Investor's Business Daily, August 13th, 2007
From the sky thousands of feet above, U.S. airplanes rained down 2,000-pound bombs on enemy targets. The bombs pierced the warships below, sinking all of them to the bottom of the sea.
That scene took place not during World War II, but at Chesapeake Bay, Md., in the summer of 1921.
Having seen firsthand during World War I just how effective airplanes could be, Army Brig. Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell (1879-1936) was convinced they'd one day be the most potent fighting weapon in the world. He was determined that the U.S. would be able to wield that weapon effectively.
He told Army and Navy officials that planes under his command could sink battleships at sea. At that time, U.S. air forces were part of the Army and Navy.
Navy officials said he couldn't do it. So Mitchell set out to show them.
The stage was set. Mitchell made sure 50 reporters were there, along with hundreds of dignitaries. Then Mitchell had his pilots bomb captured German warships.
First they sank small ships, then a cruiser, then a destroyer. Finally, they sent the mighty 27,000-ton German battleship Ostfriesland to the bottom of the sea.
Military experts today say it was that demonstration of air power, combined with Mitchell's untiring efforts, that led to the founding of the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
Christopher Long, a Mitchell cousin who lives in Scotland, says his famous relative never shrank from controversy. "He was pugnacious, very determined and extremely confident. I think this is the thing that comes across," Long told IBD.
Mitchell took calculated risks to make sure operations went as planned, such as flying behind enemy lines during WWI and the demonstration bombings in 1921.
Mitchell knew that closely observing situations around him was an essential military tactic.
He didn't just watch events and people. He also studied history, charts, graphs and reports from personnel in an effort to get up-to-the-minute information.
"Mitchell was insatiable in his thirst for information," Mitchell biographer Burke Davis wrote in "The Billy Mitchell Affair."
When he visited Japan before World War I and in the early 1920s, Mitchell scouted the huge military buildup in that country. He used his findings to accurately forecast the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor years later.
The son of a wealthy senator, Mitchell was born in Nice, France, while his parents toured Europe.
He became enamored of the military from a young age, and in 1898 joined the Army as a lieutenant. Intrigued by the innovation of flight, he took his first flying lessons in 1916.
He loved it so much, he practiced whenever he could and quickly became proficient at flying. During World War I, he became the first American to fly behind enemy lines.
His ability got him noticed, and in 1919 the Army named him director of military aeronautics.
From 1921 to 1926, he served as assistant to the chief of Air Service. During that time, he fought hard for a separate branch of the military, what would become the Air Force.
But Mitchell angered many top Army officers. They didn't like the idea of a separate Air Force. Shortly after the demonstration bombing, his superiors sent Mitchell on a round-the-world "fact finding" mission to get him out of their hair for a while.
Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Mitchell used that trip to compile a wealth of military intelligence. In his 1924 report, Mitchell predicted that Japan would attack the U.S., most likely at Pearl Harbor, rather than declare war.
"Attack will be launched as follows: bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island (in Pearl Harbor) at 7:30 a.m. Group to move in column of flights in V (formation). Each ship will drop ... projectiles on the targets," he wrote.
His report got it almost exactly right. Though the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor didn't start until 7:55 a.m., people on the ground that day reported seeing planes circling overhead at 7:30 that morning. The planes were waiting for slower planes carrying torpedoes to arrive before beginning the attack.
In the mid-1920s, Mitchell was furious that the government didn't give enough funds to the air forces in the Army and Navy. As a result of underfunding, planes and dirigibles kept crashing. When the Navy dirigible Shenandoah crashed on Sept. 3, 1925, Mitchell could take no more.
Undeterred by the fact that he was risking his career, he wrote a 6,000-word open letter to the public. In it, he described Army and Navy policy as "incompetency, criminal negligence ... almost treasonable negligence."
As usual, he shared his opinions at length with reporters. Mitchell was court-martialed in December 1925 for his action. The Army found him guilty of insubordination. After the court-martial, he left the Army.
He never stopped speaking out about air power. In a 1930 book titled "Skyways," Mitchell said: "My children in their lifetime will see aeronautics become the greatest and principal means of national defense and rapid transportation all over the world and possibly beyond our world into interstellar space."
Congress awarded him the medal of honor posthumously in 1946.
This story originally ran Nov. 11, 2004, on Leaders & Success.
