Billy Mitchell's War with the Navy: The Interwar Rivalry Over Air Power

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2013 by Thomas Wildenberg

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Wildenberg, Thomas, 1947-

Billy Mitchell’s war with the Navy : the interwar rivalry over air power / by Thomas Wildenberg.

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-61251-332-4 (epub) 1. Mitchell, William, 1879–1936. 2. Generals—United States—Biography. 3. United States. Navy—Aviation—History—20th century. 4. United States. Army. Air Corps—History. 5. Air power—United States—History—20th century. 6. Aerial bombing—United States—History—20th century. I. Title.

UG626.2.M57

358.400973’09042—dc23

2013037882

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

212019181716151413987654321

First printing

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

1THE MAKING OF A SOLDIER

2A FLEDGLING EAGLE SOARS TO GREAT HEIGHTS

3LAYING DOWN THE GAUNTLET

4A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW

5DREADNOUGHTS UNDER FIRE

6BOMBING EXPERIMENTS OFF THE VIRGINIA CAPES

7THE AIRPLANE VERSUS THE BATTLESHIP

8RACING AND RECORD SETTING

9PATRICK TAKES CHARGE

10THE TIPPING POINT

11A QUESTION OF LOYALTY

12A MILESTONE IN AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION

13THE AIR CORPS AND COAST DEFENSE

14THE VERDICT OF HISTORY

EPILOGUE:BILLY MITCHELL IN PERSPECTIVE

APPENDIX I.Leadership of the United States Army and Navy 1916–1939

APPENDIX II.Alfred Johnson’s Comments on Mitchell’s Articles in the Saturday Evening Post

Notes

Other Biographies of Billy Mitchell

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

TABLES

TABLE 6-1.Ostfriesland BOMBING SCHEDULE

TABLE 13-1.SUMMARY OF BOMBING EXERCISES, 1932–1941

FIGURE

FIGURE 12.-1. AMENDMENTS PROPOSED BY THE ARMY TO FUNCTIONS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY

MAP

MAP I.WASHINGTON-ALASKA MILITARY CABLE AND TELEGRAPH SYSTEM (WAMCATS)

PREFACE

My interest in Billy Mitchell started in the mid-1990s when I unexpectedly came across the papers of Vice Adm. Alfred W. Johnson, USN (Ret.), while searching through the unprocessed collections of the Naval Historical Foundation. In 1921 Johnson, then a captain, had been in command of the naval force assembled on the Virginia Capes to conduct the bombing trials using the ex-German warships sent to the United States after World War I. As I discovered while going through his collection, Johnson was so outraged by Mitchell’s failure to abide by the rules and flagrant disregard of orders during the bombing trials that he became the lead protagonist in the Navy’s efforts to thwart Mitchell’s effort to absorb naval aviation into a united air service modeled on the Royal Air Force. The material in Johnson’s collection was important enough to warrant its immediate transfer to the manuscript collection in the Operational Archives Branch of what was then known as the Naval Historical Center—now the Naval History and Heritage Command.

While the information found in Johnson’s collection on Mitchell’s role in the bombing of the Ostfriesland and his subsequent attacks on the Navy was extremely interesting from the perspective of a naval historian, I knew relatively little about Billy Mitchell at the time and did not pursue it further. Nevertheless, I was intrigued enough to make a mental note to learn more about this iconic figure. When Douglas Waller’s A Question of Loyalty: Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial That Gripped the Nation was published in 2004, it immediately caught my attention. Thus, I was extremely pleased, and readily agreed, when the editors of Naval History asked me to review the book for their magazine. Although Waller focused on Mitchell’s court-martial and the events leading up to it, his book contained a significant amount of new material that provided valuable insights into Mitchell’s thought processes and the rationale for his actions.

While working on my review of A Question of Loyalty, I rediscovered Johnson’s history of the naval bombing experiments off the Virginia Capes, hidden on the shelves in the Navy Department Library. The bound volume, written in 1951 for the Naval Historical Foundation and containing extensive details of the tests, was based on original documents generated by the Navy before, during, and after the tests were conducted in June and July 1921. Included within its pages were numerous photographs of the various ex-German warships being bombed by Army and Navy aircraft. Also included was an appendix containing copies of original documents that had been prepared prior to, during, and after the tests.

