[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24339-24342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  AUTHORIZING THE PRESIDENT TO ISSUE POSTHUMOUSLY TO THE LATE WILLIAM 
  ``BILLY'' MITCHELL A COMMISSION AS MAJOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES ARMY

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 2755) to authorize the President to issue posthumously to 
the late William ``Billy'' Mitchell a commission as Major General, 
United States Army.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 2755

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

[[Page 24340]]



     SECTION 1. POSTHUMOUS COMMISSION OF WILLIAM MITCHELL IN THE 
                   GRADE OF MAJOR GENERAL IN THE ARMY.

       (a) Authority.--The President may issue posthumously a 
     commission as major general, United States Army, in the name 
     of the late William Mitchell, formerly a colonel, United 
     States Army, who resigned his commission on February 1, 1926.
       (b) Date of Commission.--A commission issued under 
     subsection (a) shall issue as of the date of the death of 
     William Mitchell on February 19, 1936.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF BENEFITS.

       No person is entitled to receive any bonus, gratuity, pay, 
     allowance, or other financial benefit by reason of the 
     enactment of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Loretta Sanchez) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).


                             General Leave

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on H.R. 2755, the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, today we have the opportunity to look back on the life 
of one of our Nation's great air power visionaries, General William 
``Billy'' Mitchell, a man of immense energy, leadership and foresight. 
Like many men who strived to change the status quo and turn great 
institutions to a more enlightened course, he was a man whose 
contributions were not rewarded during his lifetime. H.R. 2755 corrects 
that oversight by calling for the President to grant him a commission 
in the grade of Major General.
  I want to, first of all, commend the gentleman from New Hampshire 
(Mr. Bass) for renewing my interest in this issue and providing this 
House with a great opportunity to honor an American hero.
  From the earliest days of his military career, after enlistment at 
age 18 in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Billy Mitchell stood 
out from the crowd. As a 32-year-old Captain in 1912, he was assigned 
to the Army General Staff as its youngest member. It was during this 
time that he began to understand the potential for air power to 
dominate the battlefield and, interestingly, the potential that we have 
seen reached so dramatically in this last campaign in the Iraqi 
theater.
  After commanding America's war component during World War I, he 
returned to become the Deputy Commander of the Air Service in the grade 
of Brigadier General. It was from this position that he pressed his 
attack on the Navy and the Army for being insufficiently farsighted 
regarding air power. His demand to improve air power funding gained 
instant credibility after his bombers sank the captured German 
battleship Ostfriesland and several other warships in the summer and 
fall of 1921 in a very public, and for the Navy a very embarrassing, 
test of the capabilities of bomber aircraft.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, during that test a number of naval leaders were 
in an observation ship not far from these ships that Billy Mitchell's 
aircraft were demolishing, and there was a complaint, at least a 
thought, that perhaps he had directed some of the bombs be dropped not 
too far away from the observation ship so that the naval leadership 
could appreciate the full value of air power.
  Billy Mitchell continued to make the case for enhanced air power even 
after he was removed from his position in the Air Service and exiled as 
a Colonel to be the Air Officer at VIII Corps in Texas. His relations 
with superiors soured as his rhetoric took on an accusatory tone.
  After the crash of the Navy dirigible Shenandoah that killed 14 crew 
members, Billy Mitchell declared senior military leaders as incompetent 
and guilty of ``almost treasonable administration of national 
defense.'' That was the last straw for many in the military, the White 
House, and the Congress. Billy Mitchell's court-martial for 
insubordination followed, and he left active duty in 1926 after he was 
found guilty and sentenced to a loss of pay for 5 years. Even after 
separation, Billy Mitchell remained in the public eye and continued to 
be a very effective advocate for air power.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an unfortunate reality that the truly visionary 
people that herald important changes are often outcasts in the system 
they are trying to change. Our Nation is indeed fortunate that we had a 
man of Billy Mitchell's courage and leadership working for air power.
  Without Billy Mitchell, the combat victories we savor today, that 
have relied so heavily on air power, may never have happened. It was 
Billy Mitchell who jump-started an awareness of the importance of the 
strategic bombing mission that has proven so pivotal in each of 
America's wars in the 20th century and now in this war on terrorism, 
the first war of the 21st century.
  Mr. Speaker, the least that we must do is honor this great man with 
the promotion he was denied while serving his country. Again, I want to 
thank the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for the opportunity 
to honor Billy Mitchell.
  Mr. Speaker, I reviewed Billy Mitchell's writings that he published 
and gave to all the leadership in the administration in the early 
1920s, after he had toured what he considered to be the world's problem 
areas, where this great man of vision attempted to project and analyze 
where America's next threat would come from. More than a decade before 
Pearl Harbor, Billy Mitchell predicted that at some point that American 
strategic strong point would be struck by a low-level early morning 
Japanese air attack.
  Interestingly, this gentleman of vision not only published his 
theories but he went out and spent a great deal of time backing them up 
with observations and putting in lots of time, and he made America 
aware of the importance of air power. He let us know that we were in 
the age of air power and that if we did not dominate in air power we 
would be dominated.
  I have always thought we need a Billy Mitchell in this age, in this 
age of missiles, and that if we do not build an adequate defense 
against missiles, at some point we will see an enemy missile striking 
the American mainland and striking our troops in theater.
  He was a visionary, Mr. Speaker, a guy who ruffled a lot of feathers, 
made a lot of people angry, and in the end demolished his own career. 
Yet he left as a legacy an understanding of the importance of a factor 
which has been of such major importance of each of the wars in this 
last century and this first war of this new century and that is the 
importance of air power. So I would urge adoption of H.R. 2755.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Hampshire (Mr. Bass).
  Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the chairman of the 
Committee on Armed Services, for yielding me this time, and I greatly 
appreciate his accommodation of this piece of legislation, which is, 
interestingly enough, identical word for word to a similar bill that 
was introduced on July 16, 1957, by my father when he was serving in 
the same capacity I am serving in today.
  The reason for that is that Billy Mitchell was my mother's uncle. As 
a young child, I grew up in a household where his name came up often, 
and he was used as an example of the benefits and actions that could 
occur if you were courageous and you took chances for the good of your 
country. Clearly, Billy Mitchell was one of these individuals.
  He was a very small, rather diminutive fellow, about five-one or 
five-two. He always dressed to the nines, with all of his uniforms, and 
he carried a swagger stick. What he did not have in stature, he made up 
for in his presentation. And my mother was much the same

