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A QUESTION OF LOYALTY: GEN. BILLY MITCHELL AND THE COURT-MARTIAL THAT GRIPPED THE NATION1
Lightning rods must galvanize public opinion and prod politicians to force the bureaucracy to change. Mitchell was a needed spark.3
General William "Billy" Mitchell may have ignited a fire to become "the godfather of modern naval aviation,"4 but author Douglas Waller fails to kindle that flame in A Question of Loyalty: Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial that Gripped the Nation. Rather than fan the flames, Waller snuffs the fire out in his attempt to bring twenty-first century readers to Mitchell's 1925 court-martial. Waller's recitation of an otherwise "gripping" tale leaves nothing but a few embers.
In 1925, the U.S. military court-martialed then-Colonel Billy Mitchell5 for insubordination6 resulting from public comments made by the war hero.7 Throughout his career, Mitchell, an Army officer, publicly advocated for an independent air force separate and apart from the Departments of the Army and Navy.8 Appointed a general officer at the age of thirty-nine,9 Mitchell's prescient predictions about the future of air power10 argued, generally, that the future of the U.S. military might lay dormant in the untapped and under-utilized resources of air power.10 Mitchell voiced frustration that military decisionmakers failed to act on his ideas and failed to understand the importance of air assets.12 After years of outspoken rhetoric through speeches,13 publications, and deeds,14 on 5 September 1925, Mitchell stacked the final straw on the proverbial camel's back of the U.S. War Department.15 Two days earlier, the USS Shenandoah crashed, killing fourteen members of the crew.16 Believing the flight to have been a useless publicity stunt,17 Mitchell issued a statement to the press accusing the Navy and War Departments of "incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense."18 In the end, after a month-long trial with the testimony of ninety-nine witnesses19 filling over 3,700 pages,20 Mitchell's peers declared him guilty of violating eight specifications of Article 96 of the Articles of War.21 Although the panel gave Mitchell a relatively light sentence,22 public disgrace and financial necessity caused the former general to resign his commission less than two months after his conviction.23
At the time Waller authored A Question of Loyalty, no less than nine Mitchell biographies existed.24 Why write a...