Billy Mitchell’s Coup
21 JUNE-21 JULY 1921
BILLY MITCHELL’S COUP
As an early advocate of air power, one of Army Air Service BGEN William “Billy” Mitchell’s loud proclamations was the invincibility of his aircraft over any Navy ship. His assertion was one of several points of intense rivalry between the Army and Navy in that day. Most in the Navy accounted the Army’s puny biplanes as little more than gadflies. In fact, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels promised to, “stand bareheaded on the deck of a battleship and let…Mitchell take a crack at me”. However, the Navy did need an honest appraisal of how well compartmentalized warships would fare under air attack.
Thus, the Navy began careful tests this day off the Virginia Capes with Navy F5L flying boats sinking the ex-German submarine U-117 with 12 bombs. Then, holding that its capital ships would ultimately prove resistant, the Navy invited the Army Air Service to participate. Over the next month, under monitoring by naval engineers, Navy and Army pilots sank several small warships. The climax of the testing came on 20 July when the ex-German battleship OSTFRIESLAND was anchored 60 miles off the Virginia coast.
Mitchell, however, used the occasion to pursue his personal goal of proving capital ships vulnerable. His pilots mounted an unrelenting attack on the 20th, rapidly dropping 57 bombs. Navy engineers hardly had time for damage assessment after each of the eight direct hits. Angry Navy officials recognized Mitchell’s intent to upstage the sea service and threatened to call off the tests. Some even asserted Mitchell had rigged the test, noting that Langley airfield-based pilots were able to locate OSTFRIESLAND only by following a trail of destroyers laid at Army Air Service request. As the sun set that day however, the still floating battleship appeared to vindicate Navy claims.
The tests resumed the following morning, but only after Mitchell promised to pause his bombers with each direct hit. Secretly though, Mitchell had instructed his pilots to avoid direct hits in favor of near misses that he correctly concluded would be more damaging to hull integrity. Using 2000# bombs and lower altitude than originally planned, Army pilots landed four charges as close as 20 feet. To the astonishment of all except Mitchell, OSTFRIESLAND rolled to port and sank by the stern in 21 minutes.
Mitchell had hoodwinked the Navy. The fact that OSTFRIESLAND had been defenseless at anchor was lost against the visual spectacle of a massive warship succumbing to aerial attack. In an embarrassing turn of the tables, instead of acquiring data that might have been valuable for future warship design, the Navy found herself having to defend her very existence.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 26 JUN 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare). United States Naval Aviation 1910-1980. Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 49-50.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 185.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 538-39.
Weisgall, Jonathan M. Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1994, pp. 18-23.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: “Billy” Mitchell served as a private in the US Army during the Spanish American War and rose to the rank of Brigadier General during WWI, when he commanded US Army air forces in France. His proponency for the air services was hobbled by a caustic demeanor that earned him disfavor during the interwar period. In fact, he was convicted by a Court Martial in 1925 for “conduct of a nature to bring discredit on the military service.” On 5 September of that year ,he had lambasted the Navy over two tragic air crashes stating, “These incidents are the direct result of the incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense by the Navy and War Departments.” Mitchell died in 1936. General Mitchell is remembered with the WWII Navy troop transport USS General William Mitchell (AP-114), one of several classes of troop transports named for Army generals.
OSTFRIESLAND and U-117 were former German warships captured by the Allies after WWI. Today OSTFRIESLAND rests in 400 feet of water in the Norfolk Canyon, too deep for sport divers.
The Army Air Service (USAAS) was the air arm of the US Army from 1918-26, the forerunner of the Army Air Corps of WWII, and ultimately in 1947, the US Air Force.
