Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power--Economic and Military

WINGED DEFENSE

WINGED DEFENSE

The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power—Economic and Military

WILLIAM BILLY MITCHELL

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, AL

New preface © 2009 by The University of Alabama Press

Original text © 1925 by William Mitchell

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

∞

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-8173-5605-7

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-8304-6 (electronic)

A NOTE ON BILLY MITCHELL AND HIS BOOK

William Billy Mitchell was and continues to be one of the most controversial airmen in our history. Alternately lionized and vilified by military officers and civilian academics, Mitchell was undeniably one of the pivotal figures in the development of American air power. Although he began his 27-year military career in the infantry, serving in the Spanish-American War and along the turbulent Mexican border, he took to airplanes, and to the air, with great zeal, learning to fly in 1916 on his off-duty time. Upon America's entry into the First World War, he was the first U.S. officer to participate in a ground attack with the French in 1917, the first to fly an aircraft over German lines, and the first to earn the War Cross for combat duty.

General Pershing, Commander in Chief of American forces in France, knew Mitchell's talents and placed him in charge of Air Service forces, culminating with Mitchell's command of the combined French, British, Italian, and American air assets that for the first time operated with significant battlefield effect under the principle of centralized control during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in the war's closing months. Mitchell's experiences as the senior American airman in France made a deep impression on him because he saw not only the carnage of the war firsthand but also, he believed, a way to avoid it in future armed conflicts.

Always the activist, Mitchell pushed hard for an independent air force and a Department of Aeronautics within the federal government to give the United States a global lead in the development of air power—in short, to make it an air-going nation. As Assistant Chief of the Air Service and Director of Military Aviation from 1919 to 1925, Mitchell argued that air power had eclipsed other kinds of military power and would win future wars by attacking an enemy's vital centers (industrial centers), breaking both the adversary's ability and will to resist. Although this was the vital core of his message, Mitchell took more direct aim at the Navy, contending that aircraft had made naval vessels obsolete and incapable of defending the United States from invasion. His bombing trials against the Ostfrieland, New Jersey, and several other German and obsolete American ships in 1923, which sank both of the capital ships involved and several others, electrified the public and, in the process, made Naval officers his mortal enemies.

The increasingly acrimonious debate between Mitchell, the Department of the Navy, and several other government agencies following the bombing trials led ultimately to Mitchell's removal as Assistant Chief of Air Service. When he then attacked what he viewed as the incompetency, criminal negligence, and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense by the Navy and War Departments, his court-martial followed in October-December 1925. Found guilty on several charges, including insubordination and conduct unbecoming an officer, Mitchell resigned from the Army Air Service. Yet this was by no means the end of his public advocacy of air power.

Mitchell had already published Winged Defense before his court-martial, and he continued to speak, write, and travel with an almost frenetic energy to share his ideas with the American public and influential members of government and industry. By the time he died on February 17, 1936, at the age of 57, Mitchell had convinced many Americans that both military and civil aviation would be vital to their country's future fortunes. He proved right on both counts.

While Mitchell got several things wrong, particularly regarding his belief in the decisive role of air power as a war-winning instrument in its own right, he got a great deal more right. Air power did prove to be an indispensable contributor to Allied victory in the Second World War and has remained a vital guardian of America's national security since the Air Force achieved independence in 1947. Mitchell's views of civil aviation's importance also proved prescient as the United States became—and remains—the world's premier air power nation. When viewed in this light, Mitchell's theories and ideas about military and civil aviation were for the most part accurate. Yet the legacy of his court-martial presents us with a dilemma: Did Mitchell's methods justify the results they ultimately produced?

