How Is Billy Mitchell's Advantage To Revolutionize Warfare

Billy Mitchell began to see the tremendous advantage of strategic bombing of enemy targets as a new and innovative way to fight a war. Between 1914 and 1917 Billy Mitchell provided the war department with very detailed reports on how the Air Corps would revolutionize warfare, these reports went ignored by Washington and were in most case regarded as unnecessary (Schwarzer). Billy Mitchell was not accustomed to failure and he established one of the first schools in France to train pilots for combat. The Le Bourget Airdrome, funded by patriotic Americans and French civilians who shared Billy Mitchells desire to advance the Air Corps (Schwarzer). One of the first students trained by Le Bourget Airdrome was legendary ace Eddie Rickenbacker

This support lead to great advances and these victories on the battle field fed into Mitchell’s plans. However, growing tensions between Mitchell and those superior to him threatened to derail his goals, at least in his eyes. The first of many personal conflicts between these superiors occurred after General Foulois arrived in country and began to reorganize Major Mitchell’s operation. Mitchell believed the men who he developed in battle should lead the Air Corps while Foulois believed his officers who arrived with him were best suited for leadership. These men who accompanied Foulois were not pilots and many had never seen or functioned around an aircraft. Billy Mitchell insisted his men were being replaced by Foulois’ “carpetbaggers” and the real leaders should be himself and the men he trained (Schrader) . This first encounter with authority demonstrated that Mitchell’s superiors did not share Mitchell’s view. This realization caused a change in Major Mitchell’s strategy to achieve an independent Air Force. Major Mitchell began to heavily invest in a crusade to convince the American people, and by political pressure, the leaders in Washington. Ironically, both General Foulois and Major Mitchell had the same goal of an independent Air Force, however they chose different strategies to

General Foulois was instrumental in the 1930’s in building a post war Air Corps, for what he believed to be another war with Germany and he chose the strategy of using the political bureaucracy to critics the war department’s reluctance. He would frequently testify in both houses of Congress where he used his ability of persuasion to achieve his objectives. Additionally, General Foulois crafted numerous pieces of legislation, which he passed to sympathetic members of Congress. General Foulois kept his comments within the walls of congress, thereby reducing his chance of raising the ire of the war department (Schrader). Unfortunately for General Foulois, he did not anticipate that this strategy runs both ways. Consequently, the War Department used the same techniques of congressional hearings to discredit him (Schrader). This maneuver from the War Department led to the eventual dismissal of General Foulois as Chief of the Air Corps in 1934 after the Congressional investigation of the “air mail fiasco”