitchell,"ALLSTAR (Aeronautics Learning Laboratory for Science, Technology, and Research) Network—Heroes, People, and Organizations section, http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/mitchell.htm (October 16, 1999). □
Billy Mitchell Court-Martial: 1925
Billy Mitchell Court-Martial: 1925
Defendant: Brigadier General William Mitchell
Crime Charged: Insubordination and "conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service"
Chief Defense Lawyers: Frank G. Plain, Frank Reid, and Colonel Herbert A. White
Chief Prosecutors: Major Allen W. Gullion, Lieutenant Joseph L. McMullen, and Colonel Sherman Moreland
Judges: Major General Charles P. Summerall, Chief of the U.S. Army General Staff; Major Generals William S. Graves, Robert L. Howze, Douglas MacArthur, Benjamin A. Poore, and Fred W. Sladen; Brigadier Generals Ewing E. Booth, Albert L. Bowley, George Irwin, Edward K. King, Frank R. McCoy, and Edwin B. Winans; and Colonel Blanton Winship
Place: Washington, D.C.
Dates of Court-Martial: October 28-December 17, 1925
Verdict: Guilty
Sentence: Suspension from rank, command, and duty with forfeiture of all pay and allowances for five years
SIGNIFICANCE: The Billy Mitchell court-martial demonstrated not only that a prophet is without honor in his own country but that he is particularly unwelcome in the military. The longest and most controversial court martial in U.S. history, it came to epitomize the difficulty military strategists have in adapting to changing times and technologies. The cost of the country's resultant unpreparedness for World War II lies beyond reckoning.
Nineteen-year-old William Mitchell enlisted in the Army in 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. By World War I, he had realized the significance of the airplane, put himself through flying school at his own expense, risen to the rank of colonel, and was chief of Air Service. Seeing the Army using the airplane at first only for observation and, later, to shoot at enemy planes, he was perplexed that strafing and bombing never occurred to the men who ran the war. He proposed to General John J. Pershing that troops be dropped behind German lines by plane and parachute "in order so to surprise the enemy by taking him from the rear that it would give our infantry an opening." Pershing found the idea impossible and absurd.
By the war's end, Mitchell was convinced that "Only an air force can fight an air force." Soon he had trained the first paratrooper, used the airplane for aerial mapping, developed the turbo booster and the variable-pitch propeller, predicted high-altitude flight where the thin atmosphere would permit speeds of 300 to 400 miles per hour, and mounted cannons on planes—ordnance not flown again until, ironically, it was mounted on the B-25 Mitchell bomber (named for Billy Mitchell) for Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's daring bombing of Tokyo early in World War II.
Declaring in 1921 that "the first battles of any future war will be air battles," Mitchell became an outspoken critic of the government's failure to develop the Air Service. When the House Naval Affairs Committee refused to let him demonstrate air power by bombing former German ships that had to be destroyed under the Armistice agreement, he went public, earning so many headlines nationwide with his descriptions of Navy vessels as "sitting ducks" that the House Appropriations Committee approved his plan.
Mitchell's bombers easily sank an old American battleship and a German submarine, cruiser, destroyer, and battleship.
The Joint Board of the Army and Navy promptly announced, "The battleship is still the backbone of the fleet." A colonel from the Engineer Corps was promoted to major general in command of the Air Service. Mitchell exhausted himself appearing before clubs and organizations, prophesying the air power of Germany, Russia, Italy, and Japan. Before a Congressional inquiry, he accused Army and Navy witnesses of "deliberate falsification of facts with intent to deceive the country and Congress."
To counter Mitchell's alarms, the Navy sent the aging dirigible Shenandoah on a tour. It crashed. Next a Naval "publicity flight" to Hawaii crashed. Mitchell told reporters:
My opinion is: Those accidents are the result of the incompetency, the criminal negligence, and the almost treasonable administration of our national defense by the Navy and War Departments.
Court-martial papers were served, charging the general with insubordination and conduct "to the prejudice of good order and military discipline."