In recent years, this most fundamental aspect of the controversy still surrounding Billy Mitchell has led to a certain degree of revisionist thinking, particularly in the Air Force. Serving officers, unlike most of their predecessors at the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1920s and 1930s or succeeding generations up to and including the fighter generals of the 1990s, have come increasingly to question whether Mitchell's means justified the ends he achieved and if the kinds of excesses in which he engaged are ever acceptable behavior for a military officer. Clearly, the answer must be No. However, they also recognize that there might have been a third way: more careful and diplomatically savvy activism within the structures—and strictures—of the federal government and the military departments. This was the tragedy of William Mitchell: His very temperament and maverick style set him on what now appears to be an unavoidable collision course with his foes. Indeed, it appears as though he was fully prepared to bring the court-martial upon himself and to suffer the consequences. One can only wonder what he might have accomplished had he approached the problem in a more professional and careful fashion.

Whatever else one might say about Mitchell, his ideas made him one of the most significant air power theorists of the interwar period—in fact of any period in the history of manned flight. More than anyone else, he made Americans an air-minded people, prepared them and his subordinate airmen for the rigors of the Second World War, and helped set the stage for the development of an American aircraft industry and flying culture still unmatched in the world. Mitchell's actions are thus simultaneously inspirational, instructive, and troubling—perhaps a fitting legacy for an airman who never shied from a fight and did what he thought necessary to make his ideas about air power a reality.

Robert S. Ehlers Jr.

FOREWORD

THIS book is dedicated to those officers and men of the air service who have given up their lives in the development of our national air power.

Few people outside of the air fraternity itself know or understand the dangers that these men face, the lives that they lead and how they actually act when in the air, how they find their way across the continent with unerring exactness—over mountains, forests, rivers and deserts; what they actually do in improving the science and art of flying and how they feel when engaged in combat with enemy aircraft. No one can explain these things except the airmen themselves. The number of these who have had experience and who are capable of expressing themselves, is rapidly growing fewer. Every opportunity should be taken by those that remain to enlighten their fellows on this subject.

The interest in the development of our national air power was manifested by the people of the United States during the past winter, and this interest is growing. The history of the development of air power has been very similar in all countries—it has had to struggle hard to get on its feet. Air power has brought with it a new doctrine of war which has caused a complete rearrangement of the existing systems of national defense, and a new doctrine of peace which eventually will change the relations of nations with each other due to the universal application and rapidity of aerial transport.

This little book has been thrown together hastily. It is compiled from evidence that has been given before the Congress of the United States, articles that have appeared in the public journals and from personal experiences. Its value lies in the ideas and theories that are advanced which it is necessary for our people to consider very seriously in the development of our whole national system. The great countries of Europe have already acted along the lines indicated in this book. We are still backward.

The book is intended to serve several purposes. First, that of putting down in words what the air men think about the organization of an air force and what our national defense should be. Next, to give to the people in general a book which will set before them facts about aeronautical development. And third, a book to which our people in the services, in the executive departments and in Congress can refer for data on aviation which is modern and which is the result of actual experience. So many erroneous doctrines have been enunciated about aviation by the older services that see in the development of air power the curtailment of their ancient prerogatives, privileges and authority, that we consider it time to challenge these proceedings and to make our own views known.

Aeronautics is such a new and rapidly developing science in the world that those concerned in it have not the age, rank or authority which, in the eyes of the older services, entitles them to speak. Most of the data that Congress gets on the subject of aviation comes from officers or agents who are not actual aeronautical officers and who have not come up through the mill of aeronautical experience, both in war and in peace. The airmen have gained their knowledge by actual experience, not by being members of an old well-established service that has gone on in the same rut of existence for decades.

As transportation is the essence of civilization, aviation furnishes the quickest and most expeditious means of communication that the world has ever known. Heretofore, we have been confined to either the earth or the water as the medium of transportation. Now, we can utilize the air which covers both the earth and the water, and the north and south poles, as the medium through which to travel.