By now I was hooked on Mitchell, but I still was not sure whether or not I wanted to tackle such a controversial figure. Several biographies of Mitchell had already been published, but as I discovered, none had been written from the Navy’s point of view. I was well aware of the competition and animosity between naval aviators and Army flyers during the interwar period, and I began to think in terms of using this as a theme around which Mitchell’s story could be told. I was busy with other projects, however, and declined to proceed further until the summer of 2008, when I was introduced to Larry W. Burke, who was then a graduate student pursuing a PhD degree at Carnegie Mellon University.

Burke had just arrived at the National Air and Space Museum for a one-year residency as the Ramsey Fellow in naval aviation history. Having been a Ramsey Fellow myself, I was interested in discovering what project Burke would be working on during the coming year. Burke’s intention proved to be to study the development of aviation doctrine in the U.S. military services in the interwar period. I suggested that the controversy between the Army and the Navy fostered by Mitchell’s actions would make an ideal topic of study. Burke declined to pursue this idea, citing his adviser’s insistence on his sticking with the broader view.

At this point I had already on numerous occasions discussed Billy Mitchell with Dom Pisano. Dom, who is a curator in the Aeronautics Division at Air and Space, was then working on his yet-to-be-completed book about aviation culture in the 1920s and ’30s. He and I talked often about Mitchell’s impact on the ideas and culture that ultimately led the Army Air Forces to focus on strategic bombing. These discussions, along with the preliminary research that I had already conducted, convinced me that a book about Billy Mitchell’s battle with the Navy and the ensuing interservice rivalry over air power would be a valuable contribution to the historiography of military aviation.

As I delved deeper into Mitchell’s background, I was surprised to find that his leadership role in World War I has often been overlooked. Yet it is doubtful—in my humble opinion—that the U.S. Air Service would have succeeded had Billy Mitchell not been available to take the reins of the combat units that were essential to the American Expeditionary Force’s victory at St. Mihiel and its success during the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Mitchell had just the right combination of skills and personality—despite (or perhaps because of) a streak of arrogance—needed to lead the fledgling Air Service in France. His ability to win over Allied air leaders was a major coup that enabled Mitchell to quickly learn the nuances of air warfare and the skills needed to pilot an aircraft. The initiative demonstrated by Mitchell combined with his personal bravery made him the ideal leader to command the inexperienced pilots of the AEF.

Much to my dismay, however, I also found that Mitchell’s importance to the development of strategic bombing has been grossly overstated by those interested in perpetuating Billy Mitchell’s iconic image as the founding father of the U.S. Air Force. As the interested reader will find in the coming pages, Mitchell did not invent the idea of strategic bombing and came late to the notion of destroying the enemy’s capacity to wage war by attacking his cities.

As stated earlier, one of my objectives in writing Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy was to document the interservice rivalry over air power. Like that of many others in the baby-boom generation, my perception of the struggle between the Army and Navy airmen in the period between the two world wars was acutely influenced by the film On the Wings of Eagles. The movie, which was first shown in theatres around the country in 1957, was broadcast numerous times on television while I and others of my generation were growing up. The animosity depicted in the movie has remained with me ever since, even though I have read of many instances in which Army airmen helped their counterparts in the Navy and vice versa. After considerable research it appears that on the Navy side, the animosity to Army airmen stemmed from Mitchell’s unethical attempt to discredit naval aviation in the early 1920s in order to further his goal for a united air force independent of the other services. On the Army side, the hostility seems to have been a vestige of Mitchell’s rhetoric as promulgated by disciples who continued to tout the benefits of strategic bombing for years after the end of World War II.

