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Congressional Gold Medal.com |
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Congressional Gold Medal Recipient
William Mitchell
William Mitchell b. Nice, France, 29 December 1879
d. New York City, New York, New York, 19 February 1936
Thursday, 8 August 1946
AN ACT Authorizing the President of the United States to award posthumously in the name of Congress a Medal of Honor to William Mitchell. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States is requested to cause a gold medal to be struck, with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be presented to the late William Mitchell, formerly a colonel, United States Army, in recognition of his outstanding pioneer service and foresight in the field of American military aviation. SEC. 2. When the medal provided for in section 1 of this Act shall have been struck, the President shall transmit the same to William Mitchell, Junior, son of the said William Mitchell, to be presented to him in the name of the people of the United States. SEC. 3. A sufficient sum of money to carry this Act into effect is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. 60 Stat. 1319
General William 'Billy' Mitchell
Aviation Pioneer (1879-1936) The most famous US aviator of World War l... a pioneer of air-power... court-martialled for his prophecy that Japan might cripple the US navy at Pearl Harbor... a voice in the wilderness... whose reputation was restored by Congress after World War ll.
General William 'Billy' Mitchell (1879-1936) was the renowned pioneer of US air power and generally regarded as one of the most far-sighted military leaders of his age. He also happened to be my cousin! Immediately after World War l, he predicted that air bombardment would dominate warfare in the future. In the early 1920s he horrified and angered US military strategists with his claim that bombs could sink ships and predicted the attack on Pearl Harbour 20 years later. When they refused to believe him he successfully bombed and sank warships to prove his point. Furious at his outspoken criticism of out-dated military thinking, he was court-marshalled for 'insubordination'. He never lived to see his predictions proved correct but was posthumously awarded a special Congressional Medal of Honour in 1948. Sadly too, he never saw the 1956 Gary Cooper film which restored his reputation as a national hero. Of Scottish origin, he grew up in Milwaukee with my grandmother, Christian Mitchell Croil, whose faith in him never wavered. Mitchell's skills may well have influenced her brother (and Mitchell's cousin), the Canadian World War 1 'ace', Air Marshal George Mitchell Croil who, in World War ll, was in charge of the training, in Canada, of thousands of British and other Allied pilots. Mitchell gave his name to Mitchell Air Base (now the General Mitchell International Airport) in the USA, just as Croil is remembered by Croil Air Force Base in Canada.
Brief Biography
WILLIAM 'BILLY' MITCHELL is the most famous and controversial figure in American air power history. He was the son of the wealthy Wisconsin senator Colonel John Lendrum Mitchell and his second wife Harriet Becker and a grandson of millionaire railroad maker Alexander Mitchell of Milwaukee. He was born in Nice, France, on December 28 [29?], 1879, while his parents were on an extended tour of Europe. When he was three the family returned to Milwaukee where he was educated at Racine College and at Columbian University (now George Washington University, Washington, DC). He left Columbian in 1898 before graduating to enlist in the 1st Wisconsin Infantry as a junior lieutenant in the Spanish American War, receiving a field commission in the Signals Corps that same year. He was an outstanding junior officer, displaying a rare degree of initiative, courage and leadership.
He served in Cuba and the Philippines and distinguished himself in 1901-1902, under the most difficult conditions, by establishing a communications system for the Army throughout the wilderness of Alaska. After various duties he attended the School of the Line and the Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1907-1909.
After duty on the Mexican border, he was attached in 1912 to the General Staff at the time its youngest member and in 1915 was assigned to the aviation section of the Signal Corps. As a 38 year-old major in the US Army Air-Service he learned to fly in 1916, training with Walter E. Lees and taking his first solo flight in a Curtiss JN4 at the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station, Virginia, in the spring of 1917. At this time he became a close friend of Orville Wright who, with his brother, had pioneered aviation in the USA and from whom many of Mitchell's military aircraft were obtained. Thus began Mitchell's twenty years' advocacy of the use of military air power.
He was already in Europe as an observer when the United States entered World War I in 1917. In April 1917, only a few days after the United States had entered the war, Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell met extensively with British and French air leaders and studied their operations. He quickly took charge and began preparations for the American air units that were to follow. The story of American aviation mobilisation in World War I was not a glorious one. It took months before pilots arrived in France and even longer for any aircraft. Nonetheless, Mitchell rapidly earned a reputation as a daring, flamboyant, and tireless leader. As the first American to fly over enemy lines in combat, he also proved to be a highly effective air commander, advancing rapidly in rank and responsibility to become Air Officer of the American Expeditionary Forces and Air Officer of I Corps (a combat post more to his liking). He then established and headed the US Air Service. In 1918 he was appointed Commander of all Allied Air Services the same year that his brother, John Mitchell, was killed on the Western Front in France.