With us air people, the future of our nation is indissolubly bound up in the development of air power. Not only will it insure peace and contentment throughout the nation because, in case of national emergency, air power, properly developed, can hold off any hostile air force which may seek to fly over and attack our country, but it can also hold off any hostile shipping which seeks to cross the oceans and menace our shores. At the same time, our national air power can be used in time of peace for some useful purpose. In this it differs very greatly from the old standing armies and navies which, in time of peace, have to be kept up, trained and administered for war only and are therefore a source of expenditure from which little return is forthcoming until an emergency arises.

The time has come when aviation must be developed for aviation's sake and not as an auxiliary to other existing branches. Unless the progressive elements that enter into our makeup are availed of, we will fall behind in the world's development.

Air power has rudely upset the traditions of the older services. It has been with the greatest difficulty that this new and dominating element has gone forward in the way it has. In the future, no nation can call itself great unless its air power is properly organized and provided for, because air power, both from a military and an economic standpoint, will not only dominate the land but the sea as well. Air power in the future will be a determining factor in international competitions, both military and civil. American characteristics and temperament are particularly suitable to its development.

W. M.

PREFACE

THE former isolation of the United States is a thing of the past.

The revolutionary war made us an independent nation; our civil war, the greatest in history, knitted our people and our political fabric closely together. From that time until our Spanish war we were busy organizing our own economical development, establishing means of communication through the country, and consolidating our governmental system. The Spanish war broke down the barriers of our isolation and made us step into the arena of the world powers. The war in itself was no very great affair, but its influence on our own state and on the world was tremendous. We were over-producing commercially and we sought markets for our goods beyond the seas. With our great richness in raw materials, in the development of labor-saving machines, and in the enterprise and energy of the citizenry, we could cope with any other nation in any field of human endeavor that was required.

The World War in Europe, so far as we were concerned, gave us financial pre-eminence. The warring nations had to come to us to get materials to continue their struggle, and we sent them large consignments and in return received financial understandings. Again this was no strain on the United States: comparatively little of our physical force was used. The European countries, however, had to use all their physical powers and reserves at their command.

They emerged from the war with substantially changed military systems. Their national defense services were renovated from top to bottom. Methods in keeping with the times due to their geographical position and their financial ability were adopted. This is not the case in the United States where the old system which is substantially the same system as that used since the civil war, was re-established as firmly as ever. No very great change was brought about in our military methods, either over the land or over the sea, on account of the advent of air power.

Air power may be defined as the ability to do something in the air. It consists of transporting all sorts of things by aircraft from one place to another, and as air covers the whole world there is no place that is immune from influence by aircraft. Starting out as a mere auxiliary in observing for armies and navies, within the four years of the war, air power fought great battles against opposing air power, threw bombs down on hostile industrial centers, cities, railroads and ports, and showed decisively that, should any power in the future be deprived of its air forces, it could in no way hope to cope with an antagonist provided with an adequate air force.

In the United States our people have been slow to realize the changed conditions. Isolated as we have been from possible enemies, the people could see little chance for aggression by others. Separated as we are from Europe by the Atlantic, and from Asia by the Pacific which form most certain and tremendously strong defensive barriers, we seemed to be protected by the design of the Almighty. The coming of aircraft has greatly modified this isolation on account of the great range and speed which these agents of communications are developing. Air ships—that is, lighter-than-air crafts, also called dirigibles—have been designed which will go round the world on one charge of fuel. Airplanes have actually flown for 2,500 miles without landing. This fact, added to the development of chemical warfare and the proof that submarines can cover any part of the seas, have diminished the importance of surface seacraft. The vulnerability of the whole country to aircraft as distinguished from the old conditions that obtained when the frontiers or the coast had to be penetrated before an invasion of the country could be made, has greatly interested the people of the nation.

There never has been any lack of interest by the people in aviation in the United States. What has hindered its development has been the extreme conservatism of the executive departments of the government. The pressure of the people on Congress has resulted in the beginning of decisive congressional action.

