Mitchell, Gen William (1879-1936). Billy Mitchell is widely regarded as one of the great visionaries of air power, and a prime mover in establishing the aeroplane at the forefront of American military thinking. In many ways his importance is overstated, especially in the field of theory, and his place in the development of an independent air force is best viewed as a prophet or advocate rather than as a system builder.

Mitchell, already commissioned in the army, quickly recognized the potential of the aerial dimension in the years leading up to WW I, and became involved in the development of US aircraft, writing a number of articles on the subject. Indeed, in 1912 after being appointed to the army general staff in Washington he wrote a report on the need for an army air arm. Following the entry of the USA into the war in 1917, he was despatched to Europe where he was undoubtedly influenced by MRAF Hugh Trenchard, the founding father of the RAF. Mitchell began an abrasive and uncompromising campaign in favour of a similar US service, which earned him resentment and hostility from fellow officers who did not share his vision. After the Armistice he expressed disappointment that the war had ended before air power could prove its true worth.

In the post-war period Mitchell was appointed assistant chief of the US Army Air Service and did nothing to endear himself even among those who shared his enthusiasm. In 1921 he was allowed to bomb US navy surplus or captured German warships and proved conclusively that even a near miss could sink them. It did not move the navy brass, who held that a ship underway and properly handled would be an impossible target. Mitchell's superiors attempted to keep him out of trouble, to no avail. In 1925 he released a scathing report on the state of US preparation for aerial warfare that employed phrases such as ‘criminal and treasonable negligence’, and was promptly court-martialled. He resigned from the army in 1926 but continued his crusade until his death.

Bibliography

• Hurley, Alfred, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington, Ind., 1975).
• MacIsaac, David, ‘Voices from the Central Blue’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Oxford, 1986)

— John Buckley

Scion of a Wisconsin railroad and banking family, Mitchell was born in Nice, France, where his parents were vacationing. Enlisting as a private in the Spanish‐American War, nineteen‐year‐old Billy was promoted to lieutenant as a result of an appeal by his father, John Mitchell, a U.S. senator. In 1901, he became a regular army lieutenant in the Signal Corps. Promoted to major, he was appointed chief of the Signal Corps' new aviation section in 1916.

In World War I, as a brigadier general, Mitchell organized and ably led the U.S. Army's fledgling Air Service in France. In addition to aerial pursuit, reconnaissance, and ground support, he experimented with mass bombing of enemy military formations and installations in the war zone. From this experience and his discussions with Sir Hugh Trenchard, head of the Royal Flying Corps, Mitchell became a champion of airpower.

In the early 1920s, as a war hero and assistant chief of the army's Air Service with headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mitchell campaigned for a large, independent air force. He used the new mass media, including motion pictures, to advance his program against the opposition of senior army and navy officers as well as cost‐cutting Republican administrations and Congress. Mitchell's planes dramatically sank captured naval warships in prearranged tests off the Virginia Capes in 1921–22, but his constant criticism led to his reassignment to Texas.

Even more outspoken in 1925, Mitchell was tried by a court‐martial for calling army and navy leaders criminally negligent and responsible for the deaths of aviators in outmoded aircraft. His trial, portrayed by the media as the martyrdom of a prophet standing alone against entrenched bureaucracy, was one of the most sensational of the decade. Found guilty, Mitchell was suspended from active duty for five years; instead, he resigned from the army in 1926.

As a civilian, Mitchell became even more strident in interviews, articles, and books. Much like Trenchard and the Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet, Mitchell claimed that strategic bombing would be decisive in future wars, and as a deterrent to war, because it could bypass enemy fleets and armies to strike directly at the industrial and population centers of hostile nations. Mitchell died of a heart attack in 1936, but since the adoption of many of his ideas in World War II, he has been eulogized by the air force.

[See also Air Force, Predecessors of: 1907–46; Air Warfare.]

Bibliography

• Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 1964.
• Burke Davis, The Billy Mitchell Affair, 1967

Mitchell, Billy (1879-1936) army air service officer, born William Lendrum Mitchell in Nice, France. Mitchell was one of the outstanding combat air officers of World War I, commanding the largest concentration of allied air power of the war at St. Mihiel (1918). In recognition of his wartime service, he received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, as well as various foreign honors. Appointed assistant chief of the Army Air Service after the war, a position which he held until 1925, Mitchell began speaking out about the eventual prominence of air power, arousing the ire of the army and navy hierarchy, which itself became a target of his increasingly open and vitriolic criticism. After he was court-martialed, found guilty of insubordination, and demoted from general to colonel, Mitchell resigned from the service (1926). He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his work toward the establishment of a separate air force (1946).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

William de Witt Mitchell was a distinguished lawyer who became the fifty-fourth attorney general of the United States.

