'Billy' Mitchell - Insufferably Right or just Insufferable?

Today we take a look at the circumstances of the notorious 'Mitchell' experiments against a series of ships in the early 1920's, were they a sign of things to come, or a barking up the wrong tree?

Sources:

[esbendit]

Between catastrophically misreading Mahan and murderous interservice rivalry. I get the feeling that Michel would have fit well in the japanese imperial military.

[strategicperson]

I think the phrase, "He's right, but for all the wrong reasons" best describes Mitchell.

[bebopwing]

I didn't think a Drach video would ever traumatize me, but I think we've all worked with someone like Billy Mitchell, and they're insufferable.

[CM]

Very insightful, Drach. Contrary to the press of the time, and some revisionists of today, Mitchell wasn't drop-kicked in 1925-6 for being right about the usefulness of aviation at sea (even if he was ultimately proven wrong on the hows and in what circumstances approx 15 years after his passing).

He was drop-kicked because - if you'll forgive my Australian - he was being an insubordinate prick while doing it.

[MaxwellAerialPhotography]

I always knew that Billy Mitchell was a bit of a "unique" thinker, but I never realized how much of a complete and utter lunatic he was. That fact that Carl Spatz and Hap Arnold were amongst his circle of friends and admirers of his work makes even more sense now.

[chuckschultz]

My hometown revers Billy Mitchell due to his being born there. Named the airport after him; has a Mitchel WWII bomber on a pedestal out front. As a contrarian from the day that I was born, I never drank the Kool-aide on him. Had some arguments in history class over him, MacArthur (another Milwaukee native, sort-of), and Bull Halsey. My father loathed the later two based upon is WWII service. Thanks for educating the youngsters on this topic. At 72, I do not have the patience for the task.

[JessWLStuart]

"... and since we know all bombs are made of spherical cows and dropped into a vacuum ..." - Drachinifel (describing 'Billy' Mitchells description of physics of bomb delivery to a warship), 2024

[johndriscoll]

For several years, I have been waiting for this one. Billy Mitchell's sales pitches have a touch of the patent medicine huckster's patter about them.

[Philistine]

I had a similar discussion a few years ago with an ex-USAF guy, after he repeated the post-WW2 "conventional wisdom" that Mitchell was right about everything but had been court-martialed for embarrassing Navy leadership when he sank the _Ostfriesland._ So I started by reminding him that Mitchell was an Army officer, and then asked him how often the _Navy_ court-martials _Army_ officers. I finished by asking whether he thought the US would have been better off in WW2 by abolishing both the Army (apart from the USAAF) and the Navy and relying solely on air power, as Mitchell demanded, and noted that we _still_ have both an Army and a Navy to this day, despite having much more advanced aircraft than Mitchell ever dreamed of.

[kemarisite]

I've always looked at Mitchell as having a lot in common with the real life James Burton (not the character from The Pentagon Wars). Both had something of a point, but it was both so obvious and so trivial that they sabotaged themselves trying to force people to acknowledge it. Burton demanded live fire testing that would "prove" things that were already self-evident (a Bradley can't withstand an anti-tank shell or missile), while Mitchell actively endangered Navy personnel and interfered with their ability to examine the damage that was being done which was the entire point of the tests.

[gargravarr]

Disliking Billy Mitchell:
Naval history enthusiasts 🤝 Video game speedrunning and mastery enthusiasts

[tomhutchins]

I imagine a conversation between General "the faster it goes, the easier it is to hit" Mitchell and Admiral "speed is armour" Fisher would have been a sight to behold.

[MM]

That ending statement...I immediately flashed on early Simpsons:
"Ralph, Why must ye turn my office into a house of LIES?"

[tomrecane]

I’m shocked, shocked that Hollywood got it wrong in the movie “The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell”

[danielstickney]

Mitchell is a classic example of the fanaticism spiral. It's very difficult for someone to admit they are wrong once they have made sacrifices for their beliefs because that would be admitting they've traded something for nothing. So they double down and triple down and form new associations with like-minded people in an attempt to "prove" they were right all along. Unfortunately reality is under no obligation to validate their opinions.

[MrFangsea]

Being in the Air Force Billy is a great example of academic papers for how not working with your peers effectively degrades your own fighting capabilities.

[miloszruczynski]

Aah, the infamous story of possibly the greatest video game fraud ever, nice... wait, wrong channel?

[davidcashin]

Perhaps the most telling. When I was at the Air War College, having similar discussions over history, air power etc, no one, USAF, Professors, USN, Foreign officers, or Army officers supported the wild extent of Mitchel and Duohet's claims about Air Power.

[scott]

Billy Mitchell should be called Mr. Zeppelin, as they both were functionally large bags of flammable gas. While he was correct about airpower in the larger sense, it is clear that he either fails to understand the functional weaknesses of level bombing against moving targets - weaknesses that were repeatedly demonstrated as late as WW2. It’s also clear that Mitchell belongs firmly in the same camp as MacArthur as a specialist in the art of self-promotion. The amazing part is that he was not taken out and shot for his actions in the Ostfriesland trial. The fact that it eventually ended his career is a small comfort.

[TzunSu]

One of the biggest issues with the bombing test is something that you mention in passing: The fact that the targets were incredibly stripped down and didn't have any fuel, ammo, nor anything remotely flammable, even down to *paint*.