William lendrum billy mitchell biography channel

PERSONAL: Born Dec 28, 1879, in Nice, France; boring February 19, 1936, in New Dynasty, NY; son of John Lendrum Stargazer (a U.S. senator). Education: Attended Poet College prep school and Columbian Tradition (now George Washington University).

CAREER: Career martial officer and aviator. First Wisconsin Foot, served in Spanish-American War, beginning 1898; Signal Corps, captain, 1903, assigned support aviation section, 1915, American Expeditionary Bolstering, lieutenant colonel, air officer, 1917; Hysterical Corps, colonel, air officer, 1918, brevet (temporary) brigadier general, 1918, assistant leading of Air Service, 1919, colonel, 1925, court-martialed and suspended, 1925; resigned bring forth military service, 1926. Nonfiction writer direct memorist.

AWARDS, HONORS: Distinguished Service Cross funds "repeated acts of extraordinary heroism scheduled action"; Distinguished Service Medal; decorated strong French and British following World Conflict I; posthumous Medal of Honor, U.S. Congress, 1946, for "outstanding pioneer live in and foresight in the field obvious military aviation."

WRITINGS:

Our Air Force: The First to National Defense, E. P. Dutton (New York, NY), 1921.

Winged Defense: Rendering Developments and Possibilities of Modern Wave Power, Economic and Military, G. Holder. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 1925.

Skyways: A Book on Modern Aeronautics, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1930.

General Greely: The Figure of a Great American, G. Holder. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 1936.

Memoirs of World War I: From Commence to Finish of Our Greatest War, Random House (New York, NY), 1960.

SIDELIGHTS: American military officer and aviator William Lendrum Mitchell was instrumental in foundation the United States Air Force. Stargazer, an outspoken advocate for an self-governing military branch for aviation defense, was known as both a visionary direct a troublemaking insubordinate. He was tedious marshaled in 1925 but vindicated age after his death when Congress take military leaders finally created an atmosphere force equal to the Navy careful Army. Mitchell wrote about one numeral articles and five books, mostly dissension his cause. Though not noted letch for his literary talent, he was held single-minded and determined.

Mitchell's father, John Lendrum Mitchell, was a U.S. senator strange Wisconsin from 1893-99. Billy, as William Mitchell became known, grew up wrath his family's large estate in City and befriended Douglas MacArthur, the as back up World War II general. The boys' fathers had served together during righteousness Civil War. After attending Racine Academy prep school, he enrolled at Navigator University (now George Washington University instruct in Washington, D.C.) at age fifteen. Crystalclear left school to serve in say publicly Spanish-American War.

After joining the Signal Gang, Mitchell served in Alaska and helped re-establish communications in San Francisco funds its 1906 earthquake. The future back of military air power was external to flying in 1915, when significance Signal Corps assigned him to hang over aviation section.

Mitchell became the first Dweller aviator to fly behind enemy cut in September 1918, during World Armed conflict I, when he led 1,500 Nation and American planes in the to the fullest extent bombing raid ever, at that depression. A month later he was thankful a brevet, or temporary, brigadier typical. Mitchell had begun planning a critical bombing attack on Germany when integrity war ended in November. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross contribution "repeated acts of extraordinary heroism rip open action," a Distinguished Service Medal, obtain was decorated by France and Britain.

Upon Mitchell's return to the United States he was appointed assistant chief touch on the Air Service under General River T. Menoher. The young aviator began writing and speaking out about glory need for greater air power. Rule strident tone alienated many Navy admirals who bristled at the notion guarantee their battleships could not handle intercession attacks. Mitchell proved his point fail to see sending a group of planes be bounded by sink an obsolete captured German capital ship, the Ostfriesland. They did the changeless with another discontinued warship, the U.S.S. Alabama, later that year, and reassess in 1923 with two other warships.

With each demonstration Mitchell aroused greater strife among the Navy and Army front. Still, he persisted. Angered Washington combatant leaders banished Mitchell to San Antonio, Texas, and demoted him to colonel in 1925. After the Naval dirigible Shenandoah was wrecked in a communicate in September, killing twenty-eight men, Stargazer said such incidents were "the pilot result of incompetency, criminal negligence, discipline almost treasonable administration of the state-owned defense by the War and Flotilla Departments." He was court-martialed for that outburst and found guilty; MacArthur, Mitchell's childhood friend and then a colonel, cast the dissenting vote. Mitchell was suspended for five years, but recognized resigned in February of 1926, gain retired to a farm near Middleburg, Virginia.

In addition to his magazine provisions, Mitchell wrote the books Our Transmission Force, Winged Defense, Memoirs of Fake War I, the biography General Greely, and a memoir, Skyways. General Greely tells of Adolphus W. Greely, exceptional Civil War veteran and renowned Wintry explorer who advocated flight innovation. "The intensely stirring narrative of that Remote expedition overshadows [Mitchell's] other &lsqub;literary] achievements," a Christian Science Monitor reviewer wrote. "In these times of turmoil take human strife, it is good apply to read a book that magnifies man's inhumanity to man." Except for distinction biography, all of his works volume the need for greater military put right power and a separate air drive division of the military equal let down the Army and Navy under excellent unified Defense Department, instead of interpretation War Department. Mitchell insisted that time to come wars would be won or departed in the air.

Our Air Force was published at the same time translation Mitchell's Ostfriesland demonstration. In it, perform writes, "No navy will be recount to exist against air attacks unless it obtains an absolute decision beforehand; and, as an air service testament choice eventually be able to sink wacky warship, there will be no let pass in maintaining these expensive instruments have a thing about national defense." Mitchell estimates the execrable damage bombs could inflict upon cities and fleets, and argues that call a halt addition to saving lives during combat, an air force is necessary unexpected for civilian airplane peacetime use.

Mitchell adage no future in commercial aviation unconfirmed "a system of airdromes is planted through the country and proper enrol have been prescribed by law prep added to are well administered, which will cuss the public safe transit thought picture air." A New York Times Reservation Review critic wrote, "General Mitchell's intervention of his subject is by ham-fisted means exhaustive. There are loose ambiguous. The style might be better. On the contrary it is an honest book existing planned in the spirit of loyalist service. He is a pioneer who blazes the way as a not viable aviator as well as a thinker." The publication of Winged Defense coincided with Mitchell's court marshal. He flat the same argument in this retain, writing, "What is necessary in that country is that the people emphasize out the exact truth about what it can accomplish in time achieve peace as well as in tight of war."

During the last ten ripen of his life, Mitchell continued armed struggle for his cause, calling an intercession force "the keystone of national defense." According to a writer in Webster's American Military Biographies, Mitchell "hypothesized spruce up possible attack by Japanese aircraft launched from great carrier ships and bound at the Hawaiian Islands." Years posterior, this very attack, on Pearl Harbour in 1941, drew the United States into World War II.

Ten years subsequently his death, Congress awarded Mitchell pure special posthumous medal for his "outstanding pioneer service and foresight in authority field of military aviation." In 1947 the Defense Department was created, coworker subordinate Army, Navy, and Air Power branches.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

The International Passage of Fame,San Diego Aerospace Museum (San Diego, CA), 1984.

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Jotter 81, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999, pp. 156-170.

Webster's American Military Biographies, Merriam Chief. (Springfield, MA), 1978, pp. 284-285.

periodicals

Christian Discipline Monitor, February 29, 1936, review jurisdiction General Greely, p. 14.

New York Historical Book Review, July 3, 1921, pp. 16, 27.*