In truth, the interwar struggle between the air services was driven by money. It was an ongoing fight by the services in an era of severe austerity to obtain funds to develop aviation. There was simply not enough money in the federal budget to expand the air services of both the Army and the Navy at the levels both wanted. When Billy Mitchell returned to the United States after the end of World War I, the Army Air Service, of which he was the deputy head, was discharging pilots and closing training fields; it had few aircraft, having left the majority of its obsolete airplanes in Europe. Worst of all, it lacked a mission to justify its continued development as a fighting force to be reckoned with. The solution was found in coastal defense; it was a new role for air power, and Mitchell quickly latched onto it. In the next two decades the Air Service and its successor, the U.S. Air Corps, fought the Navy tooth and nail over the issue of land-based aircraft and their role in national defense.

Before proceeding further, I must mention a word or two about my sources and the previous biographies that have been written about Billy Mitchell. Many writers and historians have taken at face value statements about Mitchell that have appeared in print, not looking thoroughly into their origins and veracity. Many of these statements are seriously flawed—out of context, chronologically incorrect, at odds with the historical record. Some have been taken from Mitchell’s typewritten diary, which was produced after the war and undoubtedly edited to enhance Mitchell’s reputation. In order to avoid such mistakes, I have gone back to the original material whenever possible and have meticulously documented the sources that I have relied on for my interpretation of events, Mitchell’s career, and his personality. Anyone interested in learning more about the historiography behind Mitchell should consult the annotated list of biographies that begins on page 245.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Producing a work of this nature cannot be done without the help of a great many people. I am obliged to recognize the many friends, colleagues, associates, and archivists who encouraged or assisted me with this project. I am especially indebted to retired Air Force Historian Roger Miller for his continued assistance throughout the project and his meticulous review of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Dom Pisano, Curator, National Air and Space Museum, for his continued support and encouragement and for the many discussions we had concerning Air Corps culture in the 1920s and ’30s. Other good friends who contributed their knowledge and advice include Norman Polmar, Bill Trimble, and Geoff Rossano. Liz Argentieri, Special Collections Librarian, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo; Malea Young Walker, Reference Librarian, Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room, Library of Congress; Joseph D. Caver at the Air Force Historical Research Agency; and Charles Johnson, reference archivist, National Archives, all deserve special thanks for their assistance in locating a number of key documents cited in the manuscript. I would also like to thank Edward Arrizabalaga for his draft biography of Alfred Johnson, which provided valuable leads to other research sources. Lastly, a word of special thanks to Pelham G. Boyer, managing editor of the Naval War College Review, who did a stellar job of editing the original manuscript.

1

The Making of a Soldier

When the United States declared war with Spain on April 25, 1898, William Billy Mitchell was an eighteen-year-old college student just finishing his junior year at Columbian College in Washington, D.C. Like most Americans, he had watched with concern the growing acrimony between Spain and the United States over the former’s treatment of the rebellious citizens of Cuba. Fueled by the fires of yellow journalism and a growing sense of nationalism, Mitchell, along with thousands of other young men in America, responded to President William McKinley’s call for 125,000 volunteers by rushing off to enlist in the fight to free Cuba. For Mitchell this meant returning to his home state of Wisconsin, where he joined the 1st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry as a private. Thus began a twenty-seven-year military career that would culminate in a highly publicized court-martial for insubordination in 1925. Along the way, Mitchell would become one of the most highly decorated pilots in the U.S. Army Air Service, take command of the largest group of Allied war planes assembled during World War I, and rise to the temporary rank of brigadier general. He would achieve the fame—but not the fortune—he craved, becoming the nation’s foremost evangelist of air power at the expense of the U.S. Navy, which he would come to demonize.

William Mitchell was born on December 29, 1879, in Nice, France, where his parents, John and Harriet Mitchell, a well-to-do couple from a prominent Milwaukee family, were then residing. His grandfather, Alexander Mitchell—once referred to as the Rothschild of Milwaukee—was a railroad tycoon and banker who had substantial real-estate interests. Unlike his grandfather, who was a stern, hardheaded businessman, Billy’s father was an idealist who had a profound feeling for the underdog and found his calling in politics.¹ Elected to the Congress in 1890, he served two terms in the House of Representatives before becoming a one-term senator. Being a Civil War veteran, Mitchell’s father had an intense interest in military history and dragged his children all over Europe to look at battlefields. He kept in touch with his fellow veterans; old campaigners and famous generals were forever in and out of the house, chuckling and roaring over ancient exploits.² Their stories undoubtedly left an impression on his young son.

