William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who had a major role in the creation of the United States Air Force."Mitchell, William Lendrum 1879-1936". Encyclopedia.com.
Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating for increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars. He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.
He antagonized many administrative leaders of the Army with his arguments and criticism and in 1925, his temporary appointment as a brigadier general was not renewed, and he reverted to his permanent rank of colonel, due to his insubordination. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense"This comment is quoted as "incompetency, criminal negligence, and almost treasonable administration by the War and Navy departments" from an interview given by General Mitchell in San Antonio, Texas, and published in The New York Times (September 7, 1925, page 4) according to "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1925)" in Footnotes to American History by Harold S. Sharp, Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, N.J., 1977, pp. 430–433. for investing in battleships. He resigned from the service shortly afterward.
Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a Congressional Gold Medal. He is also the first person for whom an American military aircraft design, the North American B-25 Mitchell, is named. Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the volcano Billy Mitchell in Papua New Guinea are also named after Mitchell.
Early life
Mitchell was born in Nice, France, to John L. Mitchell, a wealthy Wisconsin senator, and his wife Harriet Danforth (Becker). He grew up on an estate in North Greenfield, Wisconsin, which is now the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis. Mitchell's father served in the American Civil War as a first lieutenant in the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, along with future general Arthur MacArthur (the father of General Douglas MacArthur). The elder Mitchell served as a United States senator from 1883 to 1889.
Mitchell's paternal grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, a Scotsman, established what became the Milwaukee Road railroad and the Marine Bank of Wisconsin. Mitchell Park and the shopping precinct of Mitchell Street were named in his honor. Mitchell's paternal grandmother, Martha Reed Mitchell, was well known in charity, art and society circles.
Mitchell's sister Ruth fought with the Chetniks in Yugoslavia during World War II, and later wrote a book about her brother, My Brother Bill.
Mitchell was accepted into Columbian University (later renamed George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., but dropped out to join the United States Army during the Spanish-American War, though he eventually graduated from the school. While there he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Upon dropping out of Columbian at age 18, he enlisted in the United States Army as a private and was mustered into Company M of the 1st Wisconsin Infantry Regiment on May 14, 1898. Mitchell was immediately assigned and mobilized into Brigadier General Arthur MacArthur's command in the Philippines, where MacArthur was placed in charge of the Department of Northern Luzon in the spring of 1899. Mitchell participated in operations against Filipino insurgents in northern and central Luzon at the end of the Spanish-American War and during the Philippine–American War. He quickly gained a commission due to his father's influence and joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
Following the cessation of hostilities, Mitchell remained in the Army. From 1900 to 1904, Mitchell was posted in the District of Alaska as a lieutenant in the Signal Corps. On May 26, 1900, the United States Congress appropriated $450,000 to establish a communications system connecting the many isolated and widely separated U.S. Army outposts and civilian Gold Rush camps in Alaska by telegraph. Along with Captain George C. Brunnell, Lieutenant Mitchell oversaw the construction of what became known as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS). He predicted as early as 1906, while an instructor at the Army's Signal School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, that future conflicts would take place in the air, not on the ground.
In 1908, as a young Signal Corps officer, Mitchell observed Orville Wright's flying demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia. Mitchell took flight lessons at the Curtiss Flying School at Newport News, Virginia.
In March 1912, after assignments in the Philippines that saw him tour battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War and conclude that war with Japan was inevitable one day, Mitchell was one of 21 officers selected to serve on the General Staff—at the time, its youngest member at age 32. He appeared in August 1913 at legislative hearings considering a bill to make Army aviation a branch separate from the Signal Corps and testified against the bill. As the only Signal Corps officer on the General Staff, he was chosen as temporary head of the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, a predecessor of the present day United States Air Force, in May 1916, when its head was reprimanded and relieved of duty for malfeasance in the section. Mitchell administered the section until the new head, Lieutenant Colonel George O. Squier, arrived from attaché duties in London, England, where World War I was in progress, then became his permanent assistant. In June, he took private flying lessons at the Curtiss Flying School because he was proscribed by law from aviator training by age and rank, at an expense to himself of $1,470 (equivalent to about $ in ).Miller, Roger G. (2004). Billy Mitchell: "Stormy Petrel of the Air". Office of Air Force History: Washington, D.C., pp. 3–5. The Act of July 18, 1914, creating the Aviation Section, restricted aviation training to unmarried lieutenants under the age of 30. In July 1916, he was promoted to major and appointed Chief of the Air Service of the First Army.
