The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Brig. Gen. William Mitchell - Dec. 15th, 2003

Aviation History Magazine ^ | September 1997 | C.V. Glines

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
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FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

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Brig. Gen. William Mitchell
(1879 - 1936)

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Billy Mitchell: Air Power Visionary

As Brig. Gen. William Mitchell faced court-martial charges in 1925, the Kansas City Star described him as 'a zealot, a fanatic, a one-idea man...' but added that someday his dream might come true.

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.


Born in Nice, France, in 1879, on his parent's extended tour of Europe, Mitchell was brought back to Milwaukee at age 3. This photo was taken in 1898, when Mitchell first entered the military service. Mitchell held the rank of junior lieutenant.

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.


Billy Mitchell's first solo landing, spring, 1917

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.


General Billy Mitchell, standing in an allied trench somewhere in France, ca. 1918.

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.


Billy Mitchell was a strong believer in the importance of air power

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.


Mitchell (at center, with walking stick) and his staff pose at Koblenz, Germany, in January 1919. His World War I experiences, he said, had "conclusively shown that aviation was a dominant element in the making of war."

Mitchell returned to the States as a hero in 1919 and was appointed assistant chief of the U.S. Army Air Service. He was appalled at how quickly the organization he had helped to build in war had disintegrated in peacetime. He decided that the nation must not be deluded into the belief that "the war to end all wars" had really accomplished that end. "If a nation ambitious for universal conquest gets off to a flying start in a war of the future," he said, "it may be able to control the whole world more easily than a nation has controlled a continent in the past." Such statements embarrassed his superiors. He soon provoked the Navy admirals into open hostility through his tirades against their super-dreadnought concepts.

[SAMWolf]

You're welcome Snippy.

We came up with some other good people to cover while you were here, now I just have to get off my butt and get them done

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. Darksheare sent me that one in my mail. I love it! Now that's a fun snow globe. Ha!

[Darksheare]

That it is.
Morning.
Heard that it's still snowing up bentfeather's way.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning SCDogPapa, I'm back home again on Eastern time now. :)

[snippy_about_it]

Hey larry. Good morning from the Foxhole.

[snippy_about_it]

We came up with some other good people to cover while you were here, now I just have to get off my butt and get them done

I know the feeling. Getting back into a "routine" will be tough. I sure enjoyed your company and I'm going to miss you.

[SAMWolf]

It's nice to get to do things I don't find the time to do otherwise. Maybe you should come up more often. :-)

[Valin]

He might want to get in touch with "This Old House".

[Valin]

Letters to the editor Todays Mpls (red) Star Tribune
Published December 15, 2003


One of our greatest days


The capture of Saddam Hussein will rank as one of the three greatest moments in the fight for freedom: the end of World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis and now the capture of Saddam.

May God bless all the innocent victims of this battle. Their sacrifice will not have been in vain. Freedom does not come cheaply but is well worth the cost. As Thomas Jefferson wrote so eloquently many years ago, "We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

May God also bless President Bush and our military men and women who have put their lives on the line for freedom.

Last of all, God bless America, the greatest nation ever on the face of the earth.

Harold Olson, Circle Pines.


Victory in unnecessary war


We are being told that Saddam Hussein has been captured alive by U.S. forces. This is indeed great news for the people of Iraq -- there will no longer be the fear that he may return to power. He was indeed a dreadful dictator.

But let us not forget today the premise by which we, the people of the United States, were sold this war on Iraq and the necessity to go after Saddam in the first place -- the imminent threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found.

We cannot let this capture distract us from the lies and propaganda used to sell this war. We have not found WMD, we have been unable to make links between Saddam and Al Qaida, and the stability and security of Iraq are still greatly in question.

We are going to be paying for this war and reconstruction for the next generation, and we have turned Iraq into the front on terrorism; it was not the front until we occupied the country.

Daniel Arlig, Chanhassen.


Now, where's the WMD?


OK, so we caught the wicked witch of the Mideast. But catching Saddam Hussein doesn't change the fact that we still haven't found the weapons of mass destruction that were the reason we invaded Iraq in the first place.

Doug Williams, Robbinsdale.


Bring down the signs


I have a message for those people who continue to deplore President Bush's strategic objective of a regime change in the Middle East: Now is finally the time to take down those "No War In Iraq" signs.

They no longer serve to proclaim your liberal pacifism. They merely indicate that your head is buried in our prairie loam.

D.B. Haley, Minneapolis.


Next stop: the Hague


The United States should turn Saddam Hussein over to the Hague for trial under international law for crimes against humanity.

The United States has no reason to try Saddam under U.S. law. He has committed no crimes against this country, only against the Iraqi people and other Middle Eastern countries.

But Iraq has no legitimate government and thus is incapable of conducting a fair trial. Turning Saddam over to the Hague would acknowledge the legitimacy of international law -- which this administration has yet to do. It would be a civilized act and still assure that this evil man is punished for his heinous crimes.

In many ways it would be a far greater deterrent to tyranny than allowing him to be ripped to pieces by an Iraqi mob because it would signal that the world is unified against genocide, and will root it out and punish it wherever it occurs.

Robert Veitch, Minneapolis.


Raining on Bush's parade


It will be interesting to see what negative spin the mindless Democrats will offer on the capture of Saddam Hussein. It is inevitable!

Curt Anderson, Henning, Minn.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning Matthew. It's 29 degrees in Ohio this morning, we have 3 inches of snow and it is chilly. I just returned home yesterday from my vacation with Sam in Oregon. It is warmer where he is and I wish I was still there. It will be winter here until March and I hate it so. I really need to move to a better climate when the job market improves.

Do you have a hangover today, a headache from all the celebrating? LOL.

[snippy_about_it]

It's nice to get to do things I don't find the time to do otherwise.

It was nice to do them together.

Maybe you should come up more often.

I think you're right and I think I will. :)

[snippy_about_it]

Incredible. I agree with what SAM said to me, Saddam should hang, a firing squad is too honorable for him.

I think the new Iraqi government should sentence him to flogging first and then hang him and the leftists in this country and in Europe should remember his atrocities, the left are lovers of communism and it's too bad we cannot silence them while we're at it.

[stand watie]

!!!!!!!

[SAMWolf]

LOL! Even Bob Villa can't help that one.

[snippy_about_it]

Free the Southland BUMP!!!!!

[SAMWolf]

Morning Matt. We have snow in Oregon too, we just keep it on the mountains most of the time.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Valin.

Seems some people still have their Hotel up their Alpha. Reminds me of one of my sayings I quote alot "Some people are just too syupid to live"

[SAMWolf]

Had to believe that the Country that started the airplane craze had no planes of it's own during WWI. We had yoi use french and British planes.