When Billy Mitchell was three years old, his parents returned to their home in Milwaukee and their farm estate at Meadowmere; there Billy spent most of his childhood. It was a wonderful place to grow up in, wrote Eleanor Mercein Kelly, a novelist who grew up in Milwaukee and was a playmate of the Mitchell children. It had ponies to ride, cows to milk, a private racecourse, and a small lake with a flat-bottomed rowboat to play in. It was at Meadowmere that Billy learned to ride and handle horses. He tracked in the woods with his air rifle and climbed the tallest trees in search of specimens for his collection of stuffed birds. He was a crack shot, according to his first biographer, and could plug a hole in a fruit can one hundred feet away.³ Billy was also an expert swimmer and a proficient ball player.

At age nine Mitchell was enrolled in Racine College, an Episcopalian preparatory school for boys in Racine, Wisconsin. He resided there during the fall and winter terms, returning during the summer break to Meadowmere, where he continued to hone his lifelong passion for hunting and fishing, horsemanship, and guns. A former schoolmate later recalled that Mitchell had the latest golf clothes and clubs, tennis racquets, shotguns, fishing tackle, skates, and hockey paraphernalia. He was a favorite of his instructors and could be charming when he wanted, but he was already showing signs of his assertiveness, an inclination to exaggeration, and a tendency to resist authority.⁴

Mitchell spent several years at Racine College, before transferring to the Columbian Preparatory School in Washington, D.C. By then Mitchell’s father had been elected to the U.S. Senate, and it made sense for the Mitchells to have their son close by. He remained close to the family after graduation, entering Columbian College (later George Washington University) in the fall of 1895.⁵

The young Mitchell had shown no interest in a career in the military until the United States declared war on Spain, but when it did, the lure of adventure, fed by thoughts of glory—he had seen the parades of the Grand Army of the Republic and had been raised on the stories of his father’s Civil War infantry regiment—caused him to abandon his studies. Mitchell left Washington and returned to Milwaukee, where he enlisted as a private in the 1st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. Although Mitchell’s father had spoken out on the floor of the Senate against the war, he used his political influence to obtain a commission for Billy, who was quickly promoted to second lieutenant and assigned to the regimental signal company. This assignment proved extremely fortuitous for Billy, as it brought him into contact with regular members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps.⁶

After initial training at Chickamauga in northwestern Georgia, Mitchell moved with the 1st Wisconsin to an encampment near Jacksonville, Florida, where disease and the staggering July heat took a terrible toll on the troops. Jacksonville had been designated as the concentration point for the Army’s VII Corps, which was to occupy Cuba. After peace was declared in August, the question arose as to whether or not the volunteer regiments in the corps should be deployed to Cuba. With the Spanish defeated, the Army decided to muster a large portion of the 1st Wisconsin out of active service. By then Mitchell, who had been given command of a signal company in the VII Corps’ signal battalion, was on his way to Cuba. Arriving in late November 1898, Mitchell’s company was assigned to laying telegraph wire and establishing lines of communication between various outposts on the island. Mitchell’s unit accomplished these tasks well, and was he singled out for his leadership.⁷

In February 1899, Lieutenant Mitchell was given the important mission of constructing a telegraph line between the capital, Havana, and the city of Santiago de Cuba. At nineteen years of age Mitchell suddenly found himself in command of an Army surgeon, forty soldiers, sixty-three pack mules, and a large number of Cuban laborers. His first task was to move them via coastal steamer to the town of Gibara, on the north coast of Cuba about seventy miles northwest of Santiago de Cuba. When they arrived at their destination, the ship’s captain, in an attempt save money, tried to put Mitchell, his men, their supplies, and all their animals ashore using a small boat. Mitchell decided that this was an unsafe procedure and refused to follow the captain’s instructions. After a short argument, Mitchell put the captain and the boat’s crew under guard while he went ashore to find a more suitable means of disembarking his command. Once on shore, he located a large flatboat, which he used to ferry his troops and their supplies ashore.⁸

The incident, which Mitchell described in a letter to his mother, is retold here because it shows two critical aspects of Mitchell’s personality that would govern his behavior throughout most of his military career. The first was his intolerance of ineptitude or incompetence, the second his penchant for taking the initiative. The latter impressed his superiors and would have a positive effect, leading to rapid advancement; the former often led conflicts with his superiors, creating enemies who later turned against him.

