Air Power Visionary Billy Mitchell

As Brig. Gen. William Mitchell faced court-martial charges in 1925,the Kansas City Star described him as ‘a zealot, a fanatic, aone-idea man…’ but added that someday his dream might cometrue.

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By C.V. Glines

As the U.S. Air Force celebrates its 50th anniversary in September 1997, it is fitting that the man who did much to help bring the Air Force into being should be remembered. William “Billy” Mitchell was a crusader who had the vision to understand the potential of air power long before his contemporaries.

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 egotist and zealot who ran roughshod over anyone who opposed his views on air power, especially his military and civilian superiors.

In a sense, the barnstorming era of the 1920s was also the Billy Mitchell era, because it was his voice that first loudly proclaimed the need for strong air defenses. Long before anyone else, he vigorously advanced the theory that the airplane would replace the fleet as America’s first line of defense. He also saw the flying machine as a strategic weapon that could take a war to an enemy’s industrial resources.

Mitchell was born in Nice, France, in 1879, the son of a U.S. senator. At age 18, he enlisted in the Army as a private when the Spanish-American War broke out. He was commissioned and served in the Army Signal Corps in Cuba, the Philippines and Alaska before becoming interested in aviation. As early as 1906, however, he prophesied in the Cavalry Journal that “conflicts, no doubt, will be carried out in the future in the air.” After the first aircraft was purchased by the Army, he wrote several more articles pointing out that airplanes would be useful for reconnaissance, for preventing enemy forces from conducting reconnaissance and for offensive action against enemy submarines and ships.

Mitchell was assigned to the Army General Staff in Washington in 1912 as a captain; at age 32, he was the youngest officer ever assigned to that important post. He prepared a report on the needs of American aviation and argued that, with the advances then being made in aeronautics, the United States was being drawn ever closer to its potential enemies and that distance would soon have to be measured in time, not miles.

Promoted to major, Mitchell was considered too old and held too high a rank for flight training. Convinced that his future lay in aviation, however, he paid for his own flying lessons at a civilian flying school at Newport News, Va., and later received a rating as a junior military aviator.

In April 1917, by then a lieutenant colonel, he was assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces in France and became one of the first Americans on the scene after the United States declared war on Germany. He immediately fought for the creation of American air units in France but was frustrated by the delay in getting American planes and pilots into the war. It galled him that the French had to provide air protection over the American lines, resulting in what Mitchell viewed as a lack of control and effectiveness. Mitchell met British General Hugh “Boom” Trenchard and quickly adopted his thesis that military air power could and should be used in a “relentless and incessant offensive” in wartime and, if so used, would one day become much more important in military strategy than sea power.

Slowly, American pilots arrived, were assigned to squadrons and were put in the air in French planes. In March 1918 the Germans began a desperate push against the Allies, and Mitchell was placed in charge of all American aviation units at the front. On Sunday, April 14, 1918, a year after the United States entered the war, Mitchell declared that America had finally put its first squadron into combat. His flair for combat leadership was subsequently proved at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel when he coordinated a force of 1,481 British, French and Italian planes to support American ground forces. He was promoted to brigadier general and became more vocal about the importance of a strong military air arm. He quickly earned the enmity of his nonflying contemporaries for his aggressiveness in building airfields, hangars and other facilities. 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.

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