World War I
When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Mitchell was in Spain en route to France as an observer. He arrived in Paris on April 10, and set up an office for the Aviation Section from which he collaborated extensively with British and French air leaders such as General Hugh Trenchard, studying their strategies as well as their aircraft. On April 24, he made the first flight by an American officer over German lines, flying with a French pilot. Before long, Mitchell had gained enough experience to begin preparations for American air operations. Mitchell rapidly earned a reputation as a daring, flamboyant, and tireless leader. In May, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He was promoted to the temporary rank of colonel on October 10, 1917, to rank from August 5.
In September 1918, he planned and led nearly 1,500 British, French, and Italian aircraft in the air phase of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, one of the first coordinated air-ground offensives in history. He was elevated to the rank of (temporary) brigadier general on October 14, 1918, and commanded all American air combat units in France. He ended the war as Chief of Air Service and Chief Group of Armies.
Recognized as one of the top American combat airmen of the war alongside aces such as his good friend, Eddie Rickenbacker, he was one of the best-known Americans in Europe. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with eight campaign clasps, and several foreign decorations. Despite his leadership and his combat record, he alienated many of his superiors during and after his 18 months of service in France.
Post-war advocate of air power
Return from Europe
Mitchell returned to the United States in January 1919; it had been widely expected throughout the Air Service that he would receive the post-war assignment of Director of Air Service. Instead, he returned to find that Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher, an artilleryman who had commanded the Rainbow Division in France, had been appointed director on the recommendation of his classmate General John Pershing, to maintain operational control of aviation by the ground forces.
Mitchell received appointment on February 28, 1919, as Director of Military Aeronautics, to head the flying component of the Air Service, but that office was in name only as it was a wartime agency that would expire six months after the signing of a peace treaty. Menoher instituted a reorganization of the Air Service based on the divisional system of the AEF, eliminating the DMA as an organization, and Mitchell was assigned as third assistant executive, in charge of the Training and Operations Group, Office of Director of Air Service (ODAS), in April 1919. He maintained his temporary wartime rank of brigadier general until June 18, 1920, when he was reduced to lieutenant colonel, Signal Corps (Menoher was reduced to brigadier general in the same orders).U.S. Air Service, September 1920, Vol. 4, Number 2, p. 34
When the Army was reorganized by Congress on June 4, 1920, the Air Service was recognized as a combatant arm of the line, third in size behind the Infantry and Artillery. On July 1, 1920, Mitchell was promoted to the Regular Army (i.e., permanent) rank of colonel in the Signal Corps, but also received a recess appointment (as did Menoher) on July 16 to become Assistant Chief of Air Service with the rank of brigadier general. On July 30, 1920, he was transferred and promoted to the permanent rank of colonel, Air Service, with date of rank from July 1, placing him first in seniority among all Air Service branch officers. On March 4, 1921, Mitchell was appointed Assistant Chief of Air Service by new president Warren G. Harding with consent of the Senate. On April 27, Mitchell was reappointed as a brigadier general with date of rank retroactive to July 2, 1920.
Mitchell did not share in the common belief that World War I would be the war to end war. "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."Glines, Carroll V. (1973). The Compact History of the United States Air Force. p. 111. Hawthorn Books.
He returned from Europe with a fervent belief that within a near future, possibly within ten years, air power would become the predominant force of war, and that it should be united entirely in an independent air force equal to the Army and Navy. He found encouragement in a number of bills before Congress proposing a Department of Aeronautics that included an air force separate from either the Army or Navy, primarily legislation introduced concurrently in August 1919 by Senator Harry New of Indiana and Representative Charles F. Curry of California, influenced by the recommendations of a fact-finding commission sent to Europe under the direction of Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell in early 1919 that contradicted the findings of Army boards and advocated an independent air force.
Friction with the Navy