[[Page 24341]]

way, very small but carried a pretty heavy stick.
  Billy Mitchell really brought to this country or to the military in 
this country not only the concept of air power and its importance and 
significance, which he battled for tirelessly, but he also brought to 
the fledgling air corps at that time the idea that pilots were going to 
be brave and courageous and take enormous chances and that they were 
going to be proud of it. He would show up to fly in uniforms that he 
created himself, which were a combination of a military uniform and 
outfits for riding horses, with high boots and so forth, and some of 
this stuff still exists today in the Air Force. The right stuff, the 
whole concept of an Air Force pilot, an ace, being brave and courageous 
and going right to the limit came from Billy Mitchell.
  He did, indeed, live three lives in the course of the 56 years he was 
alive, and he stepped on a lot of toes. He had tremendous courage. He 
had tremendous initiative. He understood where the military was going 
in this country, but he lacked tact. There was no question about that. 
He had the ability to say the wrong things to the wrong people at the 
wrong time on occasion, including the President of the United States, 
Calvin Coolidge, and a lot of other higher-ups in the military. The 
result was that, because of his outspokenness about where he thought 
America air power should be, he was court-martialed.
  The chairman has brought to our attention the fact that a good 15 
years before Pearl Harbor occurred he predicted almost to the day and 
the hour when the Japanese would attack. Nobody listened to him. And 
there is no better example of that than, if I can quote from the 
``Billy Mitchell Affair,'' and this is Franklin Delano Roosevelt as 
President in 1944, FDR says, ``If back in 1940 I had said to the Chiefs 
of Staff of the Army or the Navy, `Our next war is going to be in the 
Aleutians and down in the Southwest Pacific,' they would have all 
laughed at me. They are the experts at that sort of thing. I am not an 
expert, said the President. I am just an ordinary American. We can see 
now that Americans were caught unprepared because we ordinary human 
beings followed the best advice we had at the time.''