For three weeks, defense counsel Frank G. Reid introduced witness after witness to prove that Mitchell, "after exhausting every usual means to safeguard the aerial defense of the United States without result, took the only way possible that would cause a study of the true conditions of the national defense to be made." Major (later General) Carl Spaatz testified on the country's numerical weakness in planes, Major (later General) "Hap" Arnold on the appalling number of deaths from worn-out equipment, former Captain Eddie Rickenbacker on the uselessness of anti-aircraft fire.
Mitchell himself testified:
The people have placed their trust in the War and Navy Departments, to provide a proper defense for the safety of the nation. It has not been done. I consider this failure to be… the criminal offense of treason.
The judges, not one of whom had ever been up in an airplane, debated for three hours, found Billy Mitchell "Guilty on all counts," and sentenced him "to be suspended from rank, command, and duty with the forfeiture of all pay and allowances for five years."
A joint resolution of Congress immediately proposed to restore Mitchell's rank and reimburse his expenses. President Calvin Coolidge, as commander-in-chief, upheld the suspension but restored the allowances and granted the general half pay. Mitchell resigned. Congress passed no resolution.
Mitchell settled on a farm in Virginia, raising livestock, writing, speaking, and trying without success to found a University of Aviation.
Billy Mitchell died of pneumonia in 1936. Precisely as he had predicted, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese, without formally declaring war, destroyed Clark Field in the Philippines and the "sitting duck" U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor by aerial bombardment.
—Bernard Ryan, Jr.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Davis, Burke. The Billy Mitchell Affair. New York: Random House, 1967.
Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 19. Ness York: Americana Corp., 1953.
Lardner, Rex. Ten Heroes of the Twenties. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1966.
Mitchell, Ruth. Mv Brother Bill. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1953.
Mitchell, Billy
MITCHELL, BILLY
(b. December 29, 1879; d. February 19, 1936) Commander of Air Service, First U.S. Army during World War I, and airpower theorist.
Billy Mitchell's leadership was instrumental in the early development of American air forces, and his ideas about airpower exert their influence to this day. He served as the top combat commander of the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Afterward he became an outspoken proponent of airpower, resulting in a court-martial that shortened his military career. As a civilian he continued to widely publicize his beliefs until his death.
William Mitchell was born on December 29, 1879 in Nice, France. He grew up in the Midwest and joined the army during the Spanish-American War. His father was a U.S. senator, and Billy used that connection to garner a second lieutenant's commission in a volunteer signal company. After a rather uneventful tour in Cuba, he served in the Philippines during the insurrection there. He did well in these early assignments, and soon accepted the army as his career. He eventually became involved with the development of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. He began his own flight training in the fall of 1916, and was sent to France as an aeronautical
observer in early 1917. He learned much from the British and the French that he would apply in helping to create an air service for the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.
Mitchell witnessed firsthand the futility of French assaults on German trenches. He was impressed by French aircraft designs and French concepts of concentrated airpower as a modern tactical weapon. However, he much preferred the type of air operations conducted by the independent British Royal Flying Corps under the command of Major General Hugh Trenchard. The RFC emphasized that command of the air over the battlefield could be accomplished only by an incessant air offensive. Mitchell may have also picked up some ideas from Italian theorists Gianni Caproni and Giulio Douhet.
Colonel Mitchell got along well with General John J. Pershing, who appointed the aggressive airman Chief of Air Service, First United States Army. Mitchell clashed with the first Chief of the Air Service, AEF, Benjamin Foulois, but had better relations with Mason Patrick, his replacement. During the Battle of St. Mihiel, Mitchell earned a promotion to Brigadier General. He loosely commanded the largest concentration of aircraft during the war, a total of over 1,480 British, French, Italian, and American planes, and quickly achieved air superiority. His aircraft continued to support friendly units and bomb enemy troop concentrations during the subsequent Meuse-Argonne campaign. Though he was fascinated by new ideas such as strategic bombing and dropping troops by parachute, the war ended before Allied airmen really had a chance to try them.
