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Aviation Policies Were Made By Non-Flers

In the fall of 1924, after the round-the-world flight of the Douglas Cruisers started, orders came for H. H. Arnold transferring him to Washington to attend the Army Industrial College.

Upon completion of my tour at the Industrial College, I was made Chief of the Information Section under General Patrick. I held that job during the last year of Billy Mitchell's service in Washington, and for a period just beyond the termination of his court-martial.

That circus whip of Billy's was now cracking in a manner which many quarters in Washington noticed. I saw that half the time it wasn't what Billy said, but the way he said it that made him enemies. Even General Patrick, though scarcely the most sweet-tempered of commanders (he certainly never seemed to forget that I had accepted his invitation to criticize his air command in France), frequently stuck his neck out to back Billy up.

I said to Mitchell again and again: "Billy, take it easy. We need you. Don't throw everything away just to beat out some guy who doesn't understand! Air Power is coming! Calm down, Billy. Get a balance wheel in your office! Let him look over some of the things you write before you put them out! Stop saying all these things about the independent air arm that are driving these old Army and Navy people crazy!"

But he would always reply: "When senior officers won't see facts, something unorthodox, perhaps an explosion, is necessary. I'm doing it for the good of the Air Force, for the future Air Force, for the good of you fellows. I can afford to do it. You can't."

In February, 1925, General Patrick was reappointed Chief of the Air Service. General Mitchell, to the surprise of numerous editorial writers but not of everybody in Washington, was not redesignated as his assistant. Billy was ordered to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as "Air Officer" where he reverted to his permanent rank of Colonel, being succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel (soon Brigadier General) James E. Fechet.

We naturally mourned Mitchell's departure though we scarcely regarded it as permanent. For the time being, no more warm gatherings at the house in Middleburg, no more of those flashing statements in the morning papers like the very ones he left us with: "Neither armies nor navies can exist unless the air is controlled over them. The evidence shows plainly that the United States has adopted no modern plan of organization for meeting the general world movement in the organization of world power ... [and] ... I found it impossible to do anything in the War and Navy Departments on the matter of air defense. So I took it to Congress and the people, and will continue to take it to them until it is recognized ... I have not even begun to fight!"

The farewell luncheon for Billy at the Racquet Club which I arranged went off well enough, with both Patrick and Fechet present to help give him the kind of send-off he deserved. The memorable barbecue party that night, however, had an unfortunate aftermath. I had gone in to invite General Patrick, who was undoubtedly troubled by special pressures at the moment, and who, in any case, had an irritable habit of interrupting the explanations of subordinates with the interjection: "Yes, yes, I know! Yes, I know, I know ... !" "Sir," I said, "We are having ..." "Yes, yes, yes, I know!" "And we would like ..." "Yes, I know, I know!" he said, not listening. "We would like, sir," I said ... All right, I know, I know!" General Patrick said. So I thought, well, maybe he does know. Anyway, I left, respectfully, but without establishing the invitation.

It was quite a party, but General Patrick wasn't there. Next morning he summoned me in a wrath, and demanded to know why he had not been invited to this gathering of goodwill for Mitchell. When I could get a word in, I finally said: "Sir ..." "Yes, yes, I know!" he began, and then, as if he suddenly realized everything, stopped speechless, picked up a paper weight from his desk and threw it. The interview was over.

So Billy went off to Texas, where they still called him "General," and for a time there was relative silence, though occasional remarks still got into print from down there, and once he and his observer were nearly killed in a crash from which he walked away, saying casually: "It's all in the day's work."

From time to time he would write me sharp little notes, sometimes only a sentence or two long, referring to some incident that illustrated a previously expressed view of his. Once a note came which simply repeated that conspiratorial phrase he had used down on the Border: "Things are coming along well. Keep going as you are."

I had made up my mind to resign from the Army. Then on September 1st and 3rd, two things happened in rapid succession. First, my old friend, Commander John Rodgers, and the crew of four with whom he was trying to fly from San Francisco to Honolulu, were reported missing in the Pacific. As the great and finally successful search for them by planes, ships, and submarines went on, publicity was given to the fact that their gas supply had not been sufficient if they should encounter headwinds - as they did on the second day. Mitchell went on the air in San Antonio and called them "martyrs." While they were still missing on the 3rd, the tragedy of the Shenandoah occurred.

For some time past, because of an agreement giving the Navy responsibility for rigid lighter-than-air craft, and putting the Army in charge of the development of nonrigid blimps, dirigibles had not been a concern of the Air Service. On September 3rd, two of the Navy's finest experts in this field, Commander Zachary Lansdowne and Commander Charles Rosendahl, took off from Lakehurst, New Jersey, with a crew of 42 for an exhibition cruise over the Middle West. (Commander Rosendahl, incidentally, who is still an airship enthusiast today, was as zealous about lighter-than-air as Mitchell was about air power.)

