![]() ![]() For the Coolidge administration, this was the last straw. Mitchell was incensed, and he unleashed an attack on the Navy and War Departments for “incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense.” He accused the Coolidge administration and military leaders of giving false, incomplete, or misleading information to Congress, and forcing military airmen to provide false information on the state of military aviation. ![]() 1 was lost at sea in the Pacific Ocean en route from San Francisco to Honolulu. This event came on the heels of another aviation disaster, when the U.S. Navy airship Shenandoah (ZR-1) crashed over Ohio. ![]() This demotion and removal from Washington was seen as punitive and disciplinary, but it did not deter Mitchell from his crusade. In late 1924, Mitchell gave provocative testimony before the House Select Committee of Inquiry into Operations for the United States Air Service (the Lampert Committee) during which he said “It is a very serious question whether airpower is auxiliary to the Army and the Navy, or whether armies and navies are not actually auxiliary to airpower.” In March 1925, Mitchell reverted to his permanent rank of colonel, and was transferred to San Antonio, Texas. bomb, which is on display in the Museum's Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air Gallery is of the type dropped on the captured German battleship Ostfriesland on July 21, 1921. Mitchell, as expected, cast aside the recommendations of the Joint Board, and produced his own report, leaked to the press, which said that the problem of aircraft being able to destroy seacraft had been solved, and that there were “no conditions in which seacraft can operate efficiently in which aircraft cannot operate efficiently.” The Board’s report, signed by General Pershing himself, fell far short of Mitchell’s recommendations for a separate aerial arm, with responsibility for all aviation within and beyond the United States. As Alfred Hurley remarks, “the dispute could not get away from the basic fact which deeply impressed itself on the public’s mind, Mitchell had sunk a battleship, as he claimed he could.” (68) The Joint Army Navy Board, which had been created in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt to plan combined operations and prevent any difficulties that might arise from interservice rivalries, produced an evaluation of the tests. Mitchell had seized the day despite the fact that the Ostfriesland was at anchor and unable to maneuver and there was no defensive antiaircraft fire to hinder the aerial attacks. The Navy protested vigorously that their construction experts were not given enough time to examine the ship, but to no avail. bombs on the battleship, and in a twenty-minute period, the Ostfriesland was sent to the bottom of the sea. Ignoring the Navy’s restrictions about pressing the attack too vigorously, Mitchell decided to sink the Ostfriesland in direct fashion. After an attack by aircraft carrying 1,000 lb. The sinking of the Ostfriesland on July 21, 1921, was the most controversial event of the bombing tests. The targets were captured German navy ships, including a submarine ( U-117), the USS Iowa, a battleship converted to a radio-controlled fleet target ship, a destroyer (G-102), a German light cruiser Frankfurt, and finally, the German battleship Ostfriesland. Navy put tight controls on the tests to restrict Mitchell and the Air Service. Air Service to participate in naval bombing tests that took place during the summer months of 1921. Mitchell used his influence in Congress to allow the U.S. His ultimate goal was a completely independent air force much like the RAF within a Department of Aeronautics. Mitchell nevertheless was undeterred in his attempt to take his arguments in favor of air power to congressional leaders and the public. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces during the war, and now Chief of Staff of the U.S. Menoher, a distinguished WWI infantry commander and protégé of General John J. On Mitchell’s return to the United States, he fully expected to be named chief of the Air Service. Mihiel salient during the war, and he had been, according to his most prominent biographer, Alfred Hurley ( Billy Mitchell, Crusader for Air Power), strongly influenced by the ideas of the British General Hugh “Boom” Trenchard, head of the Royal Flying Corps, and later of the Royal Air Force (RAF) regarding aircraft as offensive weapons. As such he was responsible for aerial operations in the St. Mitchell was a decorated veteran airman who had commanded the American air combat units in France during World War I. Service in World War I and Immediate Postwar Years William “Billy” Mitchell, on July 21, 1921. Army Air Service’s First Provisional Air Brigade, led by Brig. Aerial view of the captured German battleship Ostfriesland after it was attacked by the U.S. ![]()
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