The admirals were convinced it was impossible. You simply could not sink a battleship from the air. Battleships were armoured fortresses, built to absorb punishment from naval guns. Bombs dropped from altitude, they argued, would never hit anything. General Billy Mitchell decided to prove them wrong. On 21 July 1921, he sent his bombers against the German battleship Ostfriesland, captured after World War I and anchored in the Atlantic Ocean as a target. The ship sank in 22 minutes.
Kurzinfo
| Nationalität | Amerikaner 🇺🇸 |
| Leistung | Father of US Air Power; proved bombers could sink battleships (1921); commanded 1,500 warplanes in WWI |
| Historic | 21 Jul 1921 — sunk battleship Ostfriesland from the air; predicted Pearl Harbor-style attack in 1924 |
| Court-Martialed | 1925 — convicted of insubordination; resigned from the army |
| Geboren / Gestorben | 29 Dec 1879 – 19 Feb 1936 (age 56) |
Mitchell had commanded the largest air armada in history during World War I — 1,481 aircraft attacking German positions during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918. He returned from the war convinced of something that no one in the established military wanted to hear: the aircraft had made the battleship obsolete, and the next war would be decided in the air, not at sea. He said so loudly, repeatedly, and with little diplomatic finesse.
In 1924, he wrote a classified report predicting that Japan would one day attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbor — in a surprise Sunday morning strike using carrier-based aircraft. He was ignored. In 1925, after the crash of the Navy dirigible USS Shenandoah killed 14 crew members, Mitchell issued a public statement accusing the military leadership of “incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense.” The Army convened a court-martial. He was found guilty and suspended from duty for five years without pay. He resigned.
Vindication from the Sky
On 7 December 1941, Japanese carrier aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning, exactly as Mitchell had predicted seventeen years earlier. Congress later awarded Mitchell the Congressional Gold Medal and promoted him posthumously to Major General. The US Air Force — the independent service he had argued for his entire career — was established in 1947. Everything he had been court-martialed for believing had come to pass.
“The day has passed when armies on the ground or navies on the sea can be the arbiter of a nation’s destiny in war. The main power of defense and the power of initiative against an enemy has passed to the air.”
— General Billy Mitchell, 1918
Mitchell died in 1936, five years before Pearl Harbor proved him right. He never saw the vindication. But every pilot who has flown from an aircraft carrier since 1941, and every general who has understood that wars are won or lost in the air before a single soldier lands on a beach, owes something to the general who was court-martialed for saying so first.
Verwandte Fragen
Wer war Billy Mitchell?
Billy Mitchell was a U.S. Army general regarded as the father of American air power. He commanded 1,500 warplanes in World War I, proved in 1921 that aircraft could sink battleships, and was court-martialed in 1925 for insubordination after publicly criticizing military leadership.
Did Billy Mitchell really sink a battleship from the air?
Yes. On 21 July 1921, Mitchell's bombers attacked the former German battleship Ostfriesland, anchored in the Atlantic as a target. The ship sank in 22 minutes, demonstrating that aircraft could destroy the armoured warships admirals had believed were safe from air attack.
Why was Billy Mitchell court-martialed?
Mitchell was court-martialed in 1925 and convicted of insubordination after he publicly accused military leaders of incompetence and negligence in their neglect of air power. He resigned from the U.S. Army following the conviction.
Did Billy Mitchell predict Pearl Harbor?
The article states that in 1924 Mitchell predicted a Pearl Harbor-style surprise air attack, foreseeing the threat that aircraft would pose to a fleet at anchor. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came in 1941, years after his death in 1936.
When did Billy Mitchell live?
Billy Mitchell was born on 29 December 1879 and died on 19 February 1936 at age 56. He did not live to see World War II vindicate his arguments about the decisive role of air power in modern warfare.
0 Kommentare