To quell the resultant fury of the battleship admirals and get Mitchell off the front pages, his superiors sent him to Hawaii. However, he returned with a scathing report on the inadequate defenses he saw there. He also went to Europe and the Far East to study the advances being made in aviation. After returning from the latter trip in 1924, he wrote a shocking 323-page report–probably the most prophetic document of his career–that stressed that, when making estimates of Japanese air power, ‘care must be taken that it is not underestimated.’

Mitchell believed that Japan was the dominant nation in Asia and was preparing to do battle with the United States. He predicted that air attacks would be made by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and described how they would be conducted.

His report was received with all the enthusiasm of ‘a green demolition team approaching an unexploded bomb,’ according to one writer. The report was ignored; it is said that even his boss did not read it for two years.

In the following months, Mitchell wrote many articles expounding his theories and demanding national awareness of the new dimension of warfare that he perceived. Despite his efforts, large appropriations for new aircraft were not forthcoming. The Air Service was still flying aging de Havillands. Crashes occurred frequently, and with each one, Mitchell lambasted the shortsightedness of the War Department and Congress for allowing them to happen.

Mitchell’s attacks became more vitriolic and were embarrassing to his superiors as well as to Capitol Hill and the White House. When his term with the Air Service expired in April 1925, he was not reappointed. He reverted to his permanent rank of colonel and was transferred to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as air officer for the VIII Corps.

On September 1, 1925, a naval seaplane was lost on a nonstop flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. Two days later, the U.S. Navy dirigible Shenandoah was destroyed while on a goodwill flight. Mitchell’s reaction was prompt. From his post in ‘exile,’ he released a scathing denunciation of the Navy and War Department and dropped the heaviest bomb of his career. He released a 6,000-word statement saying that these and other accidents were ‘the result of incompetency, criminal negligence, and the almost treasonable negligence of our national defense by the War and Navy departments.’

Mitchell added that ‘all aviation policies, schemes and systems are dictated by the non-flying officers of the Army and Navy, who know practically nothing about it.’ He ended his denunciation by saying that ‘I can stand by no longer and see these disgusting performances…at the expense of the lives of our people, and the delusions of the American public.’

Reaction in Washington was immediate. Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis announced that Mitchell would be disciplined and implied that it would be by court-martial. Mitchell said he would welcome a court-martial if it’stung the conscience’ of the public. Press reaction was mixed. The New York Times charged Mitchell with ‘insubordination and folly.’ The Herald Tribune called him ‘opinionative, arrogant and intolerant.’ However, the Kansas City Star editorialized that although he was ‘a zealot, a fanatic, a one-idea man,’ someday his dream might come true.

Mitchell was put under technical arrest, and a court-martial began in Washington on October 28, 1925, for insubordination under the catch-all 96th Article of War. Twelve generals (two of whom were later dismissed) and a colonel were appointed to sit in judgment, the highest ranking court ever convened to try an officer. None of them was a flier.

The court-martial dragged on for seven weeks. When it was over, the board deliberated for about half an hour and rendered its verdict–guilty of the charge and all eight specifications. The sentence was suspension from rank, command and duty with forfeiture of pay and allowances for five years.

The verdict was widely debated on Capitol Hill, and veterans groups passed resolutions condemning the outcome. President Calvin Coolidge approved the sentence handed down by the court, but altered the court’s verdict by granting him full subsistence and half pay because Mitchell would not be able to accept private employment while still in uniform. Mitchell said he would not accept the modified sentence because it would make him ‘an object of government charity.’

Mitchell resigned effective February 1, 1926. He immediately embarked on a four-month, coast-to-coast lecture tour, showing films of the ship bombings and continually expressing his by now familiar theme of the necessity for military preparedness in the air. His sweeping charges appeared in major American magazines and aviation journals. He continually called attention to the rapid strides being made in aviation in Europe and Asia and warned of Japanese plans to seize the Hawaii, Alaska and the Philippines. He also predicted, accurately, that the Japanese would not bother to declare war formally. ‘We not only do nothing in the face of all this,’ he said, ‘but we leave our future in the air to incompetents.’

Mitchell wrote more than 60 articles, several newspaper series and five books, never deviating from his appeal for public understanding of the promise and potential of air power. He made his last public appearance on February 11, 1935, when he addressed the House Military Affairs Committee.

Weakened by his struggle, the old campaigner died in a New York hospital on February 19, 1936, at the age of 56. He had elected to be buried in Milwaukee, his hometown, where he enlisted in 1898, rather than at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1955, the Air Force Association passed a resolution to void Billy Mitchell’s court-martial. In 1957, Mitchell’s youngest child, William, Jr., petitioned the Air Force to set aside the court-martial verdict. Secretary of the Air Force James H. Douglas unhappily denied the request, saying, ‘It is tragic that an officer who contributed so much to his country’s welfare should have terminated his military career under such circumstances.’

Although the conviction was not removed, Billy Mitchell had already received a measure of official recognition from a grateful nation when President Harry S. Truman signed legislation in 1946 bestowing a special medal posthumously on Mitchell ‘in recognition of his outstanding pioneer service and foresight in the field of American military aviation.’

Should Billy Mitchell be remembered today? The answer is a definite and strong affirmative. He not only foresaw that an air force was essential for national survival but also educated the public and its leaders on the role that the airplane would eventually play in national life. For his foresight and willingness to sacrifice his career for his beliefs, the nation owes to this unorthodox visionary a debt of gratitude it can never repay.

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This article was written by C.V. Glines and originally published in the September 1997 issue of Aviation History magazine. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!

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