It took Mitchell several months to complete the telegraph line. At times he was completely cut off from headquarters in Havana, but when the 138-mile connection between Santiago and Havana was finished Mitchell’s unit had constructed more miles of telegraph line than any other Signal Corps detachment in Cuba. When Mitchell returned to Havana at the end of May 1899, he filed a detailed report on the construction of the telegraph line and its condition. The report attracted the attention of the chief signal officer in Havana, who forwarded it to Chief of the Signal Corps, Brig. Gen. Adolphus W. Greely.

Mitchell was unsure how long he wanted to stay in the Army when he first arrived in Cuba. He appears to have relished the challenge of independent command, however, and decided to stay in the Army at least for another year, even though this was against the wishes of his father, with whom he corresponded on a regular basis. If the life of a soldier appealed to Mitchell, the low pay of an Army lieutenant could not support the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed while a civilian. Funds to pay for his dress uniform, sword, and a horse had come from his mother, who continued to periodically send him money to support his social life while he was stationed in Havana.⁹

Mitchell’s report, which was favorably received in Washington, coupled with his excellent record in Cuba, won approval for his request for service in the Philippines. There the Army was fully engaged in putting down an insurrection that had arisen during the American occupation of the islands. Once in the Philippines, Mitchell took command of a signal company in Manila. The work was similar to what he had done in Cuba, except the Philippine Islands were much larger and the telegraph system more complex. Mitchell also came under fire on a number of occasions, which had not occurred in Cuba. When not in the field, Mitchell made the most of every moment to hunt or participate in the Army’s social life. He had come to ‘know pretty nearly every officer in the American Army’ and he was delighted by the good fellowship they so readily extended to him.¹⁰ Mitchell’s duty in the Philippines reinforced his growing conviction that he should pursue a career in the military. Although he had considered transferring to the cavalry, his success in the field and the praise that he won from his superiors sealed his destiny. He would remain in the Signal Corps after his enlistment as a volunteer expired and attempt to obtain a permanent commission in the U.S. Army.¹¹

Mitchell’s goal of obtaining a permanent commission was aided by the Army Act of 1901 authorizing a fourfold increase in the size of the regular Army. The officer corps expanded accordingly, making it easier for Mitchell to obtain a permanent commission as a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps; he accepted that commission on April 26, 1901, shortly after his return from the Philippines.¹²

General Greely was so impressed with the reports of Mitchell’s accomplishments in Cuba and the Philippines that he decided to send Mitchell to Alaska to investigate the meager progress being made in the Eagle–Valdez section of the Washington–Alaska Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), which had been authorized by Congress on May 26, 1900. The first step—a line connecting Fort Egbert, on the Yukon River, with the Canadian telegraph system—had already been completed, but the arduous task of completing the rest of the system had bogged down. Greely was concerned at the lack of progress, because the work needed to be completed before the congressional appropriation for the system’s construction ran out on June 30, 1903. To find out what was going on, he ordered Mitchell to look into the situation and report back as soon as possible.¹³

Before the end of the summer, Mitchell was on his way to Alaska. After traveling extensively throughout the territory, Mitchell returned to Fort Myer, Virginia, and submitted his report to General Greely.¹⁴ It was evident, he wrote, that very little would be accomplished by attempting to transport material through this area in the summer, because pack horses could pull only two hundred pounds fifteen to twenty miles a day, but in the winter these same animals could pull from a thousand to two thousand pounds over the frozen snow.¹⁵ Although Alaska was one of the coldest parts of the world, the thing to do was to work clear through the winter, getting the material out—the wire, insulators, poles, food for the men and forage for the animals; then to actually construct the lines in the summer, when we could set the post holes.

