Billy Mitchell and Airpower During the Interwar

Billy Mitchell and Airpower

During the interwar period a number people advocated major changes in military doctrine and organizations, particularly in the use of airpower. Three important airpower advocates were Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell, who all insisted that the air arm should be independent of the army and navy. Trenchard in fact was the commander of the first independent air force in the world, the Royal Air Force (RAF), while the United States Air Force (USAF) did not become fully independent of the Army until 1947. Both Douhet and Mitchell were sufficiently outspoken in their support of airpower that they made enemies among traditionalist generals, and both faced court-martials for their views. In the low-budget years of the 1920s and 1930s, Trenchard also had to battle the army and navy for scarce resources and to protect the survival of the independent air arm from the rival services. He was also a convinced supporter of Douhet's main theory that massed strategic bombing of the enemy's industry, cities and transportation could win a war and spare armies from the mass slaughter in the trenches that had occurred during World War I. Mitchell was also an early supporter of strategic bombing, and was the first to actually sink a battleship from the air. He and Trenchard would also have launched a strategic bombing campaign against Germany even in World War I had the war not ended in November 1919. Although neither Trenchard nor Mitchell ignored the important role of fighters and tactical air power, both the RAF and Army Air Corps entered the Second World War committed to a policy of strategic bombing, although they underestimated the losses that bombers would suffer to the Luftwaffe without fighter escorts, and the difficulties of locating and hitting targets in the dark and during bad weather.

Douhet and his important disciples like Mitchell and Trenchard, always insisted that the independent air arm should have both bomber and fighter units, while the army and navy would have tactical air units tailored to their own unique missions. Most importantly, the independent air force would concentrate on bombing the enemy country, including its industry, cities, government offices, transportation and communications. It would also destroy the enemy air forces and the industries that supported them, and take command of the enemy's airspace. Douhet insisted that offense was the best defensive measure against air attacks, particularly destroying the enemy airbases and attacking their planes on the ground rather than fighting battles in the air.[footnoteRef:1] Along with Winston Churchill, Trenchard always regarded airpower as an offensive weapon, and very successfully so in desert countries like Iraq, even with 1920s technology. From these early experiences the RAF derived the lesson that bombing or the threat of bombing would be sufficient to control a country, even in the absence of large ground forces.[footnoteRef:2] Douhet's and Trenchard's strategic bombing concepts also became the "Bible' of the U.S. Army Air Corps in the 1920s and 1930s, thanks in part to Mitchell's strong public advocacy, especially as the German Lutwaffe was being rapidly revived after 1933. According to Raymond Flugel, instructors Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) were already familiar with the ideas of Douhet and Trenchard by the early-1920s, especially because these were transmitted via Billy Mitchell.[footnoteRef:3] Even so, critics like Bernard Brodie, who claimed that tactical airpower had actually proven far more successful and valuable than strategic bombing, pointed out that Douhet had also overestimated the damage caused by bombing, at least prior to the development of nuclear weapons and smart bombs.[footnoteRef:4] [1: Giulio Douhet, "Aerial Warfare," in Command of the Air. USAF Warrior Studies (Washington DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983).] [2: Alan Stephen. "The True Believers: Airpower between the Wars." In Alan Stephen (ed), The Wars in the Air: 1914-1994 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2001), p. 33.] [3: Raymond R. Flugel. United States Air Power Doctrine: A Study of the Influence of William Mitchell and Giulio Douhet at the Air Corps Tactical School, 1921-1935. Ann Arbor, MI University Microfilms International, 1985.] [4: Bernard Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb: The Evolution of the Weapons and Tactics of Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973).]

Airpower's chief appeal in 1918-39 was its supposed ability to overcome all geographic barriers in a short time and destroy the enemy's ability to wage war. Compared to ground fighting, and the huge casualties in the mostly pointless battles of World War I, air combat was still viewed in mythical or romantic terms. Limited budgets in the 1920s and 1930s affected all the services, and neither Britain nor the U.S. had sufficient numbers of modern bombers and fighters on hand when World War II began in 1939.[footnoteRef:5] British planners were well-aware that they needed bases in France and the Low Countries to mount a Douhet-style air offensive against Germany, and were also rightfully concerned about the great threat to Britain should those bases fall into German hands.[footnoteRef:6] As it turned out, though, Germany lacked the resources to build up a force of heavy strategic bombers, much less a naval air arm, and the Lutwaffe "existed primarily to support land forces," as did the air forces of France, Italy and Russia.[footnoteRef:7] German airpower doctrines started from the premise that the air force would always be used in coordination with ground operations, including bombing of enemy industry, cities and transportation systems. Even the Battle of Britain in 1940 was only waged in anticipation of an invasion that never occurred -- Operation Sea Lion.[footnoteRef:8] [5: Murray A. Williamson, "Strategic Bombing: The British, American, and German Experiences" in Murray A. Williamson and Allan R. Millet (eds) Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 98.] [6: Williamson, p. 106.] [7: Stephen, p. 53.] [8: Williamson, p. 131.]