For the first time in our history, a committee of Congress, during the winter 1924-1925, conducted hearings on every phase of our national defense as affected by air power, while another committee conducted hearings on a specific provision for the creation of a United Air Force, which could be discussed paragraph by paragraph. The evidence taken showed conclusively that the advent of air power has completely changed all former systems of national defense. Air power not only has decisive military advantages, but most of it can be used in time of peace for some useful purpose.

The hearings before these committees were reported in the public press throughout the country, and, for the first time, it was brought home to our citizens what air power means. The frontiers in the old sense—the coast lines or borders—are no longer applicable to the air because aircraft can fly anywhere that there is air. Interior cities are now as subject to attack as those along the coast. Nothing can stop the attack of aircraft except other aircraft.

The evidence shows plainly that the United States has adopted no modern plan of organization for meeting the general world movement in the organization of its air power. It still adheres to the methods and systems of many years ago. This has resulted in a very much retarded development of our aeronautical resources entirely out of proportion with the aeronautical capabilities of our country. We lead the world in undeveloped aeronautical material, our men make the best flyers and mechanics, our factories are capable of turning out the best airplanes, and we have all the raw materials that are necessary.

From a military standpoint, no specific mission is assigned to our national aeronautics. It is regarded as an auxiliary to the Army and Navy. Actually there is no air force in the United States. The system of creating one is so complicated and so difficult to put in motion that an air force could only be brought to a state of efficiency after years of trial, hundreds of mistakes, and the wasting of many lives and millions of dollars in money. In other words, relatively we are little better off than we were at the beginning of the World War.

Rapidity of modern means of communication, the sureness of various means of transportation, and the accessibility of all parts of the world to aircraft, which have been developed in an incredibly short space of time, make it absolutely necessary that we organize to meet modern conditions. Our various means of national defense must be accurately coördinated because the next contest will increase the swiftness with which decisions are reached and the nation that hangs its destiny on a false preparation will find itself hopelessly outclassed from the beginning.

Neither armies nor navies can exist unless the air is controlled over them. Air forces, on the other hand, are the only independent fighting units of the day, because neither armies nor navies can ascend and fight twenty thousand feet above the earth's surface.

The missions of armies and navies are very greatly changed from what they were. No longer will the tedious and expensive processes of wearing down the enemy's land forces by continuous attacks be resorted to. The air forces will strike immediately at the enemy's manufacturing and food centers, railways, bridges, canals and harbors. The saving of lives, man power and expenditures will be tremendous to the winning side. The losing side will have to accept without question the dominating conditions of its adversary, as he will stop entirely the manufacture of aircraft by the vanquished.

Surface navies have entirely lost their mission of defending a coast because aircraft can destroy or sink any seacraft coming within their radius of operation. In fact, aircraft today are the only effective means of coast protection. Consequently, navies have been pushed out on the high seas. The menace of submarines from below and aircraft from above constitutes such a condition that the surface ship as an element of war is disappearing. Today, the principal weapon in the sea is the submarine with its mine layers, gun fighters and torpedo craft.

In the future, campaigns across the seas will be carried on from land base to land base under the protection of aircraft. Expeditions across the sea such as occurred in the World War will be an impossibility. Water spaces between land bases in the northern hemisphere are very short. The space from America to Asia is only fifty-two miles across the Bering Straits and across the Atlantic it is scarcely more than four hundred.

Air power can hold and organize small islands in a manner which has been entirely impossible heretofore. These can be supplied by other aircraft, or by submarines, with everything that is necessary.

Should it be required to use surface ships, merchantmen may be taken and equipped with flying-off decks for use as airplane transports whenever the necessity arises. Consequently, the power of navies as a keystone in the arch of national defense has been relegated to a secondary position.

Each nation in the world is fully or partially recognizing these principles and is organizing its national defense system accordingly. What is necessary in this country is that the people find out the exact conditions concerning air power and the exact truth about what it can accomplish in time of peace as well as in time of war.

Every man who has had experience in the air is able to aid in this work. It is the biggest constructive program that we have before us. A reasonable solution of this problem