Before dawn next morning, over Ohio, the Shenandoah ran into a bad line-squall. Despite a desperate battle to get the medium-sized airship out of the storm, she was torn into three parts. Commander Lansdowne and 14 men fell to their deaths. Rosendahl, in an outstanding display of courage and airmanship, managed to maneuver one section of the dirigible as a free balloon and bring it safely to the ground, saving the lives of 27 men besides himself.

Coming only two days after the disappearance of John Rodgers and his crew, this second disaster to the Naval Air Arm raised a storm of questions all over the country. What was this rumor that Commander Lansdowne had protested against making the flight because of uninvestigated weather conditions, and had even predicted his own death to his wife? What about the charge that for "economy" reasons the Shenandoah had been underequipped with important valves?

It is interesting that to Secretary of the Navy Wilbur the two tragedies seemed to indicate, more than anything else, that the country had nothing to fear from any invading air power. "The Atlantic and Pacific are still our best defense," he said. Perhaps those words had something to do with the remarkable statement - and a prepared press statement at that - issued at San Antonio, Texas, on September 5th, which startled both Services.

It was 6,000 words long, and starting off with one more of Billy's challenges that if this meant court-martial they could make the most of it, it said that such "terrible accidents to our naval aircraft ... are the direct results of incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense by the War and Navy Departments." Looking at the "disgusting" record was enough "to make any self-respecting person ashamed of the cloth he wears."

Mitchell pointed out that all aviation policies were made by non-flying men, that Congress treated the Air Arm as if it were nothing but an organization created for the benefit of the two departments; blasted at the fact that we still had to fly the old "Flying Coffins"; said we, the airmen, were so bluffed and bulldozed that we dared not tell the truth for fear of ruining our careers; and spoke of bureaucratic superiors who "either distort facts or openly tell falsehoods about aviation to the people and to the Congress."

He went on from there, ending with the thought that he personally desired no advancement, had had the "finest career that any man could have in the armed service of the United States . . . I owe the Government everything, the Government owes me nothing. As a patriotic American citizen, I can stand by no longer and see these disgusting performances by the War and Navy Departments at the expense of the lives of our people, and the delusion of the American public."

A couple of days later, a press aide at the White House replied to the eager Washington correspondents, "Yes, there will definitely be a court-martial." Billy wrote me right away, and then wired me, outlining the records and papers he was bringing with him and establishing me as his liaison man. The night he and Betty arrived, I drove down to Union Station to meet them. The word had spread, and a fife and drum corps of the American Legion were down at the station, with a large, pressing crowd. I had a tough time getting the Mitchells away in my car.

Affairs were complicated by the fact that before Billy, now relieved from duty, faced his own court-martial, he was supposed to be an ace witness before the Morrow Board, then sitting at the President's request to deliberate on the status of American air power. It seemed to many that the real purpose of this Board was to head off the year-long investigation headed by Congressman Lampert, so favorable to Mitchell's air power views as to be alarming.

The Morrow Board had, in addition to Dwight Morrow himself, some very reputable citizens on it, including General Harbord and Admiral Fletcher, my old associates Howard Coffin and Senator Hiram Bingham, Congressmen Carl Vinson and James S. Parker. Unfortunately, American air power received little benefit from the formation of this body, and very little from Billy Mitchell's appearance before it.

I can still remember how we all crowded into that room, with our wives, listening while Billy's expert testimony turned out to be not the brilliant defiance we had looked for, but a dry reading to the Committee of his own book, Winged Defense. It took me back to that other committee room years before, in 1913, when Billy had gone on lecturing and lecturing without noticing whether his hearers were interested or not.

We of the Air Service practically squirmed, wanting to yell: "Come on, Billy, put down that damned book! Answer their questions and step down, that'll show them!" But he read on and on like a schoolmaster until at last Hiram Bingham, friend of air power and former air officer though he was, became so restless that he said: "Colonel, in view of the fact that each of the members of this Committee has a copy of your book and has read it ...”

Billy said sharply: "Senator, I'm trying to make a point!" And that was that. Afterwards, I think Billy found most unforgivable the Morrow Board's curious finding about the relation between our Air Service and the maintenance of an American aircraft industry. (That, and the whitewashing of the DH's.) "The Board urges the encouragement of civilian aircraft," said its final report, "and the sale of planes to foreign countries so as to lessen the number of planes which the Government must order to keep the industry in a strong position.

The court-martial was better, perhaps because everybody realized that a good showing was the best that could come of it. Billy was licked, of course, from the beginning. No matter what was said about "Air Power being on trial" - as it was, at times even in the eyes of the prosecution - the thing for which Mitchell was really being tried he was guilty of, and except for Billy, everybody knew it, and knew what it meant.

I have tried to think what new light I might be able to shed on that famous court-martial, but I'm afraid there isn't any. It has all been pretty well told: how Major General Charles P. Summerall, originally president of the Court, was challenged by Billy on the grounds of bias and asked to be excused, shaken by the "bitter personal hostility" of Mitchell's confidential report on Hawaii; the brilliant efforts of Congressman Reid, Billy's defense attorney; the bellowing of Major Gullion as prosecutor; the way the nine Generals of the Court, now headed by General Howze, listened to the smallest argument in Mitchell's behalf.