Mitchell was born on September 9, 1874, in Winona, Minnesota. He was the son of William Mitchell, a distinguished justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court for whom the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul is named. The younger Mitchell left Minnesota at the age of fourteen to attend preparatory school in New Jersey. He then entered Yale University to study electrical engineering, but during vacations back in Minnesota, he pursued his interest in the law, spending time discussing legal issues with his father and with other judges and attorneys who were family friends. As a result, after two years at Yale, he transferred to the University of Minnesota for pre-law studies. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and his bachelor of laws degree in 1896, he was admitted to the bar and took a position as a law clerk with Stringer and Seymour, a St. Paul law firm.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Mitchell enlisted in the Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, where he became a second lieutenant and served as a judge advocate for the Second U.S. Army Corp. When the war ended, he returned to St. Paul and Stringer and Seymour. After his father lost his seat on the state supreme court in an election, Mitchell and the elder Mitchell established a law partnership with two other lawyers. Though his father died in 1900, Mitchell continued to practice law until another war—World War I— intervened. Mitchell again returned to military service as an infantry officer until 1919, when he rejoined his law firm, becoming a senior partner in 1922.

In 1925, through an influential friend in Washington, Mitchell's name was brought to the attention of President Calvin Coolidge, who was seeking to fill the position of solicitor general. Coolidge, a Republican, offered Mitchell, a Democrat, the job, passing over several better-known Republican candidates. As solicitor general, under the direction of the U.S. attorney general, Mitchell was primarily responsible for representing the government of the United States before the U.S. Supreme Court in cases in which the United States had an interest. Mitchell, though he had intended to hold the position for only two years and then return to private practice, was solicitor general until 1929, appearing before the Court in thirty-four cases.

That year, upon the recommendation of several justices on the Supreme Court, newly elected President Herbert Hoover appointed Mitchell to be U.S. attorney general. Though his new role involved a wide and daunting range of responsibilities (including acting as a member of the president's cabinet), Mitchell continued to occasionally argue important cases himself before the High Court. One significant case was Okanogan, Methow, San Poelis, Nespelem, Colville, and Lake Indian Tribes or Bands of State of Washington v. United States, 279 U.S. 655, 49 S. Ct. 463, 73 L. Ed. 894 (1929), better known as the Pocket Veto case. In that decision the Supreme Court upheld the president's power to veto a bill by failing to return it to Congress when Congress was in recess.

At the end of the Hoover administration, Mitchell returned to private practice, joining a New York law firm. Twelve years later, in 1945, Mitchell was appointed counsel for the Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Though he was selected unanimously and had virtually unfettered access to all departments, records, and personnel involved in the incident, Mitchell was unhappy with the slow pace of the committee's inquiry and left the position after less than three months to again return to private practice in New York. While practicing he served on several important commissions and was chairman of the Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which was charged with redrafting rules governing practice in the federal courts. He died on August 24, 1955, in Syosset, New York, at the age of eighty-one.

Mitchell on a 1930 Time cover

William DeWitt Mitchell (September 9, 1874–August 24, 1955) was appointed to the position of U.S. Solicitor General by Calvin Coolridge in June 5, 1925, which he held until he was appointed to the position of U.S. Attorney General for the entirety of Herbert Hoover's Presidency.

Born in Winona, Minnesota, he spent two years studying Electrical Engineering at Yale University before becoming interested in law. At that point he transferred to the University of Michigan, where he received both his undergraduate and law degrees. After he was admitted to the Minnesota bar he began practicing law in St. Paul. He formed the law firm of How, Taylor & Mitchell, which became prominent in the Midwest. This prestige allowed Mitchell access to both the regional council of the U.S. Railroad Administration in 1919, and then he served as chairman of the Citizens Charter Committee of St. Paul in 1922.

Combined with Mitchell's service as an infantry officer during the Spanish-American War and World War I, this placed him in position to be appointed to the position of Solicitor General of the United States. Having served well in his position, President Hoover appointed him Attorney General of the United States on March 4, 1929, and he held that office until March 4, 1933. Mitchell then settled in New York City where he practiced law. He was named chairman of the Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and chief counsel of the joint congressional committee investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor. He died in 1955, in Syosset, New York.

All information on this page can be found on his page at the USDOJ website: OSG: William D. Mitchell, Solicitor General

Preceded by James M. Beck	Solicitor General 1925–1929	Succeeded by Charles Evans Hughes, Jr.
Preceded by John G. Sargent	United States Attorney General 1929–1933	Succeeded by Homer S. Cummings

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