Today Aircraft Carriers are the pinnacle of American military might and the "face" of the US Navy. The upper echelons of it's command and social structures are dominated by homoerotic volleyball players and pointy-nosed apostates Naval Aviators. As such it's hard to believe that, at the close of the first World War in 1919, the Secretary of the Navy along with the senior brass attempted to dissolve the US Navy's aviation program entirely. The consensus among all "right thinking" officers was that the only thing that could sink a Dreadnought was another Dreadnought[b1]. The continued existence and development of air power in the US military during the interwar war period can be largely blamed on credited to one man, Billy Mitchel.
Son of Wisconsin senator John L. Mitchell, William "Billy" Mitchel had enlisted as Private in the US Army at the age of 18 to fight in the Spanish American War, but unlike most of contemporaries elected to remain in the Army at the war's end. His father arranged for him to receive a commission in the Signal Corps in an effort to keep him out of trouble but this plan was less than successful. From blazing trails and stringing telegraph lines across the Alaskan wilderness to mapping the Philipino Jungles and serving as a US observer to the the Russo-Japanese War Mitchel built a career out of volunteering for interesting and dangerous assignments. In 1908 he witnessed demonstration flight by the Wright Brothers and immediately became an outspoken advocate of military aviation, spending $1,500[1] of his own money to become one of the first graduates of Curtiss' training camp[2].
In 1917 he was sent to Paris by the US Army general staff to report on the French war effort. When the US formally entered the war later that year he became the first US Army officer to see combat in WWI[3] flying alongside French pilots over Germany. His experience in Europe, most notably as commander of the allied air component in the battle of Saint Mihiel, reinforced his belief that air power (specifically aerial bombardment) was the future of warfare.
Upon his return to the US in 1919 Mitchell met Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him of to overturn Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William S. Benson's decision to dissolve the Naval Air Arm. While successful in getting the decision reversed, Mitchell's advocacy for a national air force was met with hostility from both Army and Navy leadership. Undeterred, Mitchell took his case to the press, encouraging Army pilots to compete for various aviation related records/prizes and claiming to any who would listen that his aircraft could quickly and efficiently sink a dreadnought.
Eventually succumbing to pressure from Mitchel and the press Secretary of War Newton Baker and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels agreed to a series of joint Army-Navy exercises to be held in the summer 1921 in which captured German ships would be used as targets for air attack.
Although Mitchell had stressed "war-time conditions", the rules of engagement were set by the Navy and favored the ships. The aircraft were prohibited from using aerial torpedoes (which had already been used by the British and Japanese to sink enemy ships in combat) and were required to cease fire after any hit so that navy personnel could board the target ship to inspect and repair any damage. On the morning of July 21 at the urging of Mitchel and in contravention of the rules of engagement Capt. Walter R. Lawson flight of Hadley Page bombers dropped 6 2000lb bombs in rapid succession on the captured German cruiser Ostfriesland. While the bombers failed to score any direct hits several of bombs detonated close enough along side to rupture multiple hull plates below the water line. 22 minutes after the first bomb had been dropped the Ostfriesland capsized and sank.
The results were immediately controversial. Mitchel was demoted for violating orders, and further clashes with his superiors would eventually lead to his court martial. President Harding, who had just announced the Washington Naval Conference[4] a week earlier found the apparent demonstration of naval weakness deeply embarrassing. The Navy, for thier part, claimed that Ostfriesland could have been saved by prompt damage control but the consensus view of Dreadnoughts as the final word on Naval power had been shattered. Later that year the Senate would allocate funds for the construction of the US Navy's first aircraft carriers.
[2] See Naval Aviation Part 1?
[3] While a number of Americans had left the country to join the French, British, and even German forces, Mitchel was the first to see combat while an active member of the US Army.
[4] See Washington Naval Treaty
[b1] bean: I think that even the most stubborn naval officer would be hard-pressed to deny the examples of Audacious, Szent István and Viribus Unitis. Admittedly, none sunk by aircraft, but I couldn't help but nitpick. It would be childish to mention all of the various pre-dreadnoughts sunk by underwater attack, Vanguard, or the entire High Seas Fleet in Scapa Floe.
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