Greely sent Mitchell back to Alaska in the fall of 1901 to help construct the line between Fort Egbert and Fort Liscum. Mitchell nearly died that winter while surveying the route, when his sled broke through the ice on a frozen river with the temperature close to sixty degrees below zero. Fortunately, his lead dog gained a foothold on the ice and pulled the team and its driver out of the river. We were both thoroughly wet and the minute we got out of the water our moccasins and trousers froze instantly and became hard as boards.¹⁶ If Mitchell and his companion, who also fell through the ice, had not worked fast they would have frozen to death. They quickly set a dead tree on fire and used its heat to thaw out. During the summer of 1902 Mitchell, working from the north, and Capt. George C. Burnell, stringing wire from the south, completed the section between Egbert and Liscum. In August Mitchell began constructing the line westward from Eagle toward Fairbanks, where it would connect with a wire that had been run eastward from St. Michael. Mitchell made the last connection himself on June 27, 1903, completing the WAMCAT System with three days to spare before the money appropriated by Congress expired. The telegraph line now extended nearly 1,500 miles, connecting Fort St. Michael in western Alaska with Forts Liscum and Egbert in the east. The total cost of the project came in at $617 per mile.¹⁷

Few civilians in the 1920s were accorded the responsibilities the Signal Corps had bestowed upon Mitchell in Alaska.¹⁸ The experience reinforced his confidence in his ability to accomplish major projects and strengthened his growing self-importance and independence.¹⁹ It also brought Mitchell his first taste of publicity, when an article he wrote about his adventures in Alaska was published in the National Geographic Magazine. By the time he left Alaska in July 1903, Mitchell had earned the well-deserved reputation as a man who could tackle the most difficult jobs and accomplish missions on time.²⁰ His success in Alaska did not go unrewarded. When he returned to the United States, Mitchell was promoted to captain and at the age of twenty-four became the youngest officer holding that rank in the U.S. Army.

In November 1903 Mitchell was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, then considered the intellectual center of the Army. While at Fort Leavenworth he worked with the head of the Signal School, Maj. George O. Squier, who was interested in the military use of balloons. Mitchell’s association with Squier would later prove an invaluable contact, one that led to Mitchell’s involvement with aviation, for when Squier became Assistant Chief Signal Officer in 1907 he was to be instrumental in establishing an Aeronautical Division within the Signal Corps. Squier would write the specifications for the Army’s first aircraft and witness the acceptance trials of the Army’s first Wright Flyer at Fort Myer in 1908. When Squier, by then a general, was appointed chief of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps in 1916, he would tap Mitchell to become his deputy.²¹

Mitchell’s life at Fort Leavenworth was much like that of any officer in the Signal Corps. As the most technically oriented branch of the Army, the corps’ officers had to become proficient in a wide variety of technical subjects, including field telegraphy and telephone communication, wireless telegraphy, searchlights, and military ballooning. Mitchell’s assignments too were typical for a Signal Corps officer headed for promotion: he served as an assistant instructor in the Signal School, attended the School of the Line in 1907, and was one of twenty distinguished graduates of the Army Staff College in 1909. He did another tour of duty in the Philippines between 1910 and 1911. In 1912 he was posted to Fort Russell, Wyoming, as chief signal officer in command of Company L, Signal Corps.²²

In March 1912 Mitchell, now a captain, was one of twenty-one officers selected to serve on the General Staff of the Army. By the time he reported to Washington, D.C., for duty with the General Staff in February 1913, Mitchell had established a reputation as a brilliant, dynamic, articulate and charismatic officer[;] . . . he had married into a socially prominent family, played expert polo, entertained lavishly, and was equally at home with soldiers in the field and elites in high society.²³ The Army had trained him to think in terms of mass warfare, hardened him in guerilla combat, and taught him an appreciation for rapid technical advances. But as before, the modest pay of a captain could not sustain his family’s lavish lifestyle. Although his mother regularly sent him money to pay various bills, Mitchell was always having financial difficulties.²⁴

