58 Facts About Billy Mitchell

William Lendrum Mitchell was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.

Billy Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country.

Billy Mitchell 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.

Billy Mitchell 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.

Billy Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a Congressional Gold Medal.

Billy Mitchell is the first person for whom an American military aircraft design, the North American B-25 Mitchell, is named.

Billy 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 Billy Mitchell served as a United States senator from 1883 to 1889.

Billy Mitchell was accepted into Columbian University in Washington, DC, but dropped out to join the United States Army during the Spanish-American War, though he eventually graduated from the school.

Billy 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.

Billy Mitchell quickly gained a commission due to his father's influence and joined the US Army Signal Corps.

From 1900 to 1904, Billy Mitchell was posted in the District of Alaska as a lieutenant in the Signal Corps.

Billy Mitchell 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, Billy Mitchell observed Orville Wright's flying demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia.

Billy Mitchell took flight lessons at the Curtiss Flying School at Newport News, Virginia.

Billy Mitchell 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.

Billy Mitchell administered the section until the new head, Lieutenant Colonel George O Squier, arrived from attache duties in London, England, where World War I was in progress, then became his permanent assistant.

Billy Mitchell rapidly earned a reputation as a daring, flamboyant, and tireless leader.

Billy Mitchell was promoted to the temporary rank of colonel on October 10,1917, to rank from August 5.

Billy Mitchell was elevated to the rank of brigadier general on October 14,1918, and commanded all American air combat units in France.

Billy Mitchell ended the war as Chief of Air Service and Chief Group of Armies.

Billy Mitchell was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with eight campaign clasps, and several foreign decorations.

Billy 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.

Billy 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 Billy Mitchell was assigned as third assistant executive, in charge of the Training and Operations Group, Office of Director of Air Service, in April 1919.

Billy Mitchell maintained his temporary wartime rank of brigadier general until June 18,1920, when he was reduced to lieutenant colonel, Signal Corps.

On March 4,1921, Mitchell was appointed Assistant Chief of Air Service by new President Warren G Harding with consent of the Senate.

Billy Mitchell did not share in the common belief that World War I would be the war to end war.

Billy Mitchell 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.

Billy Mitchell found his ideas publicly denounced as "pernicious" by Roosevelt.

Billy Mitchell advocated the development of a number of aircraft innovations, including bomb-sights, sled-runner landing gear for winter operations, engine superchargers, and aerial torpedoes.

Billy Mitchell ordered the use of aircraft in fighting forest fires and border patrols.

Billy Mitchell encouraged the staging of a transcontinental air race, a flight around the perimeter of the United States.

Billy Mitchell encouraged Army pilots to break aviation records for speed, endurance and altitude.

In February 1921, at the urging of Billy Mitchell, who was anxious to test his theories of destruction of ships by aerial bombing, Secretary of War Newton Baker and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels agreed to a series of joint Army-Navy exercises, known as Project B, to be held that summer in which surplus or captured ships could be used as targets.

Billy Mitchell was concerned that the building of dreadnoughts was taking precious defense dollars away from military aviation.

Billy Mitchell was convinced that a force of anti-shipping airplanes could defend a coastline with more economy than a combination of coastal guns and naval vessels.

Billy Mitchell infuriated the Navy by claiming he could sink ships "under war conditions", and boasted he could prove it if he were permitted to bomb captured German battleships.

The Chief of the Air Corps attempted to have Mitchell dismissed a week before the tests began, reacting to Navy complaints about Mitchell's criticisms, but the new Secretary of War John W Weeks backed down when it became apparent that Mitchell had widespread public and media support.

On May 1,1921, Billy Mitchell assembled the 1st Provisional Air Brigade, an air and ground crew of 125 aircraft and 1,000 men at Langley Field in Hampton, Virginia, using six squadrons from the Air Service:.

Billy Mitchell observed the attacks from the controls of his DH-4 aircraft, nicknamed The Osprey.

The fact of battleship sinking was indisputable, and Billy Mitchell repeated the performance twice in tests conducted with like results on the US pre-dreadnought battleship Alabama in September 1921, and the battleships Virginia and New Jersey in September 1923.

Billy Mitchell told the press that Army bombers alone could end the "Mingo War" by dropping tear gas on the miners.

Later, Billy Mitchell cited the "Mingo War" as an example of the potential for air power in civil disturbances.

In 1922, while in Europe for General Patrick, Billy Mitchell met the Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet and soon afterwards an excerpted translation of Douhet's The Command of the Air began to circulate in the Air Service.

Billy Mitchell came back with a 324-page report that predicted future war with Japan, including the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Billy Mitchell's report, published in 1925 as the book Winged Defense, foretold wider benefits of an investment in air power, believing it to be, at both that time and in the future, "a dominating factor in the world's development", both for national defense and economic benefit.

Billy Mitchell experienced difficulties within the Army, notably with his superiors when he appeared before the Lampert Committee of the US House of Representatives and sharply castigated Army and Navy leadership.

In 1958, Billy Mitchell's son petitioned the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records to reverse his father's conviction.

Billy Mitchell resigned instead on February 1,1926, and spent the next decade writing and preaching air power to all who would listen.

Billy Mitchell believed he might receive an appointment as Assistant Secretary of War for Air or perhaps even Secretary of War in a Roosevelt administration, but neither prospect materialized.

Billy Mitchell married his first wife, Caroline Stoddard, on December 2,1903.

Lawyers for Caroline and biographers reported that the marital problems were caused by Billy Mitchell, who became so erratic that his wife even considered sending him to a psychiatrist.

In 1926, Billy Mitchell made his home with his wife Elizabeth at the 120-acre Boxwood Farm in Middleburg, Virginia, which remained his primary residence until his death.

On February 19,1936, Billy Mitchell died in New York City at Doctors Hospital of a coronary occlusion.

Billy Mitchell was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

An air force officer reflected that if Billy Mitchell's promotion were granted, it would be "only a pyrrhic victory", since it would not "erase the questionable actions that proceeded from his passionate advocacy of airpower's independence".

Billy Mitchell is often referred to as a "brigadier general " because of his holding temporary rank during World War I and later after the war, although his permanent grade was colonel both during his temporary service as a general officer as well as at the time he resigned.