                              {time}  1400

  It was as if Billy Mitchell had never existed. The reality was he was 
a visionary in the military, and we have such visionaries today as 
well. I hope as policymakers here in Congress, we allow these 
individuals to have the ability to speak their mind and to lead our 
country, not follow. That is why I am here today supporting the bill 
that will restore General Billy Mitchell to the rank of major general, 
a bill that was not supported by the military back in 1957; but thanks 
to the leadership of the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) we 
have this bill before us. I urge Congress to pass it and send it to the 
Senate.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Stearns).
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California 
(Chairman Hunter) and the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for 
what they are doing here. It is a long time in coming. I do not quite 
understand why it took this long. I and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sam Johnson) started the Air Force Caucus here in Congress. It involves 
both Senate and House Members; and it has been very successful in its 
advocating air power, what Billy Mitchell was talking about in the very 
beginning.
  When we look at his career and what he did, we can understand the 
flak that he would run into. We can understand the sort of moral 
courage that he had to go up against, the infrastructure of the 
existing services, and try to point out that this new bombing method 
would not only take out ships, but would have a huge ramification in 
future wars.
  I would say if Billy Mitchell was alive today, he would advocate Star 
Wars. I think the same kind of logic he thought for air power, he would 
say we can someday have the ability to stop ballistic missiles from 
getting out of their sights and causing damage through Star Wars. I 
bring that in tangentially just because Billy Mitchell had that kind of 
moral courage to say what he felt.
  Today, we are recognizing his superior nature to advocate something 
that nobody else saw on the horizon. We have had others advocate air 
power before; but none as specifically and dramatically, and putting 
himself and his career and his reputation into jeopardy. I am very 
pleased to be on the floor here to advocate and support this bill and 
to also point out to my colleagues that sometimes all of us will hear 
about a new technology and new ways of advocating things to help the 
United States, and we should keep an open mind because, who knows, 
maybe another Billy Mitchell is advocating the right thing for this 
country.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, no Americans were killed by enemy air power in this last 
conflict in the Iraqi theater nor in the Afghanistan theater, nor in 
several theaters before that because the United States totally 
dominated the air. I think it is fair to say that every time every F-18 
driver, every F-14 driver, every A-10, and everyone else who flies an 
aircraft, whether it is an attack bird or recon bird or a transport or 
a bomber aircraft, carries with them a little bit of the legacy of 
General Billy Mitchell. A lot of folks make decisions in the Pentagon 
and take positions for which they are never rewarded. I think it is 
fitting and proper that we are making this decision even at this late 
date to recognize this great American.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  I thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) for bringing 
this bill to the floor, and I rise in support of the bill offered by 
the gentleman from New Hampshire, H.R. 2755, which would authorize the 
President to posthumously promote the late William ``Billy'' Mitchell, 
United States Army, to the rank of major general.
  General Billy Mitchell was often called the Nation's air power 
visionary. He was an outspoken advocate of the importance of strategic 
air power and its vital role in our Nation's military strategy. Many 
consider him to be the father of today's United States Air Force.
  He was born in 1879 to Wisconsin Senator Colonel John Lendrum and his 
wife, Harriet Becker, in Nice, France. And he left college before 
graduating to enlist in the First Wisconsin Infantry for the Spanish-
American War. He rose rapidly through the ranks and received a field 
commission in the Signal Corps, and in 1912 he became the youngest 
member of the General Staff. It was there that he became interested in 
aviation, which was at the time assigned to the Signal Corps.
  Although Billy Mitchell was 38 years old when he learned to fly by 
taking private flying lessons, he accomplished much during World War I. 
For example, he was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines. 
He was the first American officer under enemy fire, and he was awarded 
the French Croix de Guerre with Palm, the French Legion of Honor, and 
commanded the largest aerial armada in history. He commanded all 
American combat units in France and was elevated to the rank of 
brigadier general.
  By the early 1920s, General Mitchell began to advocate the creation 
of the Air Force to be independent of the Army. This was essential, he 
said, because aircraft would one day cripple the Navy and render 
battleships obsolete. When his colleagues dismissed this concept, he 
proved his point at Chesapeake Bay in 1921 by test-bombing and sinking 
several captured battleships.
  In 1925, General Mitchell's relationships with his superiors 
deteriorated even further, and he was reduced in rank to colonel. It 
was the tragic crash of the Shenandoah, a Navy gas-filled air ship 
which killed 14 Navy crewmembers, which led General Mitchell to issue 
his famous statement. General Mitchell accused senior leaders in the

[[Page 24342]]

Army and Navy of incompetence and, as the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Hunter) said, ``almost treasonable administration of the national 
defense.''
  Mitchell was court-martialed, found guilty of insubordination and 
suspended from active duty without pay for 5 years. Instead, General 
Mitchell elected to resign, and he retired to a farm near Middleburg, 
Virginia. But from his retirement, he continued to promote air power 
and its importance and warned of the dangers posed by other nations, 
particularly Japan. Nearly 20 years before the Japanese attack on Pearl 
Harbor, General Mitchell expressed concerns of a possible attack by 
foreign aircraft against the Philippines and against the Hawaiian 
Islands. However, he would not live to see his predictions come true in 
1941.
  Tragically, Billy Mitchell died in New York City on February 19, 
1936. It was not until after his untimely death that the Army-Air Force 
in World War II adopted his ideas and plans. Ten years after his death, 
Congress awarded Billy Mitchell the Congressional Medal of Honor. 
Twenty years later, many Americans would learn more about the life of 
General Mitchell in the 1956 film ``The Court-Martial of Billy 
Mitchell.''
  Decades later, General Mitchell's thoughts and principles on air 
power continue to guide us all in the air strategy of the United States 
Air Force, and so it is fitting that we recognize the enormous 
achievements of General William Mitchell and promote him to major 
general.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this bill and to 
provide General Mitchell with the recognition that he deserves.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire 
(Mr. Bass) for moving this important legislation recognizing a great 
American, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2755.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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