In September 1918 he successfully attempted a mass bombing attack over German positions with nearly 1,500 planes as part of the attack on the St. Mihiel salient. As commander of the combined air service of the army group, he engaged in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, leading a large bombing force in a behind-the-lines air strike. But his plans for strategic bombing of the German homeland and for massive parachute invasions were cut short by the Armistice. Recognized as the top American combat airman of the war (he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and several foreign decorations), Mitchell, nevertheless, managed to alienate most of his superiors both flying and non-flying during his 18 months in France. Returning to the US in early 1919, Mitchell was appointed the deputy chief of the Air Service, retaining his one-star rank under Gen. Charles T. Menoher and later Mason Patrick.
In the early 1920s he outspokenly advocated the creation of an air force independent of the army and continued working on improvements in aircraft and their use. But his great crusade was his claim that aircraft were capable of sinking ships even rendering the battleship obsolete. To the fury of his superiors and the Navy Department, he proved his point at Chesapeake Bay in 1921 and again in 1923, by test-bombing and sinking several captured and elderly battleships (among them Ostfriesland) which were sent to the bottom of the Atlantic.
In April 1925 he was transferred to the minor post of Air Officer of the VIII Corps area in San Antonio, Texas, and reversion to the rank of colonel. Although such demotions were not unusual at the time Mason Patrick himself had gone from major general to colonel upon returning to the Corps of Engineers in 1919 the move was nonetheless widely seen as punishment and exile.
He was persistently critical of the low state of preparation of the tiny Air Service and of the poor quality of its equipment. Clearly there was a streak of arrogance and intolerance in his nature and he was one of the first to recognise the power of harnessing media attention. Frequently photographed with friends and acquaintances such as the Prince of Wales, Will Rogers, Henry Ford, and Orville Wright, he easily upset colleagues and superiors. Thus it was when the Navy dirigible (a gas-filled air-ship) Shenandoah crashed in a storm, killing 14 of the crew, Mitchell issued his famous 1925 statement to the press accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defence." He was, as he expected, court-martialed and used the December 1925 trial as a platform for his views. He was found guilty of insubordination and suspended from active duty for five years without pay. (Note: The conviction vote was not unanimous. A single dissenting vote was cast by Col. Douglas MacArthur)
Mitchell elected to resign instead, as of 1 February 1926, and retired to a farm near Middleburg, Virginia. He continued to promote air power and to warn of the dangers of being outstripped by other nations, particularly Japan. In the early 1920s he had already hypothesized a possible attack by Japanese aircraft launched from great carrier ships and directed at the Hawaiian Islands (twenty years before the Pearl Harbor attack) but from 1926 onwards he continued to write and preach the gospel of air power to all who would listen. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Navy man, was viewed by Mitchell as advantageous for air power. In fact, he believed the new president would appoint him as assistant secretary of war for air or perhaps even secretary of defence in a new and unified military organization. Such hopes never materialized.
Mitchell died in New York City on February 19, 1936, of a variety of ailments, including a bad heart and influenza. His plea for an independent air force was met to some degree by the creation of GHQ Air Force in March 1935. While subsequent events, including the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, proved the validity of many of his prophesies and many of his ideas were adopted by the Army Air Force in World War II, the utter decisiveness he claimed for air power had not by then materialized.
In 1946, a grateful Congress posthumously promoted him to the rank of Major General and authorized a special Congressional Medal in his honour, which was presented to his son John in 1948 by Gen. Carl Spaatz, chief of staff of the newly established independent air force.
In 1970, Billy Mitchell was invested among 'These We Honor' at the International Aerospace Museum's 'Hall of Fame' in San Diego, California.
Billy Mitchell, 1917
William (Billy) Mitchell - a major in the U.S. Army Air-Service soloed in a Curtiss JN4 at the "Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station", a branch of the Curtiss Aeroplane Co., located at Newport News, VA, in the spring of 1917.
Major Billy Mitchell's
First Solo Flight
BILLY MITCHELL SOLOS AT NEWPORT NEWS Jimmie Johnson was assigned to teach Major Mitchell to fly and Walter Lees gave him some dual instruction also. They found him a very apt pupil who was ready to solo after a few hours---four, I believe, of dual instruction. I well remember that fall day when Jimmy turned him loose for his solo. As was customary at that time, when a student was making his first solo flight, all other pilots would land and taxi their planes to the side of the landing strip for the safety of all concerned and a white hankerchief was tied to the airplane about to solo. Mitchell's take-off 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 for the three-point landing and the momentum of the machine was sufficient to take him off the ground again. He pulled the plane up, making a half loop and landed and nosed over. There hung Billy Mitchell upside down, strapped in his seat by his safety belt. Paul, (Culver) who was standing nearby, ran over to him, then released his belt, and helped him to his feet. No doubt his pride was hurt, but he wasn't and when Paul assured him of that he took a snap shot of the plane, turned turtle, with the small Argus camera which he often wore strapped to his belt for just such occasions. Forever after whenever an airplane turned turtle on landing it was called a "Mitchell." Paul gave a copy of this picture to Brigadier General Mitchell at one of the aircraft shows in Detroit and recalled with him many memories of those days at Newport News. At the same time, Walter Lees, then chief test pilot of the Packard Aircraft Co. presented him with the wheel of the airplane in which he had soloed. From THE DAY THE AIRMAIL BEGAN by Edith Dodd Culver
Cub Flyers Enterprises Inc.
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