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A Question of Loyalty: Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial that Gripped the Nation. By Douglas Waller. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-050547-8. Photographs. Source notes. Index. Pp. 439. $26.95.
Billy Mitchell was a controversial figure during his lifetime, and the decades since have not dimmed the controversy. Supporters hailed him then and continue to do so today as a courageous visionary who saw the future of war more clearly than his colleagues. Because he challenged traditional military thinking, he was silenced and then destroyed by hidebound surface officers. Detractors see a different Mitchell. To them he was an arrogant troublemaker who played loose with the facts and got what he deserved.
This new study of Mitchell, written by a senior correspondent for Time magazine, focuses on the climactic event that defined and ended the airman's career-his court-martial for insubordination in 1925.
Waller begins his story by recounting the events that led up to the courtmartial, primarily the crash of the Navy airship Shenandoah in a thunderstorm over Ohio. Mitchell, who had been "banished" to Texas and demoted in rank...