Sometimes Billy and Betty would have gone riding before Court opened, coming in gaily and greeting the judging officers before they sat down (after all, most of the generals were old friends). MacArthur, and his alleged final vote on Billy's side; Frank McCoy, Blanton Winship, and all the others; the Air, Army, Navy, Press, and just Washington friends who jammed into that dingy old hall - it all was described daily then, and has often been pictured since. The thing I remember best is the way veteran airmen who suddenly appeared there at Billy's side from all over the country played up to him like an alert football team up against big odds but following the ball for the breaks. Before Gullion or Moreland, the other prosecutor, could even say "I object!" Spaatz or Herbert Dargue, Bob Olds, Gillmore, Schaufller, Gerald Brant, Horace Hickam, or one of us would have jumped in with the statement the prosecutor didn't want to hear. "What (question to Brant) would happen to Hawaii if such a refusal (referring to lack of cooperation between the Army and the Navy) came in time of war?" Quickly: "It would result in the capture of Pearl Harbor!" ... "So you believe (to Spaatz) that the organization of the tactical units of the Air Service is being retarded by the War Department?" Promptly: "I do!" ... To make sure they were backing up Billy's ideas, they wouldn't even paraphrase his words. General Howze asked Bob Olds somewhat sarcastically: "Do you think the General Staff should always listen to your recommendations?" "As the General Staff is now constituted, I do!" Bob replied. "How would you constitute the General Staff?" General Booth demanded. "On Colonel Mitchell's plan!" Bob answered quickly. The prosecution dismissed the witness.

Billy himself was in strong form at the trial, often putting the prosecution and even the Court on the defense. It was nothing like the Morrow Board. He could be as affable with a foe or a judge as with a friend, but he was a hard man to make peace with. He was a fighter, the public was on his side, he was righter than hell and he knew it, and whoever wasn't with him a hundred per cent was against him. Nights, we would adjourn to his apartment in the Anchorage where, with our wives, we would "plan the next day's strategy and talk things over."

The small gains - the only kind possible for any military expansion in those years of disarmament, he regarded as a contemptible compromise. Yet military aviation really couldn't have amounted to very much then, even if everybody had agreed with him. Planes with performance, engines with reliability and the navigational aids were lacking. It was the man - the pilot - who was driving the plane to new records. The time of airplane performance, in fact, had not yet arrived. Air Power was still ahead of us.

Everybody knows how it ended. To find the sentence it wanted, the Court had to go back to post-Civil War days to the punishment of another military firebrand, George Armstrong Custer, who was also "deprived of his command and given half of his pay for a period of years." Billy's sentence was, of course, worse, since he was suspended from all military duties as well. He could scarcely serve under such conditions, and that President Coolidge would uphold the sentence was certain. There was nothing left for him to do but resign from the Army.

We all knew there was no other way - in accordance with the Army code, Billy had had it coming. But at the time we didn't think these things out. As the testimony of any of us who were called to the trial shows, the whole Air Service was angry. The first ones to try to keep the battle going were Major Herbert Dargue and myself. After such long service in Washington we had many friends, in Congress and in the press. We continued going out to Billy's house in Middleburg, and also over to Capitol Hill, and writing letters to keep up the fight.

At once the boom was lowered with a bang. After all the trouble with Billy Mitchell - and the case unpopularly closed - there was no thought of allowing small fry to keep it going. It was understood now that President Coolidge himself had been the prime accuser. We were both called on the carpet to answer for our "irregular" correspondence relative to changes in Air Service status. Dargue got off with a reprimand. I was, as the Press announced, "exiled!" That was the end of my plan to resign, I couldn't very well quit the Service under fire. I was to be C.O. of the 16th Observation Squadron, at Fort Riley, Kansas.

In retrospect, I do not believe that the War Department, as an agency, profited much, if at all, from the Mitchell "period of influence on air development." They seemed to set their mouths tighter, draw more into their shell, and, if anything, take even a narrower point of view of aviation as an offensive power in warfare. Our Navy, on the contrary, made a study of the entire affair and of all the incidents relating thereto, and became air-minded in a big way. They even went out of their way to find new means of using aircraft in naval operations.

I can remember the train going out; discussing Fort Riley where I had flown in 1912, and the fact the Commanding General was a stern old cavalryman named Ewing E. Booth who had been a member of Mitchell's Court; my wife getting the children around her and telling them this was going to be rough. They'd have to take it. There were bound to be fights with those Fort Riley Cavalry children who would be laying for them. Hank, who was nine then, wasn't impressed. "Will they be tougher than those Navy kids in Washington?" he asked.

H.H. Arnold, General of the Air Force. . Harper & Brothers, New York, NY, U.S.A. 1949.

The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell Gary Cooper is in top form as the popular American general who raised the ire of the military brass by publicly condemning the lack of U.S. preparedness for aerial invasion...less than 20 years before Pearl Harbor.

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