LOOK BACK

BOMBS AWAY

Billy Mitchell knew the future of combat was in using airplanes to bomb enemy targets. To prove it, he came to Hatteras.

BY AMELIA BOLDAJI

General Billy Mitchell standing beside a plane at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

THAT THE AREA WHERE THE WRIGHT BROTHERS FAMOUSLY MADE AERONAUTICAL HISTORY was also the site of another milestone in aviation is perhaps much less well-known – but on September 5, 1923 an outspoken, charismatic man named Billy Mitchell took to the skies off Cape Hatteras in order to prove a point that would alter United States military warfare forever.

Those results were by no means inevitable, however. It had only been 20 years since the Wright brothers’ successful flight experiments in Kitty Hawk, after all, and Mitchell’s unwavering confidence that future military conflicts would take place in the air rather than at sea had so far been met with skepticism at best.

But Mitchell was no stranger to overcoming adversity – or to doing whatever was necessary to see his visions through. Born in Nice, France, in 1879, Mitchell spent much of his childhood growing up in Wisconsin before enlisting in the Army at 19. After serving in places such as Cuba and the Philippines, Mitchell was transferred to Virginia where he became the deputy commander of Army Aviation not long after the outbreak of World War I.

Though there was not yet a separate command for air force in the U.S. military – something that Mitchell went on to champion throughout his career, leading many to regard him as the father of the United States Air Force – Mitchell discovered his passion for flying during his time with Army Aviation, which was then a branch of the Army Signal Corps. It was a path he was so determined to follow that when he was officially deemed too old to fly at the age of 38, Mitchell simply enrolled in a civilian flying school at his own expense.

Even though his methods had a tendency to ruffle more than a few feathers, Mitchell went on to prove himself during WWI by becoming the first American Army aviator to mount an attack across enemy lines at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel – a campaign that was so successful it earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, and ultimately made it all the harder to dismiss his increasingly vocal opinions about the need to strengthen air power in the wake of WWI.

His determination eventually led him to testify before a House of Representatives subcommittee on the matter, and to call for tests that might confirm his belief that airplanes could be a strategic advantage by bombing battleships from above – which both Congress and the Navy only very reluctantly agreed to by 1921.

The results of those first tests near the Chesapeake Bay were hotly contested by the Navy among others, which prompted Mitchell to conduct a second trial two years later in 1923. This time, he selected a site that was reportedly close to his heart: the coast off Cape Hatteras where he had enjoyed numerous hunting trips while stationed in Virginia.

And Mitchell would have been hard pressed to find a more remote place for his tests. The Outer Banks was inconceivably desolate by today’s standards at the time, with no paved roads or bridges connecting it to the mainland. Even though the Great Depression was still years away, there were huge economic challenges as well since local revenues had been steadily declining in everything from maritime traffic to commercial fishing and lifesaving operations.

So although it might not have seemed like the most obvious location for attempting controversial military maneuvers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the residents in Hatteras Village not only helped Mitchell build a makeshift airstrip, but they were also some of the first to celebrate with Mitchell and his airmen after they successfully sank two decommissioned battleships called the New Jersey and the Virginia.

Retrospectively, it was an historic day, but that didn’t mean that the debate over the future of the United States’ military might was settled. Mitchell still had plenty of detractors who had hoped for him to fail, and he was eventually demoted, transferred and court-martialed for insubordination in 1925 – though he chose to resign from the military a year later rather than accept what he considered an unjust sentence.

While Mitchell was ultimately a polarizing figure during his lifetime, history looks much more kindly on his accomplishments, as is so often the case. And although the original Hatteras Village airstrip of 1923 is now underwater, Mitchell’s mark continues to be celebrated in the things that bear his name – including the legendary B-25 Mitchell bomber and the only airport still found at the heart of the Cape Hatteras Seashore.