When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, Mitchell used his position on the General Staff and the access it provided to the cables from Europe to write unsigned articles on the war for the Chicago Tribune and World’s Work. This, according to the historian James J. Cooke, was against War Department policy, but to earn extra money Captain Mitchell was willing to violate the standing directives of his service. This would be neither the first nor the last time in an otherwise distinguished and honorable career that Billy Mitchell would be willing to violate Army regulations for personal gain.²⁵

Mitchell continued to handle the reports coming from Europe until he was unexpectedly named temporary chief of the Aviation Section within the Signal Corps when Lt. Col. Samuel Reber was relieved on May 5, 1916. Mitchell would hold the position until Squier, now a lieutenant colonel, returned from Europe, where he had been studying the impact of air power on modern warfare. When Squier reported for duty as Reber’s replacement in early June, Mitchell became his permanent deputy and was promoted to major.²⁶

One of Mitchell’s first tasks as Squier’s deputy was to formulate portions of the Army appropriation bill relating to military aviation. Enacted into law on August 29, 1916, the bill allocated $13 million for military aeronautics in the Signal Corps and National Guard and provided funds for the acquisition of land for airfields. Mitchell may have been in over his head, for the legislation as written allowed money to be spent only in the northern and eastern sections of the country, where the flying weather was poor. When Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois, the Army’s senior pilot and commanding officer of the 1st Aero Squadron, learned of this fact he immediately set the wheels in motion to obtain land more suitable to the airman’s needs. Foulois rushed to Washington, where he had been quietly briefing Colonel Squier on plans for military aviation, in order to personally alert him to the glaring deficiency in the legislation prepared by Mitchell. At Squier’s request Foulois prepared a memorandum proposing the corrections that needed to be made in the law. Foulois’ memorandum was a slap in the face to Mitchell, whom he believed responsible for the egregious error in the original legislation. Whether or not Mitchell was actually responsible for the error is open to speculation—we only have Foulois’ word on this. The two had become lifelong enemies long before Foulois’ memoir was published in 1968. It seems likely that Foulois resented the appointment of a nonflyer as Squier’s deputy and was annoyed by Mitchell’s lack of aviation experience.²⁷

Mitchell may also have had a hand in drafting legislation to provide for the expansion of the Aviation Section, including a provision for a reserve officers program for training civilians as pilots. He was too old and senior in grade to join the ranks of the aviation cadets at the Army’s aviation school, which was limited by law to unmarried lieutenants under thirty years of age, and he may have thought that he could craft the provisions of the bill to allow him to sneak under the wire. Mitchell was always short of cash, and a 50 percent increase in flight pay may have provided an additional incentive to qualify as a military aviator. Whatever the reasons, Mitchell decided that he wanted to become a pilot and began taking flying lessons at his own expense in the fall of 1916. Because there were no flying schools in Washington, Mitchell would take the night boat to Old Point Comfort, Virginia, and attend the Curtiss Aviation School in Newport News on weekends.²⁸

James M. Jimmie Johnson was one of several pilots at the Curtiss school who instructed Mitchell in the air. When the lessons began, Mitchell told Johnson to forget that he was an Army major and to treat him like anyone else learning to fly. Walter Lees, another instructor who flew with Mitchell from time to time, found him a very apt pupil who was ready to solo after a few hours, although very erratic at times—One day he would be O.K. and the next lousy. Billy made two perfect flights the day Lees decided to let him solo. The next week Johnson took him up to practice landings. Mitchell was doing well, so Johnson let him go out again solo. When the time came for Mitchell to take off, all the other pilots, as was customary when an inexperienced pilot was about to take to the air, taxied their planes to the side of the landing strip for their own safety. Mitchell’s takeoff, according to the account recorded by Early Birds historian Edith Dodd Culver, was uneventful,

but when he circled the field and came in to bring his plane into a landing position, he found that he had gained more altitude than on previous turns, because he was minus the accustomed weight of the instructor in the plane with him, so when he approached the previously arranged spot, he came in too fast