Though Mitchell exaggerated his prescience in his memoirs, he did develop a vision for future American air-power from his World War I experience that emphasized its revolutionary and offensive nature. He returned home to become assistant chief of the Air Service. After Mitchell sank the battleship Ostfriesland in a much ballyhooed, and somewhat rigged, demonstration in 1921, the Joint Army-Navy Board recognized the possible vulnerability of ships to aerial bombardment, but their report fell far short of condoning the revolutionary changes Mitchell desired.
Always willing to attract attention to further his cause, Mitchell deliberately provoked a court-martial in 1925 by accusing the War and Navy Departments of "incompetency, criminal negligence, and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense" because of their failure to build-up or maintain their air components. He had achieved some success in 1921 because the public was prepared to accept the concept of using inexpensive airplanes against seaborne invasions, but four years later Americans were even more devoted to a return to "normalcy," isolationism, and economical government. Mitchell had also profited from inept opposition from the Navy in 1921, while the War Department proved more adept in the way it handled his court-martial.
After his conviction for insubordination Mitchell resigned from active duty in 1926. His treatment enraged some supporters in the House of Representatives and attracted the media attention he desired, facilitating his efforts to get many of his ideas into print. He continued to refine his views about an independent air force attacking enemy vital centers until his death in 1936, publishing five books and many more articles in journals and newspapers. His unyielding radical views about airpower had little immediate impact on developments in military aviation, but they did help condition the public to accept the changes that were to come.
Mitchell's ideas eventually had great significance in shaping the emerging American air service. Two of his disciples, Henry "Hap" Arnold and Carl Spaatz, were especially important in achieving Mitchell's goal of an independent air service with a strong strategic bombing force. Arnold led the Army Air Forces during World War II, while Spaatz succeeded him and guided the new United States Air Force into existence in 1947. Mitchell's ideas contributed to American air doctrine, and he is still perceived within the Air Force as an example of principled leadership to emulate, willing to sacrifice his personal career to further airpower ideals.
bibliography
Hurley, Alfred F. Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Airpower. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.
Mets, David R. The Air Campaign: John Warden and the Classical Airpower Theorists. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1999.
Mitchell, William. Memoirs of World War I. New York: Random House, 1960.
Conrad C. Crane
Mitchell, Billy (William)
In World War I, as a brigadier general, Mitchell organized and ably led the U.S. Army's fledgling Air Service in France. In addition to aerial pursuit, reconnaissance, and ground support, he experimented with mass bombing of enemy military formations and installations in the war zone. From this experience and his discussions with Sir Hugh Trenchard, head of the Royal Flying Corps, Mitchell became a champion of airpower.
In the early 1920s, as a war hero and assistant chief of the army's Air Service with headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mitchell campaigned for a large, independent air force. He used the new mass media, including motion pictures, to advance his program against the opposition of senior army and navy officers as well as cost‐cutting Republican administrations and Congress. Mitchell's planes dramatically sank captured naval warships in prearranged tests off the Virginia Capes in 1921–22, but his constant criticism led to his reassignment to Texas.
Even more outspoken in 1925, Mitchell was tried by a court‐martial for calling army and navy leaders criminally negligent and responsible for the deaths of aviators in outmoded aircraft. His trial, portrayed by the media as the martyrdom of a prophet standing alone against entrenched bureaucracy, was one of the most sensational of the decade. Found guilty, Mitchell was suspended from active duty for five years; instead, he resigned from the army in 1926.
As a civilian, Mitchell became even more strident in interviews, articles, and books. Much like Trenchard and the Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet, Mitchell claimed that strategic bombing would be decisive in future wars, and as a deterrent to war, because it could bypass enemy fleets and armies to strike directly at the industrial and population centers of hostile nations. Mitchell died of a heart attack in 1936, but since the adoption of many of his ideas in World War II, he has been eulogized by the air force.
[See also Air Force, Predecessors of: 1907–46; Air Warfare.]
Bibliography
Alfred F. Hurley , Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 1964.
Burke Davis , The Billy Mitchell Affair, 1967.
Michael L. Grumelli