Mitchell, William

Mitchell, William (Billy Mitchell), 1879–1936, American army officer and pilot, b. Nice, France. He enlisted (1898) in the U.S. army in the Spanish-American War and received a commission in the regular army in 1901, serving with the signal corps. Rising during World War I to the rank of brigadier general, he organized and ably commanded the American expeditionary air force. After the war, he became assistant chief of air service in the U.S. army, and, as an advocate of airpower, argued vehemently for a large independent air force. He urged the military potential of strategic bombing, airborne forces, and polar air routes, and created a national issue when, to demonstrate the superiority of airpower, he directed the sensational sinking (1921–23) of several warships in prearranged tests. However, his sharp public criticisms of military leaders for neglect of airpower led to his court martial (1925); he was sentenced to a five-year suspension from duty and forfeiture of pay, but resigned (1926) from the army. He continued to promote airpower as a civilian, but not until World War II were his main ideas adopted. Mitchell's writings include Winged Defense (1925) and Skyways (1930).

Bibliography

See biographies by I. D. Levine (1943, repr. 1972), R. Burlingame (1952), and A. F. Hurley (1964); B. Davis, The Billy Mitchell Affair (1967).

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Mitchell, (William) “Billy” (1879–1936) aviation pioneer; born in Nice, France. Son of a U.S. senator, he grew up in Milwaukee, enlisted for service in the Spanish-American War and received a Signal Corps commission in 1901. Assigned to the aviation section in 1916, Mitchell learned to fly the following year and immediately became a forceful and outspoken advocate of military air power. In France in September 1918, he commanded the largest concentration of aircraft—some 1,500 warplanes—in aviation's brief history. In 1921 and 1923 the energetic Mitchell arranged for aircraft to demonstrate the potential of the new arm by sinking obsolete warships at sea; unconvinced, the authorities continued to grade air power low on the priority list. Mitchell provoked a court-martial by his continuing and insistent criticism of his superiors, whom he accused of negligence and even treason. Convicted of insubordination, he resigned from the army in February 1926. As a civilian, he continued to promote his vision of air power's importance in warfare. World War II brought him full posthumous vindication.